Water Street, (DUMBO) Brooklyn (February, 2010)
(See more photos from the “Literature Versus Traffic” project @ luzinterruptus)
Archive for the ‘New York City’ Category
Travel Photo of the Day: Brooklyn (DUMBO), New York – Literature Versus Traffic
Posted in Books, Brooklyn, DUMBO, New York City, Photography, U.S. Travel on February 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Water Under the Bridges: Joshua Derr’s Photographs of DUMBO, Brooklyn
Posted in Architecture, Brooklyn, DUMBO, New York City, Photography, Urban Affairs on December 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“Despite a six-day-a-week work schedule, Derr always makes time to take pictures. His images of DUMBO, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook, and Brooklyn Heights can be seen on Flickr — and purchased through Imagekind — and have appeared in the Gothamist, the New York Times, and Brooklyn Heights blog. They’ve also been published on dumbonyc.com and used in the promotional materials of Arts at St. Ann’s and the DUMBO Neighborhood Association. . . .
“‘DUMBO was rough when I arrived,’ he begins. ‘There is a building complex on Sand Street that is owned by The Watchtower where about 900 staff live. When I first moved in, the area was not as refined as it is now, with galleries, shops, and brand name stores. Before, there were art collectives and there was more of an artist presence in the community. Right up the street there was the Between the Bridges Bar, which looked like a dive. I guess something was lost, and something gained.’
“Among the losses, Derr says, is DUMBO’s once-gritty feel—the abandoned warehouses and factories, broken concrete, and glass shards that used to litter the ground. He is saddened, he says, by the destruction of numerous art deco structures, one of which, the Purchase Building, was knocked down to create a parking lot that now houses the Brooklyn Flea each Sunday.” (more @ The Brooklyn Rail, via Dumbo NYC)
R.I.P. – Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009)
Posted in Art & Artists, Museums & Exhibitions, New York City, Obituaries on November 19, 2009| 1 Comment »
“Jeanne-Claude, who collaborated with her husband, Christo, on dozens of environmental arts projects, notably the wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin, and the installation of 7,503 vinyl gates with saffron-colored nylon panels in Central Park, died Thursday in Manhattan, where she lived. She was 74.
“The cause was complications of a brain aneurysm, her family told The Associated Press.
“Jeanne-Claude met her husband, Christo Javacheff, in Paris in 1958. At the time, Christo, a Bulgarian refugee, was already wrapping small objects. Three years later, they collaborated on their first work, a temporary installation on the Cologne docks that consisted of oil drums and rolls of industrial paper wrapped in tarpaulin.
“To avoid confusing dealers and the public, and to establish an artistic brand, they used only Christo’s name. In 1994 they retroactively applied the joint name ‘Christo and Jeanne-Claude’ to all outdoor works and large-scale temporary indoor installations. Indoor work was credited to Christo alone.” (cont’d @ NY Times)
Related: ‘The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005’ Christo and Jeanne-Claude
R.I.P. – Art D’Lugoff (1924-2009)
Posted in Blues & Jazz, Business, Counter Culture, New York City, Performing Arts, Plays & Playwrights, Poets & Poetry, Popular Culture, Popular Music, Rock 'n' Roll, Theater, Writers & Writing on November 6, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“Art D’Lugoff, who was widely regarded as the dean of New York nightclub impresarios and whose storied spot, the Village Gate, was for more than 30 years home to performers as celebrated, and diverse, as Duke Ellington, Allen Ginsberg and John Belushi, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 85 and lived in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. . . .
“Opened in 1958, the Village Gate was on the corner of Bleecker and Thompson Streets. The cavernous basement space it occupied — the building’s upper floors were then a flophouse — had once been a laundry. . . .
“The club closed its doors in 1994, amid rising rents, a changing market for live music and the aftermath of some unsuccessful investments by Mr. D’Lugoff. It briefly reappeared on West 52nd Street in 1996 but sputtered out after less than a year. . . .
