Cluster Faves

A few of my favorite clusters of stuff.  Above, looking down Broadway from in front of the Fifth Avenue Building at Madison Square.

It's nice that the Levi's ad, left of the clock, sinks into the surrounding brown.  Too bad they had to insult us with "Everybody's work is equally important," here in the land of banker bonuses.  Are the workers in the ads socialists, or have their brains evaporated from too many 12 hour shifts in the denim mines?

Below left, the southwest corner of West Broadway and Watts.


Above right, looking west on Metropolitan Ave. from next to the BQE in Williamsburg.  And below, looking north on 1st Ave. from below 33rd St.

Noir Double Bill

Robert Mitchum is a modest medical professional with a perfectly decent, true-blue girlfriend.  He should be satisfied, but one whiff of expensive perfume and he throws in with an about-to-be heiress whose screws have come loose.  Twice! -- in two movies I watched a few weeks apart:


Above left, Jean Simmons in Angel Face, 1952.  Above right, Faith Domergue in Where Danger Lives, 1950 (on a DVD with the also worthy Tension).

One movie has a "happy ending."  Find out which one!

Film still capture credits: Only the Cinema, Some Came Running and tubeonline.info.

New Bloomberg City

Like wide screen TV, but $1000 a month to maintain
I think it's time we quit fooling ourselves, and rename NYC New Bloomberg City, or NBC.

Rinse off the stench of
wealth at ABC Home

The city's transformation is nearly complete, as Bloomberg Preferred Citizens^TM -- bankers, developers, and other people with Wall Street incomes, and the drones who furnish them with the regular and stainless amenities formerly found only in upscale suburbs -- have firmly taken control and, like arrogant weeds, are sucking up all the air that used to allow for the cultural and economic breadth and depth that made this huge village special.

Today's reminder that we live in two worlds: People who spend six figures on aquariums for their $16.9 million apartment as an alternative to a big screen TV.  Watching the bright, swirling trails of captive fish soothes the owner, and lets them imagine they are rinsing the filthiness off their wealth, transforming it to beauty and meaning.

Spend to Transcend ^TM*

I suspect that washing off filth via home furnishings and improvement is what a lot of people with too much money do.

From the window displays at ABC Home (above and right), where Spending is Transcending ^TM, to Jean Nouvel's "Vision" luxury tower in Chelsea, that had the normally egalitarian critic Nicolai Ouroussoff enthusing over interior details, as if the city is enhanced -- not by what anyone can see from the outside and the way a building meets the sidewalk but -- by imagining we were invited into one of those luxury apartments to enjoy the precious details and the way they express the owners' sensitive and complicated relationship to wealth.

And now, as usual, the rest of us are left to watch the Elect, those who gave their souls to Mammon, live the high life in their pretty fish tanks strung like pearls along the High Line, and let the enjoyment trickle down on our imaginations.

[ Previously: A Tale of Two Economies ]

* This ABC Home display, though up during Black History month, always made me think of a home makeover by the Manson Family.

Leaning Tower of Confucius Plaza

Some pictures of the Confucius Plaza Apartments tower.  I liked the way the ropes seem to be pulling the tower and the white building at its feet together so much that I preserved the crookedness in these photos.

1) Above, the ropes pull the tower over like a loose fence post.
2) Below left, the tower pulls back a bit.


3) Above right, the arched back of the tower as it pulls itself up.
4) Below, the puny white building is ripped out of the ground.

Wanamaker Store Annex 2

Different day, different light, different skin at Wanamaker Annex (home of the Astor Place Kmart).  I'd like to thank the sun for the nice flare above.


And again, it mystifies me how such a humble surface can look so good.  Compare the color and temperature here with the previous photos.


[ Wanamaker Store Annex 1 ]

Upstairs Window Displays

Some upper floor displays.  I remember Lost City wasn't fond of newer stores uptown that lit up the floors of crap inside at night, but I like these old-school displays.

Above and left, Earrings Plaza on Broadway near 31st.  It's a pleasing display but, with three levels, it's screaming for a religious theme with heaven on top, earth in the middle, and hell below.

Then, below left, there's the window of Man Hing Import on 5th Ave. near 28th.  With all the exotic rug merchants nearby, it was probably a good location for selling exotic vases, back in The Day when wealth might produce a few Culture Vultures in between the uncultured kind.


Above right, a window that Jeremiah's Vanishing NY has admired too, on Ave. A near 2nd St.  It's a warm relic, forgotten in plain sight, that harks back to modest days when a simple middle class kitchen -- with automatic dishwasher! -- was the height of luxury.

And finally, below, some brides who've likely been waiting in the window for years -- in gowns still as white as the kitchen appliances above -- on 6th Ave. near 38th.