the immediate, threatened neighborhood
As incredible as it may seem to idealistic small-d democrats who, however discouraged by national or state politics, may still think we have a say in what happens to our own city, we do not.
A corporate football stadium is about to be dropped into the middle of Manhattan by interests which are completely dismissive of democratic process. Everything has been decided inside corporate board rooms, the mayor’s office and the darker lobbies in Albany. The ordinary people of this city and of the neighborhood it will impact and destroy, the people who will pay – in every conceivable way – for this boondoggle and environmental disaster have been told they have absolutely no say in it. Like so much that impacts New York City even the City Council is powerless to stop it, in spite of the overwhelming numbers of the members who oppose it.
But there may still be a chance to lay down in front of this heavily-bankrolled steamroller if the press can be encouraged to take notice of the strength of the opposition.
Come to the only public hearing scheduled about the Jets stadium, this Thursday afternoon at the Javits Center. The hearing begins at 4:00 at 35th St. and 11th Ave., but it’s suggested that people arrive at 3:00 to sign in, meet their neighbors and get a good seat.
The communtiy organization which has been fighting this thing from the beginning, the Hell’s Kitchen/Hudson Yards Alliance, promises, “We’ll have volunteers at the Javits Center showing everyone where to go; all you need to do is show up, sign in, and speak out against the stadium, or cheer loudly for your neighbors who do.”
[image of the neighborhood obtained from Hell’s Kitchen/Hudson Yards Alliance]
Category: NYC
Karl Rove gives it to us
Ward Sutton KARL ROVE SUMS IT UP FOR LIBERALS 2004 syndicated cartoon detail
See the entire 16-box Ward Sutton cartoon on The Village Voice site. My personal favorite/horror has got to be, “WE USED 9/11 AND NEW YORK CITY LIKE A CHEAP WHORE.”
[image from The Village Voice]
the Bernard Kerik complex and the missing nanny
but what kind of complex?
Anyone who is familiar with the basics of his career knows that Bernard Kerik’s nanny story is a red herring, but is there any evidence that there even was a nanny, or at least a nanny whose immigration status would have been problematic for Kerik?
I think not, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon.
[ugly image of an ugly sign citing an ugly man for an ugly career, found on the New York City Department of Corrections site; the illustration is from an archived story on the re-naming of the Manhattan Detention Complex, just three months after September 11, while Kerik was still Police Commissioner]
fight the proposed MTA photo ban!
They’re still trying!
Trying, that is, to outlaw photography in the New York transit system. Last June I wrote about a fantastic zap I had participated in called by “The Photographers Rights campaign.” That same group has called another zap for December 18th in response to the MTA’s continued ill-conceived intention to remove cameras from users of the system in the name of security.
Remember that token clerks have already been removed from many stations altogether, and more will eliminated in the future, ultimately abandoning the platforms to Metrocard machines and the public’s own devices for ensuring their safety. There are also plans to ultimately remove conductors, and eventually drivers as well, from every train, removing all MTA employee presence from the public areas where millions of New Yorkers find themselves confined every day.
The removal of cameras will have precisely the opposite effect of security from terrorism. Anywhere else they call them “security cameras,” for Pete’s sake!
From the group’s site:
Many of us are determined to not let this go by unnoticed and without protest; Join us, plan on taking your camera out for a day of photography that won’t ever be forgotten, with a flash mob photo session that will even make the MTA board want to be there with cameras. It’ll be one of those Only in New York things you’ve been hearing about…
Meet December 18th on the main concourse of Grand Central Terminal, and bring your photo apparatus of course. It shouldn’t be hard to spot all the other people with cameras, especially with the even larger crowds expected this time.
Oh, yes, and this time let’s wear signs. People should be able to see the point.
On a related note, the same officials who want a photo ban also want to make it impossible to move from one subway car to another. Think about that one the next time you read about someone going berserk inside a moving train.
Talk to or write your Councilmember about both these issues.
[image from my June 6, 2004, post]
the Book Fair and the Library
view of the upward reaches of the Library room inside the building of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, including detail of a faux-marble pillar and the ironwork which supports the huge skylight with its gilt-decorated opening mechanisms.
Bill Dobbs got me out of the apartment earlier than usual on Sunday. The incentive was the 17th annual Independent & Small Press Book Fair and, probably no less important, its venue, the century-old building occupied by the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen. The Society itself was founded in 1785, the library in 1820, although those 184 years still make it only the second oldest “private” library in New York. That title goes to the New York Society Library, organized in 1754.
It was great fun, and the fact that I left with my wallet only a little lighter than when I entered these wonderful spaces is no measure of the temptations available. It does say something about the event’s attractions for the impecunious reader. I’ll be back next year and I’ll try to bring other small-bookies.