“The Gate may have lacked the cachet of the Village Vanguard, a more intimate West Village club, but it was a bright star in the city’s cultural firmament for decades. A young Woody Allen did stand-up comedy there. The playwright-to-be Sam Shepard bused tables there. A waiter named Dustin Hoffman was fired there for being so engrossed in the performances that he neglected his customers, though service was by all accounts never the club’s strength. Dozens of albums were recorded there, by musicians like Pete Seeger and Nina Simone and by comics like Dick Gregory.
“Though most often thought of as a jazz space — among the eminences heard there over the years were John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk — the Gate offered nearly every type of performance imaginable. There were blues artists like B. B. King; soul singers like Aretha Franklin; rockers like Jimi Hendrix; comics like Mort Sahl and Richard Pryor; and Beat poets.” (more @ NY Times)
R.I.P. – Milton Supman, aka “Soupy Sales” (1926-2009)
Posted in Actors & Acting, New York City, Obituaries, Popular Culture, Television on October 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“Soupy Sales, whose zany television routines turned the smashing of a pie to the face into a madcap art form, died Thursday night. He was 83.
“Mr. Sales’s former manager, Dave Usher, said the entertainer died in a hospice in New York City after suffering from multiple health problems.
“Cavorting with his puppet sidekicks White Fang, Black Tooth, Pookie the Lion and Hobart and Reba, the heads in the pot-bellied stove, transforming himself into the private detective Philo Kvetch, and playing host to the ever-present ‘nut at the door,’ Soupy Sales became a television favorite of youngsters and an anarchic comedy hero for teenagers and college students.
“Clad in a top hat, sweater and bow tie, shuffling through his Mouse dance, he reached his slapstick heyday in the mid-1960s on ‘The Soupy Sales Show,’ a widely syndicated program based at WNEW-TV in New York.” (cont’d @ NY Times)
Travel Photo of the Day: Tarnow, Poland (9/11-Related Graffiti)
Posted in American History, Europe, Foreign Travel, New York City, Photography on September 11, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Stencilled graffiti on wall in Tarnow, Poland “celebrating” anniversary of destruction of World Trade Center towers on 9/11 (May, 2008). [Click image to enlarge]
Kerouac at the Bat: Jack Kerouac’s Personal Fantasy Baseball Game
Posted in Baseball, Books, Museums & Exhibitions, New York City, Popular Culture, Sports, Writers & Writing on May 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“Almost all his life Jack Kerouac had a hobby that even close friends and fellow-Beats like Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs never knew about. He obsessively played a fantasy baseball game of his own invention, charting the exploits of made-up players like Wino Love, Warby Pepper, Heinie Twiett, Phegus Cody and Zagg Parker, who toiled on imaginary teams named either for cars (the Pittsburgh Plymouths and New York Chevvies, for example) or for colors (the Boston Grays and Cincinnati Blacks).
“He collected their stats, analyzed their performance and, as a teenager, when he played most ardently, wrote about them in homemade newsletters and broadsides. He even covered financial news and imaginary contract disputes. During those same teenage years, he also ran a fantasy horse-racing circuit complete with illustrated tout sheets and racing reports. He created imaginary owners, imaginary jockeys, imaginary track conditions.
“All these ‘publications,’ some typed, some handwritten and often pasted into old-fashioned composition notebooks, are now part of the Kerouac archive at the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library. The curator, Isaac Gewirtz, has just written a 100-page book about them, ‘Kerouac at Bat: Fantasy Sports and the King of the Beats,’ to be published next week by the library and available, at least for now, only in the library gift shop.” (cont’d @ NY Times)
The Paper Industry’s “Sine Wave Goodbye” Opens Thursday at the Ontological Theater
Posted in Actors & Acting, New York City, Performing Arts, Plays & Playwrights, Theater on May 12, 2009| 1 Comment »
Shameless plug for The Paper Industry‘s “Sine Wave Goodbye” which opens Thursday at Richard Foreman‘s Ontological-Hysteric Theater in Manhattan’s East Village . . . featuring my son (at left).
