Wax

I have previously voiced my feelings concerning those things which may be viewed by many as too touristy and that in many cases, such as the Empire State building, offer much of value and warrant a visit. However, in the case of Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, I am guilty of not following my own advice and have never visited. In my defense, wax museums in the United States do have a poor reputation and it is not so unreasonable to avoid them. And of course there is also the issue of artistic snobbery - that something merely representational is not worthy of serious consideration, even if it has been done with meticulous accuracy and the results are astonishingly real. This wax figure of Samuel Jackson was on 42nd Street outside the museum - a lure to get passersby to go in. It certainly was remarkably lifelike. In reading about these figures and the work, I was impressed at the level of artisanship and the story of Madame Tussaud was equally fascinating.
Marie Tussaud (1761 - 1850) was born Marie Grosholtz in Strasbourg, France. She learned her craft from Dr. Philippe Curtius, a physician who was skilled in wax modelling, which he used to illustrate anatomy. Marie lived for a time at Versailles. Suspected of possible royalist sympathies, she was actually in prison awaiting execution with her head shaved. She was saved by her sculpting talents and employed to make death masks of those executed by guillotine, including Marie Antoinette, Marat, and Robespierre. A traveling showman (with the collection of wax figures left to her by Curtius) she finally settled in London and had her first permanent exhibition on Baker Street in 1835. Read the history here at the Tussaud Museum website.
The New York incarnation of the famed London museum occupies a five story building in the Times Square area on the exact site of Hubert's Dime Museum and Heckler's Trained Flea Circus (another amazing story). The roster of wax figures reads like a who's who in themed environments. The figures are created at substantial cost and time - taking months for creation. Celebrities and notables typically pose for a few hours - likenesses are then created from hundreds of intricate measurements along with photographs. Faces are made from 30-piece plaster molds; hair is inserted strand by strand. I think it's worth a visit ...

Big Boom Theory

Having been in manufacturing most of my life and dealing with hundreds of trade suppliers, I can assure you of one thing. If you want to get things done without losing your mind, you had better know what things are called. And as the world becomes more specialized, this applies to most things - medicine, food, technology or stationery. If you walk into a real lumber yard in NYC, look right and call things by the popular, proper colloquial name used in the trade, you will garner respect and perhaps get decent service. Otherwise you will be seen as the typical do-it-your-selfer, even a nuisance. Depending on the mood of the salesperson, you will be given the simplest thing to get you out of the store and not necessarily the best or correct item for the job. This is not to mention the difficulty in attempting to get what you want by using a combination of sketches, descriptions, hand gestures and other sad, inaccurate and ineffective ways of trying to communicate your needs. It's like being a contractor in France and not speaking the language.
Today's photo shows how drywall (or sheetrock) is delivered to a highrise building through a window opening (windows are frequently removed) by using a drywall boom truck (other variations of articulated lifts and their names include: cherry pickers, bucket trucks, boom lifts, basket cranes, scissor lifts, etc.). This method of delivery is a huge improvement over unloading sheets from a truck by hand a few at a time, carrying them into a freight elevator and then off into the job site.
So, perhaps your exercise machine is broken and you need a Delrin wire rope pulley with plain bronze bearings. Or you're assembling a piece of furniture, a screw is missing and what you actually need is a flange button, socket cap screw with hex drive in plain steel with a black oxide finish - oh, and you'll need to know the size and pitch (such as 1/4-20). Of course one solution is a sample - if you have one and can carry it - but if you want to rent a boom truck, it's just best to know what it's called ...

Photo Note: Location was a new residential condo development at 151 Wooster Street in SoHo.

ICP

In yesterday's post, I featured the controversial W.R. Grace Building. Equally criticized is the rather stark Grace Plaza at the rear of the building with an entrance at 1114 Avenue of the Americas. It is here, that in 1974, ICP (International School of Photography) expanded their school, creating a minicampus beneath the plaza. The glass pavilion in the photo (designed by the firm Gensler) serves as the school's entrance - it houses a small gallery, stairway (and lift) to the underground facility. The 27,000 square foot space features classrooms, black-and-white and color lab spaces; digital labs with resources for multimedia, digital photography, video editing and production; professional shooting studio, a library, student lounge, and exhibition gallery. ICP serves more than 5,000 students each year, offering 400 courses in a curriculum that ranges from darkroom classes to certificate and master's degree programs. The school has a continuing education program - this is popular for individuals who want to obtain quality instruction in photography without having to matriculate in a full-time university program.
ICP was founded in 1974 by Cornell Capa (brother of acclaimed war photographer Robert Capa) in the historic Willard Straight House on Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile. In 1999, the headquarters building at 1130 Fifth Avenue was sold. They move to 1133 Avenue of the Americas (across from the school) with 17,000 square feet of gallery space (designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects), archives of more than 100,000 photos, a store and cafe. Many feel that the small glass pavilion has done much for the bleak plaza - it certainly provides a much needed focal point ...

