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Archive for the ‘Wanderings’ category

Windward Sculpture on 3rd Avenue and 42nd Street

May 10, 2008

Okay, I admit it. I spend too much time looking up at one of my favorite buildings in all of NYC. And let’s fact it, the Chrysler Building is on everybody’s short list of favorite buildings in NYC.

Maybe that’s why I have walked by a 1961 sculpture by Jan Peter Stern called “Windward” about a bazillion times without noticing it. It’s only about a block away.

Or, maybe it’s because they have it tucked away in a little corner.

Or, maybe it’s because it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the word “windward” at all. To me, it’s just another bit of artistic flotsom from the 1960s.

But if you want to see it, it’s on the southeast corner of the intersection.

-H

Categories: Manhattan, Mid-town, Wanderings

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Canyon of Heroes

May 9, 2008

The start of Broadway is downtown in the Financial District. And just after Broadway starts, you run into the fabled Canyon of Heroes. This is where the ticker tape parades are held. Well, there’s no more ticker tape but I think they do a simulated version of it when they have those rare parades.

The picture above is from the north looking southward.

All along the sidewalk are these inserts. They hold a date, a name, and a description. First, November 2, 1960 when President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon were apparently featured in such a ticker tape parade.

But, you object, 1960 was a presidential election year! Was there some sort of Republican lock on such parades. Nope, just past it is the October 19, 1960 marker for the Democratic presidential nominee, John F. Kennedy. (I guess V.P. Nixon had to share his parade with the sitting president while JFK got his own. But then, Nixon’s was closer to election day.)

Well, those are pretty prestigious individuals. It takes a lot to get a ticker tape. Well, maybe nowadays. Back on November 4, 1959, they held a ticker tape parade for Sekou Toure, the brand new president of Guinea. He was about 37 at the time and had set up a one-party system to lead Guinea after freeing it from French colonial rule. Nowadays, NYC gets a passle of presidents from other countries and I don’t see any parades for them.

Heck, you didn’t even have to be a president. Willy Brandt was the mayor of West Berlin when he got his parade on February 10, 1959. Of course, he later went on to lead West Germany so maybe it was just in anticipation…

-H

Categories: Broadway, Celebrity Points, Events, Parades, Wanderings

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The First Electric Plant in NYC

May 7, 2008

I’m a sucker for historical plaques. In downtown Manhattan, I ran across this one at 40 Fulton Street.

It reads “In a building on this site an electric plant supplying the first Edison underground central station system in this country and forming the origin of New York’s present electrical system began operation on September 4, 1882 according to plans conceived and executed by Thomas Alva Edison. To commemorate an epoch-making event this tablet is erected by the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. The New York Edison Company.”

Reading it, I am a bit confused. A strict reading indicates that it wasn’t the first electricity generating plant. Not even the first one done by Edison. But it was the first one that supplied the “underground central station system”. And that system is what the rest of NY’s electrical system ended up based upon.

It sure doesn’t look like a site of a former power plant, does it. It’s pretty tall and I couldn’t tell what its current use is, but it looks like condos or apartments.

-H

Categories: Manhattan, Wanderings

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NYC Interview 002

May 6, 2008

Hey folks. It’s my second interview of an unsuspecting NYC resident. Like I said in my last one: “there are eight million stories” and this is my attempt to give out a few of them. Today’s story, or what I have of a story, is from Frances Woodruff, a long-term resident of the Lower East Side.

Frances is originally from Spartenburg, South Carolina. She’s been here for years and is feeling the push of the continuing real estate boom here. It’s not as bad as it was, but she’s feeling the pressure of the higher cost to stay in the City and is starting to think about moving out. Those costs are her absolute least favorite part of living here.

Nevertheless, she loves the options that living in the City provide to her and to all of us. Like me, she’s particularly enamoured by Union Square and is there often (I ran into her at Tompkins Square Park right across from the dog run). But she was quick to point out that the Time Warner Building is the can’t-miss part of NYC that she would recommend everyone see.

In terms of her Three Favorite Facts About NYC, Frances chose:

g. The Apollo Theater’s amateur night shows are great. Bring back the hook!
q. Battery Park has no relation to Everready or Duracell. The Energizer Bunny’s been spotted in the area, though.
z. Good BBQ in NYC? Dream on.

Frances, thanks for being a great interview.

-H

Categories: Manhattan, Three Favorite Facts About NYC, Wanderings

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Fulton Street Undergoing Repairs

May 5, 2008

Fulton Street is in the Financial District of NYC and is undergoing extensive repairs. The street extends east-west from Seaport area in the east to the World Trade Center area and PATH train station in the west.

I love seeing what’s under the streets in NYC.

This is just the first few feet down, of course. The subway lies well under this and, I think, parts of the water system.

It is a fair hodge-podge of pipes and wires and forms and the like. NYC’s been putting stuff down there for a very long time (as least by USA standards) and I imagine there are a number of surprises found on a regular basis.

Of course, the next picture shows it so crowded below ground that you wonder how anything can be done without shutting down half of downtown every time they need to do a little digging.

The big grating shown below is, I believe, part of the subway system that lies just below the street. One thing about Fulton Street is how many entrances it has to the subway. It is a major hub because all of the lines are converging into the narrower parts of southern Manhattan before the lines end (such as the 1 line) or they cut over to Brooklyn.

A bit more than halfway across the island, and just before Broadway, the construction ends.

-H

Categories: Manhattan, Wanderings

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