From the Press Release:
In The Paper Industry’s latest ‘ugly opera’ a man named M escapes the social machine only to lose himself inside his mind, rife with falling walls, forced dancing and maybe just a little bit of truth about Isaac Newton. M finds himself confronted by four oddball strangers in a landscape shaped by his subconscious in Sine Wave Goodbye, and through the use of dance, an original score and original text he hopes to discover what it is exactly that makes us tick. Exploring a fantastic and fatalistic interpretation of the laws of motion M will discover the tragic, glorious freedom of choice and consequence in a larger social context. The Paper Industry aims to exalt the singular experience of being human by distilling the most potent experiences into viscerally digestible moments. They unveil shadows of the human condition in order to illuminate intersection of sentiment between performers and audience members. For each of their pieces original music and text is combined with elements of the space towards one specific, cogent visceral effect.
Tickets can be purchased here.
Designing Brooklyn: 7th Annual BKLYN DESIGNS Show Opens Tomorrow
Posted in Arts & Crafts, Brooklyn, Business, Design, DUMBO, Museums & Exhibitions, New York City, Urban Affairs on May 7, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“TOMORROW, the seventh annual show of designs created in Brooklyn — Bklyn Designs — will open in Dumbo, drawing renewed attention to this neighborhood of former factories and warehouses, and its vibrant design scene.
“Over the last six years, the juried show, which features contemporary furnishings, lighting and accessories designed, and in most cases made, in Brooklyn, has grown from a Chamber of Commerce exercise in borough boosterism into a high-profile event and an effective springboard for local designers. This year, it has 45 exhibitors and is attracting attendees from as far away as Milan, the Netherlands and Japan.
“The show in Dumbo offers a good place to begin exploring what Brooklyn offers in the way of home furnishings. Just as the borough has become a center for locally produced, handcrafted food, it has also developed a broad population of independent, often artisanal designers.” (cont’d @ NY Times)
DUMBO Dock Street Project Update – City Planning Commission OKs Smaller Building
Posted in Architecture, Brooklyn, DUMBO, New York City, Urban Affairs on April 22, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“The City Planning Commission voted overwhelmingly to support a controversial tower next to the Brooklyn Bridge — though the building’s 18-story wing will be shaved by one story.
“In addition, Jed Walentas’s 325-unit Dock Street proposal — which features a ‘green’ design, plus 65 below-market-rate rentals and a public middle school — would lose two to three stories from the part [sic] its 10-story wing closest to the bridge.
“The vote to rezone Walentas’s lot from manufacturing to residential was 11-2, but despite the landslide, Planning Commission Chairwoman Amanda Burden described the proposal as ‘the most difficult to come before the commission in many years.’ . . .
“In ordering a height reduction and the cut-out section from the mid-rise portion of the building, the Commission seemed to at least be partially swayed by a late push by Brooklyn Bridge historian David McCullough, who visited the fabled span this month to call for the Walentas proposal to not only be halted, but for other buildings around the bridge to be demolished for a national park.” (more @ The Brooklyn Paper)
Even so, celebrity opposition to the project continues to grow. Dumbo NYC reports:
“We received word from [Dumbo Neighborhood Alliance (DNA)] that in addition to David McCullough, several celebrities will be starring in supporting roles in their grass roots campaign. Gabriel Byrne of The Usual Suspects and HBO’s In Treatment, Helen Hunt of As Good as It Gets and Mad About You, Gary Sinise of The Green Mile and Forrest Gump, Ana Gasteyer of Saturday Night Live and Mean Girls, Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns of Brooklyn Bridge and The Civil War fame and Skipp Sudduth of Third Watch and Law & Order have all added their support to the opposition of the proposed 18-story building.” (more @ Dumbo NYC)
Update
Spoiling Eaters, Not the Food: Why New York Food is So Good
Posted in Business, Food & Wine, New York City, U.S. Travel, Urban Affairs on April 21, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Joseph Epstein on why New York food is so good:
“Manhattan must have 300, perhaps 400, splendid restaurants. I estimate that Chicago has, at the outside, 30, and San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., respectively probably not more than that. Why is this? How to account for this plentitude of good restaurant food in Manhattan?