A small, random selection of some sightings:
Susanna Cuyler‘s delightful little books (I bought a few items off her table, including “La Derniere Fleur,” an illustrated very short story of James Thurber, translated by Albert Camus)
A new illustrated New York subway book from Israelowitz Publishing
Many children’s books, but the table which stood out from all the others included “It’s Just a Plant: a children’s story of marijuana,” from justaplant.com
Some great vintage images, postcard size, next to the Paris Review table (I bought the one which shows George Plimpton with some friends at a sidewalk cafe, fifteen saucers stacked in front of him, looking all of fifteen himself)
“The Itinerary of Benjamin Tudela: Travels in the Middle Ages,” a twelfth-century journal of the travels of a Spanish rabbi through Europe, Asia and Africa, in a faithful translation from the Hebrew. I took this beautiful book home, but it was only one of at least a dozen on the table of Italica Press which will still tempt me. Oh yes, their address would amuse almost anyone: 595 Main Street, New York, NY. My own puzzlement disappeared when it was explained that New York’s Main Street is on Roosevelt Island
bad donut!
I just learned that the donuts I love to hate are more distasteful than I had thought.
Krispy Kreme* contributed $90,260 to the Republican Party and only $1,842 to the Democratic Party during the 2003-2004 election cycle, according to data assembled by the creators of a new (and very interesting) website, Choose The Blue, designed to help consumers identify the politics of the corporations whose products and services they patronize.
So not only are these donuts bad for their patrons’ health and bad for at least one of the communities in which a plant/store is located, but they subsidize the regime which threatens the nation and the world.
But maybe the relationship is about to come apart. Yesterday’s donut star is also in trouble and even their Republican friends may not be able to bail them out.
The corporation’s earnings are sharply down, the result, according to the NYTimes, of “slipping sales and underperforming franchise operations.”
The disappointing news is the latest in a string of troubles for Krispy Kreme. It is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for the aggressive manner in which it accounted for franchises that it bought back and for the prices paid for some of these franchises. Last month, the investigation was upgraded to a formal inquiry.
This year, the company’s stock, which once traded as high as $50, has been in free fall.
But what do I know about this financial esoterica? I admit that my relationship with the un-donut company is on a personal level, and it bagan just after they first opened a New York location. I tasted their incredibly-hyped product and found that I really hated it. For this kind of sugar and fat, if I’m going to support a chain store, I’d rather follow the example of the gentleman in the picture at the bottom of my previous post: He’s licking a cone just purchased at the neat little Ben & Jerry’s shop to the right of the Krispy Kreme. Now there’s a politically-wholesome treat I could support!
* According to Choose The Blue, “Corporate totals are based on donations from PACs, employees, subsidiaries and affiliates for the 2003-2004 election cycle.”
[thanks to Barry for the Choose The Blue site tip]
Krispy Kreme
donut detritus
What is it they say about sausage making? Along lines of the same argument, I think Chelsea’s Krispy Kreme fans should stay clear of their favorite donut haunt on the nights the raw materials are dumped on West 23rd Street. Tons of large bags of flour and sugar are stacked across the sidewalk until workers manage to drag into the machinery at the rear of the shop that which hasn’t already spilled onto the pavement. The piles are scary and the residue isn’t pretty – especially if it’s raining.
I’m sensitive to the intrusiveness of this little manufactory/shop because of its large impact on myself and my neighbors, all of whom, regardless of our taste in donuts, prefer not to live in apartments which are permeated with the sweet smell of yeast and sugar. Many of these same neighbors labor in love for most of the year on a beautiful common garden where the overpowering smell of donuts has regularly displaced the scent of Phlox, Nicotiana and Roses.
But above all I am keenly aware that in a city where most of us travel on foot most of the time, ordinary inconveniences ignored by most pedestrians actually present huge, often dangerous, obstacles for many others. All of us should be able to expect uncluttered sidewalks whether or not we are personally free of any disabilities.
donut dough
a very small Thanksgiving story
store-bought cut celery
Overheard from the loudspeakers at our neighborhood Whole Foods this afternoon, clearly audible above the sounds of colliding shopping carts being pushed by harried people with long shopping lists, [almost] all prepared for elaborate home-cooked feasts tomorrow:
“. . . calling the lady who wanted the cut celery, . . . calling the lady who wanted the cut celery; your cut celery is ready at customer service . . . .”
I looked around and caught the attention of the store’s excellent produce department’s wise sage. He rolled his eyes upward. I smiled at this discreet admission of his dismay, and I shrugged my shoulders in an acknowledgment of its source.
For the sake of the other guests at the Thanksgiving meal she certainly will be sharing, I hope she doesn’t have any more complicated assignments.
When I told Barry about the announcement he had an immediate explanation for the woman’s strange request. “Maybe she didn’t have time to cut it and still put the Cheez Wiz in it.”
[image from ClubChef]
ArtCal steps up
Limborg brothers Les tr�s riches heures du Duc de Berry: Novembre (1412-16)
Barry has now set up ArtCal, a way-cool art openings/events calendar, and it’s linked on the left side of both his site and mine, where it’s easily downloaded and printed.
