Lexington Light

Looking like a cliff face on a bright day out west, 525 Lexington, at 49th St. 

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' grandfather built it in 1924 as the Shelton Hotel, a "1,200-room bachelor hotel" -- with its own infirmary!  It is now the NY Marriott East Side Hotel.

Built with brick "roughened as if centuries old," critics were impressed that it recalled "no definite architectural style" and with the way it responded to zoning laws that required setbacks "to ensure light and air to the street."  The critic Lewis Mumford called it "buoyant, mobile, serene, like a Zeppelin under a clear sky."  [ NYT via NY Songlines ]

The reflections on the windows across the street, closeup below left, aren't bad either.

Return Visit

Pop, when they do that you're supposed to say
"What the f*ck are you looking at?!"

Back in town in December, the young visitor went sledding in Central Park, then traded his cardboard sled for a giant "magic pod," above right.  After carrying it around for 20 minutes in the freezing cold, he tossed it aside and muttered "Mom, I ain't feelin' a thing... that little twerp burned me!"


Feeling stultified by the wholesomeness of his tourist experience, he went undercover, above left, then headed west until he spied the crippled neon of the "Sin Will Find You Out" cross.  "This looks promising," he said, then asked people loitering in shadows we passed "Anything happening around here, friend?"

[ Visitors ]

West Side Eyesores

East side, west side
All around the town,
Eyesores are popping up
Like daisies, best
Keep your eyeballs
Pointed down

First up, above and to the left, some Williamsburg "luxury condo" backwash at 7th Ave. & Carmine in Greenwich Village.  From the silver & black yacht deck penthouse roof line, to the trademark soot gray condo brick & balconies, to a Cafe Roadburn -- I mean Caffé Roastbean -- fastfood coffee outlet, the building screams Emptiness like a slice of black vinyl cake.

Then a few blocks southeast at 196 6th Ave., below, co-op "architecture" that -- in the brutally thoughtless style favored all along the BQE Condo Belt -- puts most of its energy into the utility stuff on the roof.


Above left, the building starts out looking like it aspires to Class on the first floor, then slumps into an Edge City Budget facade as it rises, and finally erupts in a splashy crown of sheet metal pipes combed over the bleak bald lumps on its head, designed to suggest labor camp cottages downwind of a Hershey's factory?

FOX GOP Tea Party McVeigh Day

X Chromosome of Palin's Real Americans
On the 15th anniversary of Real American hero Tim McVeigh's assault on the Socialist Security Building in Oklahoma City, the assault on reason, honesty, and decency by the FOX Fascist Borscht Belt entertainers -- the Becks, Cheneys, Gingrichs, Limbaughs, Murdochs, Palins, and Roves -- continues, because they make millions off the suckers who yearn for the return of a world where Real Americans, Good Germans, and the Cream of the Confederacy do not have to stifle their right to call a !@#$%^ a !@#$%^.

The suckers' attraction to this deadly entertainment is easy to understand -- who would not want to be born a prince, be born perfect, and live in a world where your every effortless whim is stamped with the (fascist) Almighty's approval?

You could watch trash TV all day, eat like a pig, and pray for global annihilation -- all without lifting a finger -- and still be perfect!

And all you have to do to appreciate your princely status -- the refinement bought by slavery, by holocaust, by the industrialization of hate and exploitation -- is gut your puny conscience and fill that meaningless cavity with the warmth of your inferiors' suffering, burning like a campfire in the wilderness, worshiped by fiends.

[ Welcome to Confederate History Month, Frank Rich, NYT ]
[ A Confederacy of Dunces, Gail Collins, NYT ]

Scandal Sheet

For noir New York flavor, the movie Side Street is great -- including the opening aerial shot of the skinny towers downtown -- but I liked Scandal Sheet even more.  The title tabloid's ink-stained cynics throw a "lonely hearts" ball to boost circulation, where the grand prize, listed above, is a bed with a built in TV.


Above, a couple of lonely hearts -- pressed by the tabloid's ace reporter -- have agreed to get hitched.  When they come off stage after the announcement, the new groom asks "We are gonna get that bed with the built in TV, right?"

Later, on the trail of a murderer, the ace reporter and his sidekick interview a lineup of Bowery bums.  After a good long look at a dozen or so alcoholic faces, the sidekick quips "I will never, ever, touch another drop."

PS: Considering that the photos here are direct from my built in TV set, I think they came out pretty good.

Why I Love Starbucks

I was sitting near the window at Astor Place Starbucks when a wide blond woman stabbed me with her large pointed bag as she squeezed by, scouting for a table.  She inspected and rejected the one in front of me, then finally settled on the one just behind me.

A few minutes later, her lady friend brings back their coffee and a pastry, which has not been warmed to the blond's satisfaction.  She takes it to the counter, and when she gets back she's fuming because the counter people were "rolling their eyes."  Her friend warns her to calm down, "this is a nice place" she says, but the blond's still agitated and warns she's ready to "jump over the counter and f*ck them up."

Then she takes in her surroundings and stage whispers "this place is so middle class," like it smells funny.

A few minutes later, after she's related how she's afraid to get into the shower at home, and how all the hooks she puts in the wall fall off... after the coffee and pastry's kicked in... she's in a lot better mood.