A New York Poem Made of Search Words - "Chocolate Peeps," "Derek Jeter Diet, and "Skirts Blown in Winds"

Here are actual search terms that brought some individuals to Walking Off the Big Apple in the past 24 hours. I think the phrases make a lovely beat poem, circa 1959.

Search Words, a poem

chocolate peeps
washington square james
google weather new york city march and april
derek jeter diet
prada shop on fifth avenue only
central park nyc walking map
visit woolworth building

unmonumental
walk way roosevelt manhattan
new york walking blog
chester alan arthurs favorite foods
ralph albert blakelock million dollar bills
where to buy cheap venetian mask in nyc
7 times square ny, ny target advertising 41st broadway

what room in westbeth did diane arbus die in?
bohemian garden decor sitouts
american radiator building nyc lighting
contemporary african art 2008
kokotte kirchner
nighthawks hopper
upper east side jackie kennedy apartment

exploring tribeca
roosevelt island walking tour
"new york city ballet"
garbo walks: andy warhol and the crumpled butterfly
lunch upper west side
bohemian epicenter
indian name golightly

visiting new york city rainy day
how big is central park new york
wind tunnel between buildings
old gothic ruins
cute elephant drawing
fascinated buildings
nyc most popular dogs

bleeker street apartments
black room
ibm atrium next door
qué es el present unreal?
famous paintings dinner scenes
why is nyc called the big apple?
new york museums open monday

Thanks to those who visited. I hope that you found what you were looking for. - T.

A Walk From Lincoln Center to Zabar's

If you happen to be attending a noon or matinee performance in Lincoln Center or otherwise happen to be hanging around there for whatever reason and find you've got some time, I recommend a stroll up Broadway to Zabar's, the famous Upper West Side food emporium. This stretch of Broadway takes in the sights of several new housing sky-rises, several theaters, and some flamboyant former apartment hotels of the early 20th century. Flâneurs will love the Belle Epoque ambiance of these overly-ornamented buildings, and the distance from W. 66th or so to W. 80th is not so taxing, especially if you're dressed in shoes for the opera.

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Several noteworthy structures along the way - The Dorilton, 171 W 71st St., from 1900-02, at the northeast corner of Broadway, is considered a Beaux Arts masterpiece. The 72nd St subway station dates from 1904 and is a funny little thing. Verdi Square, at the convergence of Broadway, Amsterdam, an W. 73rd, is a nice small park featuring a statue of Giuseppe Verdi by sculptor Pasquale Civiletti. This would be fun to pass by after the opera, especially for those just getting out of an afternoon performance of Il Trovatore at the Met.

The Ansonia Hotel, 2109 Broadway, is a major Upper West Side landmark. The former apartment hotel was home to many famous actors and sports figures in the early decades of the 20th century, among them actress Billie Burke and American author Theodore Dreiser. The Continental Baths, a landmark in gay history, was located in the basement of the Ansonia in the early 1970s. Fairway Market, 2127 Broadway, is a favorite destination for grocery shopping in the neighborhood.

The Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway, another recently restored landmark, is a major venue with upcoming Spring 2009 concerts by Van Morrison, Levon Helm Band, Allman Brothers Band, and Bryan Adams. In addition, H.H. The Dalai Lama will be teaching here all day on on May 4. The Belleclaire Hotel, 250 W 77th St., dating from 1901-1903, is an exquisite Belle Epoque building, with several Art Nouveau features. An eclectic-looking First Baptist Church at 265 W 79th St. looks like a miniature Italian Renaissance castle, meaning it's like nothing you would expect for a Baptist Church.

Zabar's & Co., 2245 Broadway, will soon come up on the left, and you'll want to spend some time shopping the aisles for cheeses, breads, salamis, pickles, chocolates, babkas, rugelachs, prepared dinners and more. They have a cafe, too. Often in New York, we don't care to make dinner when someone else has already made it for us. A subway station is nearby for immediate transport home. Zabar's website here.

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple from February 26, 2009.
Pictured here: A look up Broadway, The Ansonia, the Belleclaire Hotel, the First Baptist Church, and Zabar's. On Thursday I picked up dinner and some cheeses at Zabar's to take home and then got on the subway. While on the train, the emergency brake caused the train to stop, so I sat there with my groceries for nearly 45 minutes. It was OK, and I wasn't upset, because I knew I wasn't going to starve.

A Visit to Lincoln Center, In Progress

From Winter 2009

I know what you're thinking. Isn't that Holly Golightly there above, centered in the photo of the photo, awaiting the opening of the completely renovated Lincoln Center? Do you think she is excited about a night at the Metropolitan Opera, a place far away from her gritty roots in Tulip, Texas? Yes, of course. New York glamour lives on.

I'm not one to take organized tours. I tend to wander off and ask too many questions, but for some places, that's the only way to go. On Wednesday I had every intention of traveling to Lincoln Center (vicinity of E. 64th @ Broadway) to hear a concert at the lovely redesigned Alice Tully Hall, but I was running too late. So, I made my reservation for a tour of the center yesterday, Thursday, at 11 a.m. In my befuddled state, I had expected that Tully Hall would be part of the tour (no doubt confusing it with Avery Fisher Hall), which it was not, but as you'll read later, things worked out anyway.

