The End

I spent much too much of the last day of the regular season creeping along the Hutchinson River Parkway toward the mysteriously jammed up toll plaza at the Whitestone Bridge. St. Raymond's Cemetery was on my left as I toggled between two baseball games, each meaningless in itself: the Red Sox-Orioles (Birds won) and the Yankees-Astros (Yanks won).

The real action came in the out-of-town scoreboard updates from Toronto, Minneapolis, and Arlington, TX, as the AL Wild Card race resolved itself.  First, Cleveland beat the Twins 5-1, locking down one of the two Wild Card slots. This put pressure on the Rays and Rangers to win to have a chance at the other slot. The Rays jumped out 6-0 on the Blue Jays. But the Jays fought back, closing to within one run before the Rays finally nailed it down in the bottom of the ninth. That left Texas to come back from an early one-run deficit to beat the As 6-2. That forces a one-game playoff to see who will take on the Indians in the regular one-game Wild Card game. Whoever wins that game faces the Sox at Fenway on Friday. Got it? 

The Lower Decks

Midday closure of the upper deck of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Traffic slows to a crawl. A helicopter hovers. I associate it with the U.N. General Assembly and Obama being in town, anti-terrorism and all that. Why didn't it occur to me that there was a jumper on the deck above? Successfully talked down from the ledge. (Another one hadn't been earlier in the week, I find out subsequently.)

While waiting to merge into the two lanes moving across the span, I snapped this shot. The blue outline reminded me of Florida. Was it meant to call attention to the fraying concrete or a more significant problem below?

Joy Comes in the Morning

As I walked out this morning, something sitting on the low wall that lines a ramp of the building across the street. Joy of Cooking. Icon of 70s America. Recognizable from thirty paces, even to a non-cook. Closer inspection reveals it's a bit waterlogged. Left out in the rain? (There was no rain last night.) Dropped in the bath? Or the broth?

Moments later. An older gentleman has it in hand. Bon appetit!

Legging It

From The Nurse and the Hijackers (1977)

Multiple Occupancy: Eleanor Antin's "Selves" is at the Wallach Gallery at Columbia University. Reader, if you are a fan of Florence Nightingale, life-size cardboard cut-outs, nurses, paper dolls, makeup, ballet, soap operas, 1970s sky-jackings, or any combination of the above, you must attend. Here is the artist as the King of Solana Beach, a project from 1974. Walking amongst his (sic) subjects.

Solana Beach is a small kingdom but a natural kingdom for no kingdom should extend any further than its king can comfortably walk on any given day. My kingdom is the right size for my short legs.

See more from the series here (oddly) on this Washington University in St. Louis site.

Bumper to Bumper

Woodside Avenue, Elmhurst.

New York with the Works

Another large rectangular volume with a cryptic title. Here is Peter Spaan's first book, published in 1983, a few years before New York from the Yards. In that book, the photographs were all taken from the subway yards of the upper Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. This time the focus is squarely on Manhattan.

The photographs in the book are silkscreened. Some are relatively "straight," black-and-white shots of buildings. Others are rendered as collages, like the fold-out below, which I photographed on a table in the NYPL's photography collection. (Nice people.)

Samples of Spaans' handwritten notes adorn the gray endboards. Typed versions appear inside, and an English translation is included as an insert. Here is just one sample sequence (spelling as in original):

919.  this evening went on painting.
926.  found $20! - today.
977.  thousands of people arrested at the sit-inns. all this happened at the u.n. delegations. 3,000    policemen were sent to stop the fence-full demonstrators.
656.  it was such a piercing scream.
666.  via avenue of the americas walking downtown, partly west broadway to the warren street, directly on the corner is the cafe "raccoon lodge".
693.  sloans is closed today.

I asked Peter what the numbers signified (I thought they might notes referencing exposures to his photographs). His reply:
I just numbered my thoughts at the moment. In the book, Works of a City, you will find only a few of the notations.... The notations did not relate to specific photographs, at least not at the time. Words are words and photographs photographs. I mean by that I try not to illustrate my words with photographs, or translate my photographs into words. They are next to each other.

Next to each other is good.

Your Aluminaire Here

Photo courtesy Architect's Newspaper Blog

The proposal to move the Aluminaire House to Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, as the centerpiece for a new apartment building for the landmarked district, is pretty far-fetched. Although not for the reason councilman Jimmy van Bramer (quoted in today's Times) gives: "How can a house that in some ways resembles a spaceship be plopped down in the middle of this neighborhood?" That's what spaceships do, Jimmy, they plop down.

Still, I'd like to propose a more welcoming spot for the 1931 beauty, designed by Albert Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher to introduce Americans to Le Corbusier's methods of prefabrication. It's threatened with destruction in its current site in Huntington, NY, so a move is definitely of the moment.

Why not install it here, on the Bald Spot of Maspeth, overlooking the BQE-Long Island Expressway interchange? Think of how beautiful it will be--maybe with a little landscaping--gleaming in the sun for tens of thousands of drivers each day. It might even necessitate a mandatory sunglasses law. Once a pedestrian bridge is constructed, visitors will take in the America the Aluminaire House and it's near contemporary, the BQE (c. 1936), presaged.