simple is beautiful
New York Daily Photo: No Local Color
2 ... 2 ...

Tuesday 13 November 2007

No Local Color

What can be said about this obscure little private, one block alley which lies between Duane and Thomas Streets, parallel to Church Street and Broadway in lower Manhattan? Not much at all. Would I recommend visiting it? - no, not unless, like myself, you like to visit alleys. Are there any interesting tidbits or stories? - none that I could find. Trimble Place is very uninteresting, drab, with no outstanding features or businesses, very little history other than it was named in 1874 for George Trimble, a 19th century merchant, director of New York Hospital and an officer of the Public School Society. The most interesting things about the alley are the buildings that surround it like the controversial 52 story residential tower next door and the bizarre 550 foot, monolithic, windowless AT&T Long Lines Building at 33 Thomas Street. There are actually many small alleys like this in lower Manhattan - Mosco Street, Florence Place, Benson Street, Ryders Alley, Mill Lane, Mechanics Alley and Jersey Street - click here. And in the Village there are several which are residential and much more bucolic and historic in nature such as Grove Court, MacDougal Alley and Washington Mews. Unlike most of Manhattan, the mayhem of small streets and alleys in downtown owes to their establishment prior to the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 which established an orthogonal grid north of 14th Street. I find the very TRULY nondescript interesting just for that reason - it's not easy being that featureless. Like the tract housing of Levittown NY or luggage areas at the airport. But there is always hope that Trimble Place may have its day. Look at what happened to Seinfeld, a show reputedly about nothing ...

0 comments:

Post a Comment