Travesty in Travertine

No Fall from Grace, Thickens and Sickens and Travesty in Travertine were all competing titles for this story. The W.R. Grace Building at w 42nd street, was commissioned by the W.R. Grace Corporation, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and completed in 1971 (the resemblance to the Solow Building at 9 West 57th St. is no coincidence - the initial, rejected design for the facade of that building was used by Bunshaft for the Grace Building). A casual perusal of Internet sources will give relatively neutral to positive reviews of this building. Wikipedia's entry is perfunctory. 50 stories with signature curved sloping bases (the same on 43rd Street) - click here for photo. Exterior in white travertine.
But if you dig further, you will find many architects HATE this building. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger said: "The Grace Building's front - I call it swooping, others call it a ski-jump - is an arrogant, exhibitionistic form that breaks the line of building-fronts that is important to any New York City Street ... Mr. Bunshaft, it would seem, cares nothing about Bryant Park or about anything except the shape of his own building, which from the northwest, at the corner of 43rd Street and Sixth Avenue, looks like nothing so much as an immense piece of furniture squeezed awkwardly into the wrong place. At that corner, as a zoning bonus permitting extra height, is one of the coldest and most unwelcoming plazas any architect has created anywhere." The AIA Guide to NYC calls it "a disgrace to the street."
But the plot thickens and sickens. W.R. Grace and Company was founded by William Russell Grace (1832-1904) in 1854 in Peru - he had left Ireland due to the Potato Famine. He moved to NYC in 1865. He was also the city's first Roman Catholic Mayor, serving two terms - 1880-1888. Initially the company was in fertilizer and machinery. Later there were acquisitions of chemical companies and here the problems started.
It was found that in the 1970s the W. R. Grace Company had improperly disposed of trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent, which entered the groundwater of Woburn, Mass, causing six deaths from leukemia and numerous illnesses in the town's families. They were indicted in 1987. However, this is only the start - Grace was also plagued with asbestos injury claims and lawsuits as a result of vermiculite mining in Libby, Montana (the vermiculite was found to contain asbestos). In 2001, they filed for bankruptcy protection. The U.S. Department of Justice determined that Grace had transferred 4-5 billion dollars to spin-off companies it had purchased just before declaring bankruptcy (the bankruptcy court ordered the various companies to return nearly $1 billion to Grace). This story has been the subject of TV, PBS and NPR specials and even a film (A Civil Action, starring John Travolta).
The company, now located in Maryland, no longer has offices in the Grace Building. W.R. Grace is still in business, is traded on the NY Stock Exchange and has a valuation of $1.5 billion. So far, there's been grace for Grace ...

Disruption

One of the biggest frustrations of daily commuters or frequent users of the New York Subway System is what feels like the constant disruption in services. Skipping stops, delays, rerouting, stalled trains and variations. Unlike other cities, New Yorkers really depend on the transit system. For most, there is no other transportation option - few New Yorkers own a car and travel by car during the business day (with parking costs) is really not feasible.
I had the opportunity to ask the question "Why?" to two acquaintances - one working for the MTA, and the other a retired engineer who had been in management. What I was told makes sense, albeit not satisfying to those who bear the brunt of disruption. Here's what they said. The primary problem is that the NYC transit system, unlike others, runs 24/7. Hence, repairs and maintenance must be made while the system is operating, not to mention in narrow, tight confined spaces. There is no parallel system which can be used during repairs. Add to this that 1) The system is extremely old and everything about it is antiquated. 2) It is one of the largest systems in the world with hundreds of miles of track. 3) It is one of the most heavily used systems in the world with over 5 million passengers on a work day. 4) Most subway lines are operating at or near maximum capacity. 5) During various periods (1970s-80s), when the city was less prosperous, the system was seriously neglected - so now we have to play catchup. 6) It is a public entity with all the bureaucratic inefficiency and inertia. There is a tendency to do things the same old way.
With such a massive around-the-clock system, every effort at overhaul or service becomes a big ordeal. My bet (not my wish) is that disruption is here to stay ...

