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The 14th Street Salvation Army Headquarters

November 16, 2007

Nowadays, Manhattan is wealthy and nicely appointed. Union Square and 14th Street are nice and fashionable areas for the most part. But only a few years ago they were horrid areas filled with wasted and wasting people.

But the Salvation Army was there for them. The Army still has its headquarters on the spot. It’s about 11 stories high and takes up a big chunk of the block near Fifth Avenue.

At the front is a large entryway (not shown above) with a long quote from their founder General William Booth.

“While women weep, as they do now,
I’ll fight;
While men go to prison, in and out,
In and out, as they do now,
I’ll fight;
While there is a drunkard left,
While there is a poor lost girl
Upon the streets,
While there remains one dark soul,
Without the light of God,
I’ll fight —
I’ll fight to the very end!”

Okay, now that I wrote it, I might as well show the picture.

I’ve seen the place a bunch of times before. I think extremely highly of the Salvation Army and I thank God that there are people there to reach down to areas of humanity that I’d have a tough time dealing with and treat them with compassion and love.

I met a few of the “soldiers” or whatever they call themselves as they were loading into a van. One of them thought she recognized me. She said “I know you.” She looked pretty intently at me, as if she’d worked with me on occasion. I’ve had some times in my life, but I’ve never had the need of the Salvation Army so I just smiled and said that I didn’t think so. She then said that she thought I looked like one of her colleagues, but I think she was just embarrassed.

I did tell them that I admired them for their work and their dedication and that people really needed what they did. I think they appreciated that.

-H

Categories: Manhattan, Union Square, Wanderings

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Gertrude Stein at Bryant Park

November 2, 2007

I love Bryant Park. It’s small and flat with a perimeter of trees and seating and a center area that’s typically grass (when it isn’t an ice rink or Fashion Week temporary buildings).

And it has one of the strangest statues around. Not strange in the sense of modern art sculpture or anything. It’s a lifelike (at least I think so) depiction of writer Gertrude Stein (1874 to 1946).

Appropriately for a writer (or do I mean “properly” or “advantageously”?) her statue is right behind the New York Public Library.

-H

Categories: Manhattan, Mid-town, Wanderings

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Setting fire to the sidewalks

November 1, 2007

I was wandering home from Church and saw a sight I’ve never seen before. Take a look.

Take a somewhat closer look.

A nice high-intensity flame is being put to the sidewalk. It took me a while to figure it out.

No, he’s not the world’s least successful arsonist. At first, I thought he was the ultimate gum removal guy, but he was working on the edge of the sidewalk, not a normal gum-placement spot. Nor is he testing for possible sidewalk flamability. Hey, in NYC we have had dogs electrocuted while walking on the streets (faulty underground wiring), so you can never know.

Here’s the key:

If you look to the right and to the left of the torch, you’ll see different edges. Apparently this is the finishing process for the curb. At this point in the sidewalk (at a corner) the city has installed a nice granite instead of the usual concrete. I don’t know if this edge is being refurbished or whether it is new and the guy is just doing the last of the polishing. I noticed that there was a white substance all over the rest of the granite portion of the sidewalk which would indicate that he’d been a busy guy all morning. Maybe this is a just a periodic cleaning process, and the guy had already done all of the gum on the top. Hey, there’s way too many gum remains on the sidewalks (they almost always show up as dark spots on the sidewalk).

Just an interesting, but extremely minor event.

-H

Categories: Manhattan, Mid-town, Wanderings

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Trump Place Part 2

October 30, 2007

Back to my talking about my old home grounds in the Upper West Side.

I really loved living at Trump Place. I stared out onto the Hudson River virtually every day. And this is from a guy who never opens his curtains nowadays. I don’t have the need for natural light that virtually everybody else has. But, when at Trump Place: I opened those curtains real wide!

There were a variety of things I would watch from my old place: the Hudson, New Jersey, the pier, and an old wreck of a loading contraption.

All three are still there.

The Hudson:

Yeah, there was a little marina just north of where I lived.

