Queens Means Tourism

Pedestrians are an anomaly on this stretch of Van Dam St. in Queens, so I was surprised to be joined by the group of tourists above, staying at the Fairfield Inn in Blissville.  Marriott locates the hotel in "New York Long Island City / Manhattan View" because -- just like Gertrude Stein said about one of my other favorite places, Oakland, California -- "there is no there" in this part of Queens.  [ Google map; check the Street View ]


I guess the group decided it would be more exciting to walk to the subway, a mile away on Queens Blvd., than wait for the hotel shuttle.  It was a beautiful day, and I'm sure they had a great time -- when not wondering why we were the only pedestrians on that long stretch.  They had time to study the underside of the LIE, the storage facilities and mattress warehouses, the Gulf gas station proudly flying its Gulf War flags (top and above left), and the Queensboro Correctional Facility, ominously located right next to La Guardia Community College.

We parted ways at Queens Blvd.  They turned right toward the 7 Train at 33rd, no doubt headed for an exciting time in Manhattan.  Meanwhile I turned left, headed for an exciting time in Queens Plaza, above right and below.

I have had my fill of slickly packaged plastic; there's more nutrition in the oil-soaked weeds between the LIRR, the LIE and the Queensboro Bridge than in all the patio furniture in Times Square.

A Tale of Two Entrances

A few photos that demonstrate the priorities of the building, above the Food Emporium at Union Square, that continues to cheat the city out of a subway escalator.

Above, the plush comfort of the building's auto entrance on 15th St., a pleasant place to burn some exhaust.

Meanwhile below, on the 14th St. side of the building, the fat escalator casket that clogs the subway entrance -- more than two years after the escalator died -- is still forcing rush hour crowds through a dark, narrow cattle chute of a stairwell.  And to add insult to injury, some worthless entity has turned the casket into a money-making billboard, below left.


Why does it take the city and MTA years to make the scofflaws pay up?  Forget the unmaintainable escalator, just put in some stairs.  And fine the building enough to make them gold plated.

Light Unlocks

I love it when I find myself in a spot where light unlocks the surface of the city.

Above, a remarkable combination of surface, shadow and reflection round the corner of a building on 57th near Sixth Ave.

Below, at the back of a parking lot on 54th near Sixth, odd light turns a frog of a building into a prince for a few moments.

Faces of New York

Building faces, that is.  Some buildings have really good skin, and when the light is right they give off a warmth and depth not normally associated with stone, glass or steel.

Here are a few sublime surfaces.  My favorite, above, is the St. Regis on 55th off Fifth Ave.; below, down near the bottom of Manhattan, is the curving face of 26 Broadway.


[ St. Regis Street Steam ]

Cooper Union Cooper Square

Cooper Square is a hotbed of controversy, from the new Cooper Union building above and below left, to the Cooper Square Hotel in the remaining photos.

The NY Times' Nicolai Ouroussoff mainly admires the Cooper Union building, for its boldness and the way it wears its construction material on its sleeve.  The Times ran some excellent photos with the article, but I like the one I took yesterday, above, that captures the armored, war elephant essence of the building.


The Cooper Square Hotel wears its decadence on its sleeve.  I'd wondered what it would be like for the crotchety hold-out owners of the two old buildings at its base -- with cavorting jet setters and cocaine music thumping till dawn a few feet above -- until I figured out that they've been absorbed into the hotel.  Note the space-age awning that skewers out the side of the old building, below.

I've had mixed feelings about both buildings all along.  I agree with Ouroussoff that (thoughtfully) bold design is good, and I make a distinction between buildings built for schools and those built for Masters of the Universe.  With my weakness for spectacle, I've enjoyed watching the Union building's construction, especially the scythe-like shapes captured above left.  And I like the crumpled parts of its veil of steel.  But I miss the view of the beautifully colored buildings behind (east of) it, and from the east the Union building doesn't pretend to care -- I've seen more consideration in proposed garbage barn designs.


And though I see the hotel as a bookend to the New Museum further down Bowery -- anchoring the conversion of yet another distinctive swath of NYC into something (Bloomberg and) the yacht club set can enjoy -- I admire its fetishistic finish and space-age look, and the honesty of its arrogance.  Where Donald Trump's erections hide amid the skyscraper grass of Midtown, the Cooper Square lords over the puny East Village like a mammoth alien sexual appliance shot from space -- Battlestar Dildactica? -- a monument to the penile enhancing power of unapologetic greed, and decadence that is an end in itself.

[ Rome Burns at Cooper Sq. Hotel, Jeremiah's VNY ]
[ Civic Value of a Bold Statement, Nicolai Ouroussoff, NY Times ]

Blank Billboards

Giant naked beer can, above Penn Station on Eighth Ave.
Pity the dinosaurs of advertising?  Not likely, but seeing so many blank billboards is a little disturbing.

It used to take some real investment, and steel supports, to subject us to huge ads.  Now the real world resembles the Internet, and crawls with massive banner ads printed on fabric that are easy to change as a t-shirt, like the ones at the bottom here.

Not only is it spooky to have ads crawl out of their slots onto the real world, but the emptiness spreads too.  Note how phony the photos of the cylindrical billboard near Penn Station look (on top and to the left) -- like they were computer generated.  Something about the blank beer can shape, and the emptiness of what would normally be the focus of attention, throws everything off kilter.


Above, blank billboards at Bowery and Kenmare, left; at S 4th St. and S 5th Pl. in Williamsburg, right.  Below, banner ads that loomed over Houston and Lafayette not long ago.