E 27th St. off 5th Ave.

Giant glowing things drip down the Gershwin Hotel.


While the middle of the block bathes in light, below.

Plaza Arcade Signs

The 47th St. end of the arcade
Plaza Arcade cuts through the middle of the block from the 48th St. side of Rockefeller Plaza to the "diamond district" on 47th St. between 5th & 6th Aves.  Its main tenant is Ross Metals, and (beyond the beaded witnesses in the window, left) its main attraction is the signs.



There's the fetching Arcade Coffee signs above.


And the Ross Metal signs above and below, whose strong "mystical system" style reminds me of Paul Laffoley's work.


And then there's the best NO sign I've ever seen on Ross Metal's door: NO DRINKS, NO CARRIAGES, NO FOOD, NO RADIOS, NO SMOKING, NO UMBRELLAS, NO SOLICITING, NO LOITERING!

56th & Park Construction

The world's longest exhaust is still there, above right.

Cattelan Conglomeration

Friends took me to the Maurizio Cattelan show at the Guggenheim the day before it closed; here are some photos in case you missed it.  Roberta Smith panned the show and artist in her review A Suspension of Willful Disbelief:

The effect is initially startling, but ultimately disrespectful and perverse ... the show suggests that Mr. Cattelan knows what he’s about: he’s always been uneven and now he is running out of ideas.


Still, the show was a crowd-pleaser, stringing up the artist's "lifetime" output -- pieces normally shown isolated in plenty of space -- like ornaments on a Christmas tree.  Whatever its merit as retrospective, it was interesting to see how sculpture normally planted on the ground looks floating in space, from above and below.

9th Ave. & 42nd St.

Plenty of red, yellow & blue...


...near the Port Authority, past the blasted flag below left.

William St. & Maiden Lane 2

Back around William & Maiden downtown, near the poison wellspring of high finance.  The tall building centered above is the American International Building, which was owned by scumbag Wall St. enabler AIG before it collapsed.  When new, the building sported double-decker elevators that served two floors at once.  Of course the top floors of the building are now being turned into luxury condos.


The castle below the tower above left and below is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; the nicely lit white building above right is 80 Maiden Lane.