New Jersey:

The pier:

And the “loading contraption”:

That’s the pier behind it, of course. The whole area here had been piers and an old trainyard before Trump bought it and started the development. There are a variety of this sort of ruin up and down the riverfront, but this is the coolest looking of any I ever saw. And I had a perfect view from my place.

When I decided to move from Trump (they raised the rent and I was hankering for my own place), I did look at a place behind Trump Place. I was talking with one of the co-op/condo owners and started to hear a lot of vitriol against “The Donald” for having ruined their view by putting up the tall buildings where they before had only traintracks to look across before seeing the river. I have to admit I didn’t feel too much sympathy. They had made use of someone elses’ property and wanted to deny the owner the right to develop.

And, incidentally, my understanding is that “The Donald” was only one participant in a very large group of others. He did get to stick his name on it to enhance its salability, though.

-H

Categories: Manhattan, Upper West Side, Wanderings

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Trump Place Part 1

October 29, 2007

Trump Place an enormous rental/condo set of building on the Hudson River named after…Donald Trump. I guess that most of the people who have heard of it are aware of it because it is associated in some way with his show “The Apprentice”. I’ve never seen the show but I heard it was associated with Trump Place in some way.

And I used to live there.

I’ve never met “The Donald”, nor ever even seen him. I know very little about him other than what you get from the media and his omnipresence there. Except one thing…

He’s a good landlord.

Trump Place is located at 69th and the Hudson River. Not quite right: the West Side Highway is between the buildings and the river, but the highway is elevated so there’s easy access to the river. The complex is enormous and goes a lot further north-south than 69th Street, but that’s where I was. 180 Riverside Blvd. Not “Riverside Drive” mind you: Boulevard.

There are a series of buildings in the complex. Here’s a shot of them. Actually, it takes more than two shots to get it all.

It goes on a little further, but they’re still building down there.

You’ll notice one building appears in both photos. That’s my old place. I had the distinct pleasure of having a river view from the 17th floor. Spectacular.

From what I understand, he didn’t own the buildings but did serve as the public face of the group doing the construction.

As a tenant, I wanted for very little. This was a full-service kind of place. The rents were pretty hefty when I rented, but on par with other places in the city I looked at (sub-$3,000 per month including lease incentives). The staff was incredible. Absolutely incredible. If Donald is a proud man, that’s what he should be proud of: he hired some really good people.

We’re talking doormen, concierges, porters (cleaning crew), security, and maintenance people. Wonderful.

The concierges were the key. They knew everybody’s name. They knew the kids’ names. They knew the dogs’ names. They knew the birthdays. Honest, well-spoken, friendly, and informative. The doormen and maintenance people I now have are very good, but I can’t compare them to the Trump people; it wouldn’t be fair. (Okay, a couple of them are really good, but they don’t have the name-thing down.)

I never opened the door myself. I would be greeted by name in all but the crazyist times.

They’d replace my lightbulbs for me (very high ceilings). And they’d bring their own lightbulbs.

Everytime a food delivery was made, a security person would accompany the delivery. And stand well back during the delivery so there wasn’t a question of handing out two tips. Little things like that count for a lot.

The laundry was open 24/7 with lots of washers and dryers. Like I said…it’s the little things.

I’ve been planning to write a post with minimal pictures. I didn’t know it would be this one. I’ve wanted to write this sort-of-paean to Trump Place ever since I heard a Chicagoan say some less than favorable statements about Donald. I kicked myself for not chiming in “hey, he’s a great landlord”.

There was only one time that I had any problems: when I left. It took me months to get my deposit back, but Trump Place was sold during the time that I was leaving so I didn’t really resent the confusion that was going on. And all the staff were always top notch, even the ones who were having a hard time tracking down my money. Like I said, Donald hires good people.

Oh yeah, one day I ran into a woman whom I think was either Miss USA or Miss Universe. That’s a nice perk of living in such a place.

-H

Categories: Celebrity Points, Manhattan, Upper West Side, Wanderings

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