GOP BP Arson Party

BP Station Spills Green All Over E. Williamsburg
"The images from the last month -- Washington essentially powerless, BP flailing away -- has been deeply disheartening." [ NYT ]

Yes, but at least the FOX GOP Tea Party has finally found a role for government it can endorse: janitor.  From GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal: "We need our federal government exactly for this kind of crisis."  For the GOP, the role of government (and taxpayer money) is to clean up after the filthy rich and corporations that pollute their way to profit.

Meanwhile, in Currently in Vogue: Ringing the Deficit Alarm, Democratic Rep. Neal says of Republicans complaining about the deficit: "The people who set the fire are now the ones calling the fire department."  It warms my heart to hear a Democrat speak truth like that.  But it saddens me to agree with Frank Rich that Obama is still sadly lacking when it comes to getting his modest program across.

I know it's tough to compete with the lynch mob excitement the GOP sells, but if I was Obama and they tried to turn me into a janitor I'd either curse them out sideways to Sunday or do what former Gov. "Drill Baby Drill" Palin did: Quit!

Sign Over Big Hole Where BP Was at Queens Plaza

Dark Morning

Low morning light at S 1st and Roebling in Williamsburg.  Just below left is a closeup from the photo above.

Ghost Church on 14th

Under the ghostly plastic, on 14th St. near First Ave., Immaculate Conception Church is being refurbished.  It was built in 1896 as Grace Chapel & Hospital, a mission of Grace Church at 10th & Broadway.

At the dedication Bishop Henry Codman Potter said there were so many immigrants that the neighborhood had "as much work to perform as in uncivilized quarters of the globe."  The complex's architects "favored the later French Gothic, and let loose both barrels..."  [ NY Times via Forgotten New York ]

Original Plan

The church, which was converted from Episcopalian to Catholic use in 1943, now has a grade school.  You have to feel for institutions in the Internet Age -- student reviews complain that recess is terrible at Immaculate Conception.  But even in the early 1900s, a concert organist rated the church's organ "Very poor and cheap both tonally and mechanically.  Terrible." 

(Btw, the history of the Ferris & Stuart organ at that last link, though not at this church, is pretty interesting.)

Wired LIRR Queens

Looking north toward Queens Plaza across the LIRR tracks in March.  Feeding the shiny streamliner above and the locomotive at the bottom, the mass of wires in between.  Note the 7 Train descending toward the Plaza, below right.

#1 NYC Pet Peeve

Ren, Also Peeved
Of course there are plenty of things I straight-up hate...

...basically anything, from cellphones to car horns & alarms to Wall Street money, that helps the clueless swaggering plastic assholes among us increase the radius of their broadcasts...

...that couldn't be called pet peeves unless the pet was the monster from Alien, but there are a few things that maybe peeve me more than they should.

Like the way the "green market" at Union Square, left, always steals the sidewalk and tries to force passersby through its precious gauntlet, like bran through the intestines during yoga class.

Like the spiffy kids who try to stop you on the sidewalk to listen to their "Save the Children" scams.  Save them for what?  Dessert?

But my #1 NYC pet peeve is those f*cking booster banners, like below.

Bright Shiny Yuppie Prayer Flags
I hate them, I Hate Them, I HATE THEM!!!

You can't take a picture in this city without those banners in it.  They are turning NYC into a Yuppie North Korea, with bright reminders every 100 feet that it is your DUTY to be HAPPY for the opportunity to trade your city and soul for the bland, ad-sponsored comfort of suburban emptiness, for the ability to pass through life unmolested by doubt, friction-free, like... bran through the intestines during yoga class.

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.