“Demand has a lot to do with it. By this I don’t mean demand as in the old economists’ formula of supply and demand. What I mean is that New Yorkers are, and always have been, more demanding than any other Americans when it comes to what they eat. . . .
“New Yorkers tend to order food as if they are spoiled children dining in their mothers’ kitchens. They demand excellent service, which includes accommodation for their idiosyncrasies (that pickle on the separate plate). If they do not get what they want, they howl, return food, do not return to the restaurant, and verbally torch the place. If you open a restaurant in New York, you had better be good, or you will soon be gone.” (more @ Wall Street Journal)
[Thanks, John.]
Making Book: The Crumpled Press & The Art of Independent Bookmaking in a Digital Age
Posted in Art & Artists, Books, Brooklyn, Business, New York City, Writers & Writing on April 9, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“The Crumpled Press, the brainchild of [Jordan] McIntyre and [Alexander] Bick, publishes work by new authors and sets previously unpublished, notable lectures and articles into proper books — hand-sewn — on culture, politics, self-reflection, and poetry. ‘It’s original, thought-provoking work that might otherwise be tossed aside,’ says Bick, who is pursuing a history PhD at Princeton. ‘Hence the name Crumpled Press.’ In the four years since the outfit’s birth, they’ve published nine titles — from a series of fictional voicemails placed on 9/11 to a meditation on Darwinian selection, sexuality, and fashion — priced from $5 to $25. . . .
“Today the four editors work with each author to create a book’s artisanal feel, reproducing journal sketches or deliberating fonts, flyleaves, and covers, to savor the printed-page aesthetic in an era of digitized technology — including sites for e-books, such as Google Books or the Amazon Kindle. [Anthony] Grafton’s Codex in Crisis reflects on this very topic. Expanded from a 2007 New Yorker article, the book was first released in a limited edition of 250 copies, each hand-numbered with a letterpress cover and holding a fold-out color plate.” (more @ University of Chicago Magazine)
1st Annual “Walking Tour of New York’s Independent Bookstores” Scheduled for May 2nd
Posted in Books, Brooklyn, Business, DUMBO, Literature, New York City, U.S. Travel, Urban Affairs on April 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »
On Saturday, May 2nd, “The Millions.com” will lead their first annual “Walking Tour of New York’s Independent Bookstores.” The 11-stop itinerary begins in the East Village, continues through NoLita and SOHO, crosses the Brooklyn Bridge into DUMBO, and ends after 4 or so hours of walking and book-browsing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The complete, 11-stop itinerary includes:
- St. Mark’s Bookshop (31 3rd Avenue at 9th Street).
- The Strand (828 Broadway at East 12th.)
- Partners & Crime Mystery Booksellers (44 Greenwich Avenue at Charles Street)
- Three Lives & Co. (154 West 10th Street at Waverly Place)
- Housing Works Used Book Cafe (126 Crosby St. between Prince and Houston)
- McNally Jackson (formerly McNally Robinson) (52 Prince St. between Mulberry and Lafayette)
- Bluestockings (172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington)
- Melville House Bookstore (145 Plymouth Street at Pearl Street, Brooklyn)
- BookCourt (163 Court St. between Pacific and Dean)
- Freebird Books & Goods (123 Columbia St. between Kane & Degraw)
- WORD (126 Franklin Street at Milton Street, Brooklyn)
Additional information on the event can be found here.
A full-size Google map of the tour, with walking directions, can be found here.
Related: Literary DUMBO: An Afternoon Walk Under the Bridges in Search of Books
R.I.P. – Robert Delford Brown (1930-2009)
Posted in Art & Artists, Counter Culture, New York City, Obituaries on April 6, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“Robert Delford Brown, a painter, sculptor, performance artist and avant-garde philosopher whose exuberantly provocative works challenged orthodoxies of both the art world and the world at large, usually with a big wink, was found dead on March 24 in the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, N.C. . . .
