very simple

beautiful Art Deco revolving door entrance at the post office in the federal building at 90 Church Street.

From Wikipedia:

90 Church Street was designed by Cross & Cross, Pennington, Lewis & Mills and Louis A. Simon, who was Supervising Architect of the Department of the Treasury at the time. The architectural style of the building is a mixture of Neo-classicism and Art Deco…

The building was completed in 1935, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

But this is the really important part:

The building suffered moderate damage during the September 11 attacks due to a remnant of one of the planes and other debris landing on top of the building. Following the collapse of the World Trade Centers Twin Towers, the building’s facade was damaged, windows were broken, and major water damage occurred. It was also extensively contaminated with asbestos, lead dust, fungi, fiberglass dust, mercury, and bacteria…During recovery efforts at Ground Zero, the United Stated Postal Service worked to return individual pieces of mail found by rescue workers to the addressees…

Just a reminder that despite the vilification of our entire government workforce on a regular basis, your mail still shows up like clockwork.

(That may have gotten a little rantier than I intended when I started!)

Because I got my new camera during this period, I was taking more “real” pictures, so pure instagram posts were a little sparser. but Sadie the cat is ever present, as are some travel-related pics and some minor clues as to my political leanings.

Guarding his domain – the main branch of the New York Public Library, along with his (not pictured) eternal companion, Patience.

For more information, visit the NYPL page about the lions. Or visit the library!

Work busy-ness and a small obsession with the political conventions (yes, #imwithher) has caused me to fall a bit behind in posting pics. I’m still working my way through stuff taken in June.

This is the cafe directly across from grand central terminal on 42nd street. Incredibly convenient when you need to meet someone for coffee before they have to catch a train somewhere. And, of course, a fantastic sign.

I worked in this building for six years, until, well, all of that stuff happened, and any time I would have to explain where I worked to someone, I would distinguish it from all of the other monolithic grey towers on sixth avenue by describing it as “the one with all the giant headless green statues in front”. Everyone always immediately knew what I was talking about after that.

In actuality, the statues are a piece of art titled “Looking Towards the Avenue” by artist Jim Dine.

NY Times article from after their installation
waymarking post with additional information

I used to work across from this building, and prior to its renovation/takeover by a different corporate owner, the lobby was home/host to a great masterwork of American art, America Today by Thomas Hart Benton. That mural has been donated to the Met, where you now have* to pay extortionate entrance fees to see it.

As a replacement, the public gets to see this bland, anodyne piece of corporate nothingness.

*the Met is a public institution and as such has “suggested” entrance fees, so some people get bold and only pay a penny. Most people do not realize that you can actually do this and take the prices at face value. There was actually a lawsuit over how they worded their signs and “enforced” payment – which the Met lost.

taken last month. I can almost never pass by radio city music hall and not take a picture of its signage – to me, this is some of the best in the city. The pinnacle of what beautiful, character-filled, decorative signage can be. The robber barons did a lot of terrible things, but at least they left a few scraps for the masses to enjoy.

Last night, a friend had a party on her roof in Brooklyn, and the sunset was one for the ages – it was one of those nights that started getting documented on social media all over the place. I decided to take a little time with the real camera. And by time, I mean a whole 12 hours. This is going to be one of those “all the pictures are basically of the same thing” posts, but you’ll have to forgive/indulge me on this one. The sunset, combined with my slight water tower obsession, makes it somewhat impossible to limit myself any further. Just be glad that I whittled it down to this from the 80 or so that I started with. The second five, which are panoramas, are basically the progression of the sunset from earliest to latest in the evening.

Glass curtain buildings are boring and have no particularly redeeming architectural value from the outside*, save for one thing – their ability to reflect other things that are more beautiful.

* the relatively bright, column-less spaces can be nice to work in, given modern construction techniques, unless someone gets the bright idea for an open office plan.

public art in union square. From The NYC Parks Department description:

Lionel Smit,MORPHOUS
June 13, 2016 to April 30, 2017
Union Square Park, Manhattan

Description:
MORPHOUS is an exploration of hybrid identity and its ever-changing nature within South Africa’s social landscape. This bronze sculpture, featuring the conjoined heads of two outward-gazing young women, evokes the question of time, of past and future, and a societal commentary without judgment. The “double-vision” portrayed in this work is simultaneously a foretelling of things to come and an acknowledgement of what has already passed. The figures are charged with an emotive and gestural energy, a hallmark of Smit’s evocative work. The spontaneous gestures in his three dimensional figural forms animate the beauty and grace of the faces he sees in the neighborhoods around his studio. The scale of his work invokes both a sense of celebration and power.

This is the South African artist’s first public art installation in the United States, and will be complemented by an exhibition of his work at CYNTHIA-REEVES’ gallery in North Adams, MA in July and August 2016. This exhibition is presented by CYNTHIA-REEVES , Union Square Partnership , and Art New York/Art Miami .