It is a very subjective list of gallery shows up in New York at any given moment, and right now it includes, also subjectively, information about shows which open in the next few days. Still to follow will be the iCal and RSS feeds, offering even more convenience to art fans who want to plan ahead.
[image from The Web Gallery of Art]
new MoMA, a clean well-lighted space, and maybe no more
[EDITING CONTINUED, WITH AN ADDENDUM, MID-DAY NOVEMBER 17]
one of my favorite “discoveries” today: David Hammons’s High Falutin’ (1990) in the Contemporary galleries, with Barry contemplating its delights
We were there about two and a half hours, had a few croissants, a sip of coffee and a bit of mineral water (there were a number of white linen-covered catering stations, and even small tables and chairs, always within easy reach throughout the six floors of galleries) on our Members visit to the “new” Museum of Modern Art this afternoon.
I liked the easy access to refreshments and the contemplative moments which went along with enjoying them while we could hang out in the gallery spaces, but all of that will disappear after this week. What will remain are the new museum spaces and yes, a few restaurants (not yet opened) which will be assigned their own rooms.
There’s more space.
skylight, with lots of lines
There’s also more natural light, more views, of the stuff both inside and outside. The building is still sandwiched between 53rd and 54th Street west of 5th Avenue, but it’s now spread out on a much wider footprint. The facade of the original 1939 building has been uncovered/restored and at least one of its interior spaces is still recognizable in the S-curve of a stair landing and its black terrazzo staircase. The old main entrance however, with its curved stainless steel marquee, will now serve an elegant restaurant, “The Modern,” and not happy pilgrims entering New York’s oldest major shrine to modernism.
the 1939 entrance, soon to be a restaurant
There are lots of neat lines (all of them very crisp indeed) including a few very good sightlines. But no, contrary to the hype, neither the lines nor the idea of the architecture itself really disappears, even in those rooms where the art is hung comfortably cheek by jowl.
That architecture looks, well, old-fashioned. Eeegads!
Why do we have to spend half a billion dollars to construct a new building which nobody is supposed to notice? Why should it cost $425,000,000 in order to seem not of our own time, not too contemporary, just because we need more room to display more modern art, some of which as I understand it, is still supposed to be contemporary art, art of our own time? Actually, maybe the trustees wanted to build something which could be identified with the chronological mid-point of the collection as it now exists, the art and architecture of the “median era,” but if that is the case, why not acquire a real mid-twentieth-century building and refit its interior to display the magnificent collection of the Modern in a context with real integrity?
This evening Barry recalled the extraordinary success of the conversions for modern museum spaces we had seen in Vienna. We have the equivalent of the Austrian Imperial stables right here; there are buildings all over New York begging to be brought back to life. I’m afraid this new architectural mediocrity, no matter how much its details are described as exquisite, will turn out to be at least a little embarassing for a city which used to know how to do these things so well.
The building we got is awfully Park Avenue – 50’s and 60’s Park Avenue – and so it is without the integrity which is the minimum which we should expect of a building which reflects its own time. I went to the new MoMA today after reading the previews written by those who are supposed to have the educated and aesthetic judgement which can critique as complicated a project as that just completed in Midtown. I told a number of people that I expected to be delighted, okay, at least clearly pleased, even if I did not expect to be overwhelmed.
But after experiencing the architecture first hand, doing for the Museum what it is supposed to do, I simply don’t have any strong feelings at all. I’m not used to being without any aesthetic sentiments, perhaps most of all when it comes to architecture, so I’m not certain, but right now I think I’m just indifferent to this building.
I really don’t know what to say. I feel post-coital without ever having enjoyed a coital.
my own little protest buttons went virtually unnoticed, except by one of the caterers, who agreed with their message enthusiastically and spoke movingly of the burden the price presented for “working class” families
If I’m indifferent about the building at the moment, I’m left with one at least one strong impression, even if it’s one which I brought with me when I left for the Museum today. The $20 admission fee is appalling, if not just plain immoral. All of the arguments about the price have been raised better and more dramatically elsewhere than I can here, but the fact remains that the exclusivity represented by the decision to raise the fee to a level which makes regular access to modern art almost inaccessible to just about anyone not already more or less in the club is simply unconscionable.
In the end I did leave with one negative impression I hadn’t brought into the building with me, and I don’t think it’s a criticism which should shake the Olympians in the trustees room. In fact, accomodating it would please just about everyone: There just aren’t enough benches in the middle of those huge rooms. If it’s worth looking at, it’s worth looking at for a while, and that sometimes means sitting with it for a bit, especially after spending that twenty dollars.
On the sixth floor only the James Rosenquist gets to rest
But go look for yourself, and when you’ve saved up some more money, go back again. It’s a clean, well-lighted space. They haven’t wrecked the art; in fact most of it looks better than ever, so some people will be happy enough. I’ll be back too, especially since Members don’t pay per visit, but yesterday’s experience mostly makes me just want to go back to visiting the often-struggling little private and public gallery spaces I’ve been haunting all along. I hope to see you there too.