“A colleague of artists like Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg and Nam June Paik, Mr. Brown was a central figure in the anarchic New York art scene of the early 1960s, a participant in — and instigator of — events-as-art known as “happenings.” He saw the potential for aesthetic pronouncement in virtually everything. His métier was willful preposterousness, and his work contained both anger and insouciance.
“His raw materials included buildings, pornographic photos and even meat carcasses.
“He often performed in the persona of a religious leader, but dressed in a clown suit with a red nose and antennas hung with ripe bananas. In the end his message to the world was that both spirited individualism and unimpeded creativity must triumph.” (more @ NY Times)
DUMBO Dock Street Project Update – Historian David McCullough Rallies Opposition
Posted in Architecture, Brooklyn, DUMBO, New York City, Urban Affairs on April 2, 2009| 2 Comments »
“In the latest chapter of a hot dispute over the building of a proposed tower near the Brooklyn Bridge, the historian and Brooklyn Bridge expert David McCullough is voicing his opposition to the plan.
“At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. McCullough spoke to a crowd of more than 50 local advocates and politicians about why he opposed plans by the developer Two Trees Management to construct a tower called Dock Street Dumbo, so close to the Brooklyn Bridge.
“While Mr. McCullough lives in Maine, he used to live near the bridge, and also spent extensive amounts of time near the site of the bridge when researching the Battle of Brooklyn for his book ‘1776′ and the bridge itself for ‘The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge.’ He also worked with Ken Burns on a documentary of the Brooklyn Bridge.
“‘It’s one of the most important structures in our country,’ he said. The construction of the proposed tower is ‘upstaging what should not be upstaged. The magic of the bridge’s image is diminished. It’s wrecked.'” (more @ NY Times)
A letter from McCullough to Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz opposing the Dock Street Project, penned in January, 2009, can be found here.
A video of McCullough calling for a halt to construction plans near the Brooklyn Bridge, which he says would obscure the monument and damage a forgotten historical site nearby, can be found here.
Related
R.I.P. – Helen Levitt (1913-2009)
Posted in Art & Artists, Brooklyn, New York City, Obituaries, Photography on March 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“Helen Levitt, a major photographer of the 20th century who caught fleeting moments of surpassing lyricism, mystery and quiet drama on the streets of her native New York, died in her sleep at her home in Manhattan on Sunday. She was 95. . . .
“Ms. Levitt captured instances of a cinematic and delightfully guileless form of street choreography that held at its heart, as William Butler Yeats put it, ‘the ceremony of innocence.’ A man handles garbage-can lids like an exuberant child imitating a master juggler. Even an inanimate object — a broken record — appears to skip and dance on an empty street as a child might, observed by a group of women’s dresses in a shop window.
“As marvelous as these images are, the masterpieces in Ms. Levitt’s oeuvre are her photographs of children living their zesty, improvised lives. A white girl and a black boy twirl in a dance of their own imagining. Four girls on a sidewalk turning to stare at five floating bubbles become contrapuntal musical notes in a lovely minor key.
“In Ms. Levitt’s best-known picture, three properly dressed children prepare to go trick-or-treating on Halloween 1939. Standing on the stoop outside their house, they are in almost metaphorical stages of readiness. The girl on the top step is putting on her mask; a boy near her, his mask in place, takes a graceful step down, while another boy, also masked, lounges on a lower step, coolly surveying the world.
“‘At the peak of Helen’s form,’ John Szarkowski, former director of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art, once said, ‘there was no one better.'” (more @ NY Times)
Related
49th Annual “New York Antiquarian Book Fair” Set to Open Friday (4/3)
Posted in Books, Business, Collectors & Collecting, Ephemera, Literature, Museums & Exhibitions, New York City, Plays & Playwrights, Poets & Poetry, U.S. Travel, Writers & Writing on March 29, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Arguably the most important annual book fair in the United States will be held this coming weekend, April 3-5, at the Park Avenue Armory (643 Park Avenue, at 67th Street) in New York City. General information (hours, entrance fees, etc) about the 49th annual event, organized by Sanford L. Smith and Associates and sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America can be found here.
