10 November 2009
ny and coney island
[Here are some photos from my recent trip to NY.]
Part 1: Ground Zero, Wall Street, Battery Park, Rockefeller Centre.
The Caff under the hotel made it very clear they were not to be treated like the Starbucks next door.
Not surprisingly, there are 9/11 memorials all over New York. Here is a particularly Catholic-looking one.
These haunted New-people are waiting to enter the forthcoming buildings around Ground Zero.
But for every memorial, there's a 9/11 conspiracy/critique:
Towards a new mythology.
Among the banks that remain, many have been stripped of their former identities and converted into clothing stores.
This gloriously monstrous thing is One Liberty Plaza, originally commissioned by US Steel. You can tell.
All the news that's fit to dump on the sidewalk.
This is the Equitable Building. At every turn, New York reveals the history of its complex zoning laws and high land costs: buildings and angles are shoved in any which way, giant asymmetrical ziggurats to financial speculation and the pressures of topological demand.
Like this.
Capitalism meets God on this Manhattan church sign.
Pattern-ism, Manhattanism...not Art Deco.
Washington pleads as his horse looks on.
I think this might be the American Stock Exchange, but I'm not sure.
Abstract haunted struts.
A reproductively futurist lamp-post sticker.
Optimism runs deep in America.
This bit of Battery Park is where the opening scenes of Wolfen were filmed. They're building an aquatic carousel in which to drown any future Wolfens.
Avoid the eels. Freud's first published scientific work was about the reproductive organs of eels, to which end he dissected over 400 of them.
The early bird catches the inedible eel.
The Korean war memorial in Battery Park. The way the rainwater got caught in the carved letters was oddly striking.
A quote from Simone De Beauvoir.
Quite liked this Frank O'Hara quip.
I liked the Downtown Club. It is now luxury flats, of course.
Post boxes pile up all over the place.
The 'buckets of Bud' next to the 'low carb menu' was amusing. America is constantly trying to make you over eat then lose weight, a kind of cultural yo-yo diet.
It was the morning after Halloween. I had expected more detritus, but there was only this hat...
This horrible toy injection thing..
This pumpkin and shot glass...
This milkmaid's outfit...
And this cat mask.
Lots of rubbish though.
And this police car was covered in silly string.
I almost bought this for Owen (sorry Owen!).
I must write something about the ideology of piggy banks at some point.
This is the 'Cathedral of Commerce', the Woolworth Building.
Think Positive and Stay in School: Always the implicit message of Road Runner, I thought.
War kitsch.
Stimulate your own economy! Sounds horrific.
Tippex over the housing market.
Ironic job ads. Lovely.
New Museum. Pretty annoying.
This was my favourite piece at Rockefeller centre: an homage to communication in all its forms.
The hammer and sickle at Rockefeller that so outraged Glenn Beck.
Gehry's IAC Building.
All visible from New York's Highline - apparently people make a show of having sex with the curtains open in the hotel (pictured just above) so that those walking along the old railway tacks below can get a good look. People are strange.
Two differently broken street crossing lights.
In Chinatown.
These amazing murals are by Hugo Gellert, author of Karl Marx's Capital in lithographs. We had to ask very nicely to take pictures of these.
A woman and a pig on the side of a tree-box. I don't know why.
Part 2: Coney Island
Beautifully ironic juxtaposition of the ambulance and the hot-dog competition board, even if it's not a very good picture.
The mayoral election was on. Thompson didn't win, but nearly.
Lifeguard chairs put away for the winter.
This is for Ads, currently working hard on his book.
Part 1: Ground Zero, Wall Street, Battery Park, Rockefeller Centre.
The Caff under the hotel made it very clear they were not to be treated like the Starbucks next door.
Not surprisingly, there are 9/11 memorials all over New York. Here is a particularly Catholic-looking one.
These haunted New-people are waiting to enter the forthcoming buildings around Ground Zero.
But for every memorial, there's a 9/11 conspiracy/critique:
Towards a new mythology.
Among the banks that remain, many have been stripped of their former identities and converted into clothing stores.
This gloriously monstrous thing is One Liberty Plaza, originally commissioned by US Steel. You can tell.
All the news that's fit to dump on the sidewalk.
This is the Equitable Building. At every turn, New York reveals the history of its complex zoning laws and high land costs: buildings and angles are shoved in any which way, giant asymmetrical ziggurats to financial speculation and the pressures of topological demand.
Like this.
Capitalism meets God on this Manhattan church sign.
Pattern-ism, Manhattanism...not Art Deco.
Washington pleads as his horse looks on.
I think this might be the American Stock Exchange, but I'm not sure.
Abstract haunted struts.
A reproductively futurist lamp-post sticker.
Optimism runs deep in America.
This bit of Battery Park is where the opening scenes of Wolfen were filmed. They're building an aquatic carousel in which to drown any future Wolfens.
Avoid the eels. Freud's first published scientific work was about the reproductive organs of eels, to which end he dissected over 400 of them.
The early bird catches the inedible eel.
The Korean war memorial in Battery Park. The way the rainwater got caught in the carved letters was oddly striking.
A quote from Simone De Beauvoir.
Quite liked this Frank O'Hara quip.
I liked the Downtown Club. It is now luxury flats, of course.
Post boxes pile up all over the place.
The 'buckets of Bud' next to the 'low carb menu' was amusing. America is constantly trying to make you over eat then lose weight, a kind of cultural yo-yo diet.
It was the morning after Halloween. I had expected more detritus, but there was only this hat...
This horrible toy injection thing..
This pumpkin and shot glass...
This milkmaid's outfit...
And this cat mask.
Lots of rubbish though.
And this police car was covered in silly string.
I almost bought this for Owen (sorry Owen!).
I must write something about the ideology of piggy banks at some point.
This is the 'Cathedral of Commerce', the Woolworth Building.
Think Positive and Stay in School: Always the implicit message of Road Runner, I thought.
War kitsch.
Stimulate your own economy! Sounds horrific.
Tippex over the housing market.
Ironic job ads. Lovely.
New Museum. Pretty annoying.
This was my favourite piece at Rockefeller centre: an homage to communication in all its forms.
The hammer and sickle at Rockefeller that so outraged Glenn Beck.
Gehry's IAC Building.
All visible from New York's Highline - apparently people make a show of having sex with the curtains open in the hotel (pictured just above) so that those walking along the old railway tacks below can get a good look. People are strange.
Two differently broken street crossing lights.
In Chinatown.
These amazing murals are by Hugo Gellert, author of Karl Marx's Capital in lithographs. We had to ask very nicely to take pictures of these.
A woman and a pig on the side of a tree-box. I don't know why.
Part 2: Coney Island
Beautifully ironic juxtaposition of the ambulance and the hot-dog competition board, even if it's not a very good picture.
The mayoral election was on. Thompson didn't win, but nearly.
Lifeguard chairs put away for the winter.
This is for Ads, currently working hard on his book.