Photo note: I took this photo at the 7th Avenue stop on the F line in Brooklyn. I thought it would show evidence that work really is being done. I imagine, however, that it could be a decoy, driven and parked throughout the system to make it appear that work is being done :)

American Radiator

Many young people hated history class in my High School days - all the memorizing of facts. Even if your memory was quite good, why waste it leaning about things and events long gone, most with no remaining vestiges whatsoever? And things that seemingly had no relevance to our young lives. Growing up in a blue-collar factory town, there wasn't much history to pique a young person's interest anyway. Oh, I had plenty of interests - math, rocketry, German language, chess, origami, Africa, adventure, music, books (and girls). I belonged to plenty of clubs. But history was not part of the agenda at all. Things started to change when I started traveling to Europe and when I moved to NYC. Here, history is alive and well - it's with us everyday, every where you walk or look. To fully understand a building or place, one has to know the history and it's not long before one wants to know the history and likes history. Soon, your watching the History Channel (I wish my history teacher was alive to witness the success of this network).
Today's photo is a great illustration of all this. The American Radiator Building, now the American Standard Building, was
designed by architects Raymond Hood and John Howells and built in 1924 for the American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Company. It is based on the Chicago Tribune building. The building is located at 40 w. 40th Street, on a block with many brownstones and Renaissance club facades from the turn of the century. It is on the south side of Bryant Park, thus affording unobstructed views of it from some distance. The stark contrast in colors is a distinguishing characteristic and a remarkable sight, well known to city dwellers who frequent the area. The brick is black - Hood wanted the appearance of a large mass, unbroken by dark windows in a building typically constructed using lighter colored stone. The building is topped with Gothic style pinnacles and terra-cotta friezes covered in gold. The design was to recall the furnaces of the time with their black iron and glowing embers. Another important feature of this building is that it is set back from the lot line - unattached on all four sides. This freestanding construction permits architectural treatment all around and allows more natural light into the interior. The base is black granite with bronze plating; the lobby black marble. The building is landmarked and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1998 it was sold and later converted to the Bryant Park Hotel. When you are in the neighborhood, make sure to take a look. This history serves us well, does it not?

Big Deal

Everything is a big deal in New York - big things and little things. Whether it's the tree at Rock Center or doing laundry. But with the enormous, virtually unimaginable plethora of services, isn't everything supposed to be more convenient? Well, yes and no. Only if you have the stomach for it. Because to live well and for your life to run smoothly here, everything requires navigation, negotiation, inside knowledge, strategy, stamina, persistence, attitude, contacts, resourcefulness and a slightly masochistic streak (and yes, money doesn't hurt). Plus, you have want all that the city has to offer - it has to be worth it. Things we consider easy are only easy by New York standards. And if something truly easy actually occurs, then call CNN because this is a Really Big Deal and merits celebration, conversation and is newsworthy. Like a parking spot right in front of your apartment building when you need it.
What does all of this have to do with ice skating? I think you know by now. There are only a few places in Manhattan where you can ice skate and of course they are all a big deal - Rockefeller Center, Central Park and this seasonal ice skating pond in Bryant Park (nice website here). When I arrived, the ice cleaning machine was just finishing up and the kids were chomping on the bit to get on that ice. The New York City skyline and Bryant Park itself make a beautiful backdrop for the urban ice skating experience.
NYC is a revolving door and those who can't keep up just get spit back out. I remember a woman who was a very aggressive, successful salesperson in the printing business from the south who relocated to the big city. She moved to my neighborhood, so I was looking forward to her becoming an addition to my (shrinking) circle of friends. After only a few months and before I could even visit her once, she was gone. In a phone conversation I asked her what had happened. She said she didn't understand why people would live here. Things were just too HARD. Not that she couldn't handle it, but why would anyone want to? I was going to say it's really no big deal, but then I realized that's not exactly true. New Yorkers are a different breed and we feed on big deals ...