The list of international exhibitors can be found here.
The annual New York fair is well worth the admission price even for those uninterested in writing large checks – as an exhibition of incunabula, rare and unusual books, periodicals and literary ephemera, the New York event is unrivaled in the United States, and probably the rest of the world as well.
Related
On Broadway: Sotheby’s to Auction Rare 1840s New York City Daguerreotype
Posted in American History, Antiques & Folk Art, Business, Collectors & Collecting, New York City, Photography on March 27, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“In the early to mid-19th century . . . the Upper West Side of Manhattan was open countryside, with large estates, white picket fences and wagons trundling along a rutted road already known as Broadway.
“Photographic evidence of that era is scant, as most studios offering the newfangled daguerreotypes were located several miles away at the island’s populated lower end and focused, literally, on that area. But one rural scene, recently discovered in New England, is going up for sale at Sotheby’s on Monday. It’s believed to date to 1848. . . .
“As the Sotheby’s picture predates the laying out of Gotham’s numbered cross streets, the exact location is unknown, but a notation on the back, signed by ‘L.B.,’ identifies it as on ‘the main road … called a continuation of Broadway.’ . . .
“Sotheby’s estimates the presale value of the daguerreotype at $50,000 to $70,000.” (more @ NPR)
R.I.P. – Johnny Blanchard (1933-2009)
Posted in Baseball, New York City, Obituaries, Popular Culture, Sports on March 26, 2009| 1 Comment »
“Johnny Blanchard, a power-hitting catcher and outfielder known as Super Sub who played in five consecutive World Series for the Yankees in the 1960s, died Wednesday in Robbinsdale, Minn. He was 76. . . .
“As a left-handed hitter who could deliver the long ball, Blanchard seemed a perfect fit for Yankee Stadium and its short right-field fence. But he was essentially a catcher and had little chance of breaking into the starting lineup since the Yankees had Yogi Berra and Elston Howard.
“Blanchard’s best season was 1961, when he hit a career-high 21 home runs and batted .305 in 93 games. He was decidedly in the shadow of Roger Maris, who broke Babe Ruth’s record with 61 homers, and Mickey Mantle, who hit 54 home runs . . .” (more @ NY Times)
[Johnny Blanchard hit a home run in the first baseball game I ever attended. My father had taken me to a Sunday doubleheader at Yankee Stadium where I spent the entire first game waiting with glove in hand to catch a Mickey Mantle home run (we were sitting in foul territory behind third base but I was young and unwilling to give in to the territorial realities of a sport I was just beginning to understand). About mid-way through the second game, and having not yet caught a Mantle home run — no one other than Blanchard had connected for a homer all day — my father suggested we leave right then so we could beat the traffic leaving the stadium at game’s end. As he started up the car in the parking lot, the roar from the stadium behind us left little doubt of what had just happened – Mickey Mantle had hit a home run! It took me quite some time to forgive my father for ruining my chance to catch Mantle’s homer but I still remember fondly the Yankee whose home run I did witness that day – Johnny Blanchard. R.I.P.]
Artful Mailers: Transforming “Found” Postcards into Objets D’Art
Posted in Art & Artists, Collectors & Collecting, Ephemera, Foreign Travel, New York City, U.S. Travel on March 26, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“This month, a 33-year-old Belgian artist has started a project called I Got a Postcard, where people leave self-addressed stamped postcards that encourage the people who find them to personalize and mail them.
“Two weeks ago, he left his first 100 cards in 10 locations in New York City — including a library, airport, theater and bus — and waited for them to return. The cards read: ‘Dear finder, personalize this postcard and then return it to me. Be as original and artistic as possible and your creation will be submitted to igotapostcard.blogspot.com.’
“The artist, Renaud Dehareng (the artist name of Jason Burns), says he was inspired by PostSecret. And Postsecret itself was inspired by Found magazine.” (more @ NY Times)
The 'Not-So-Rough' Guide 