Yesterday, I checked in at the Avery Fisher tour desk at a little before eleven, and shortly thereafter, a tall, congenial man met about a dozen of us and guided us through the maze of construction, pounding hammers, and plywood that is the current state of Lincoln Center.

It's a little disconcerting to see the center torn up like this, but amazing sights await inside (but no pictures allowed inside these hallowed halls.) Our first stop was the vast interior of the Metropolitan Opera, making our way through the labyrinth of the stage door entrance to a technical booth facing the stage. Looking out onto the stage, we watched for a few minutes the Met company rehearsing La Sonnambula ("The Sleepwalker") by Vincenzo Bellini, and we could monitor the sounds of the lighting designers setting their cues. The guide apologized in advance for any coarse language we may overhear. As someone who writes about walking in waking moments, I was naturally fascinated by the opera's story. Natalie Dessay stars, and Mary Zimmerman directs this production, modernized and Pirandello-ized (set at a rehearsal of the opera), and we could watch them both from the booth. We were in fact watching a rehearsal of a rehearsal, a confusing spectacle that appealed to my sense of the absurd.

The tour continued to the Vivian Beaumont Theatre (above, inset), where we sat in the rows facing the stage. Currently home to South Pacific, the theater, we learned, is vast and deep, in addition to being configured unusually with its large three-quarter stage. From there, we made our way back out onto the plaza and to the New York State Theater, home to the New York City Ballet (inset). Taking an elevator to a higher floor, we sat in the nose-bleed seats and watched a little of the ballet company rehearsing the dazzling piece Mercurial Maneovres, part of their 21st Century Movement program. Sitting so high up we could see the patterns of choreography but still appreciate the lithe moves of these young dancers. What a great sound - the patter of toe shoes on an empty stage! From there, our guide took us to the seats of Avery Fisher Hall, the home of the New York Philharmonic, where no one, alas, was rehearsing. Still, it was nice to sit in the balcony and imagine the music.

After the tour ended, I walked across the street to Alice Tully Hall. While I wasn't able to go into the Starr Theater, I enjoyed walking around and contemplating this soaring new space. A cafe is open for business inside the lobby, and it's a beautiful place to sit even when there's no plan for a concert. Because I'm an architecture geek, I immediately recognized the architect, Liz Diller, standing outside the hall. I went up to her and introduced myself (God and Texas did not make me shy) and thanked her for this wonderful gift to the city.

Information: Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Daily tours between 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. See Lincoln Center website with more information on tours and times. Special 20-minute tours of Tully Hall, March 8-21, for $5.

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple, February 26, 2009. More pix of Alice Tully Hall on Flickr WOTBA.

See the companion walk, A Walk From Lincoln Center to Zabar's.

New York Museum Exhibitions, Spring 2009: A List, with Openings in March, April and May

What follows is a preview of selected museum and other art center exhibitions opening in New York City in March, April, and May of 2009. Collectively, these forthcoming exhibits promise to make a strong season in the visual arts.

For updated Summer 2009 listings, please follow this link.

American Academy of Arts and Letters, 633 West 155 Street:

Exhibition of Works by Newly Elected Members and Recipients of Honors and Awards
May 21 - June 14, 2009

American Folk Art Museum, 45 W. 53rd St.

Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York:

Hernan Bas: Works from the Rubell Family Collection
Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor
Through May 24, 2009

Gustave Caillebotte: Impressionist Paintings from Paris to the Sea
Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 5th Floor
Through July 5, 2009
Flâneur alert! One of our most favorite guys about town.

Frick Museum, 1 East 70th Street:

Portraits, Pastels, Prints: Whistler in the Frick Collection
June 2 through August 23, 2009

Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue (at 89th St.):

Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward
May 15 – August 23, 2009
A blockbuster for sure! With lines going around and around and around.

International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street:

Avedon Fashion: Photographs, 1944–2000
May 15–September 6, 2009

Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street:

Reclaimed: Paintings from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker
Through August 02, 2009

The Danube Exodus: The Rippling Currents of the River—by Péter Forgács and The Labyrinth Project
Through August 02, 2009

MAD (The Museum of Art and Design), 2 Columbus Circle:


Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue:

Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard
Through May 25, 2009

Cast in Bronze:French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution
Through May 24, 2009

Art of the Korean Renaissance, 1400 -1600
Through June 21, 2009

The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984
Through August 2, 2009

Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom
Through October 25, 2009 (weather permitting)
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden
One of the happiest days in the New York year is the day the roof garden opens at the Met.

The New American Wing
Part 2: The Charles Engelhard Court and the Period Rooms
Opens May 19, 2009

Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective
May 20, 2009–August 16, 2009
Prepare in advance. A major exhibition.

MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art), 11 West 53 Street:

a shimmer of possibility. Photographs by Paul Graham
Through May 18, 2009

Stage Pictures: Drawing for Performance
Through August 24, 2009

Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West
Through June 8, 2009
Promises to be a major investigation of a fascinating topic. (WOTBA is originally from the Wild West.)

Aernout Mik
Through July 27, 2009
This contemporary Dutch multi-media artist is a personal favorite.

Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street:

On the Money: Cartoons for The New Yorker
Through May 24, 2009

New at the Morgan: Acquisitions Since 2004
Through October 18, 2009

Creating the Modern Stage: Designs for Theater and Opera
May 22 through August 16, 2009

Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue:

Amsterdam/New Amsterdam
The Worlds of Henry Hudson
Through September 27, 2009

Mannahatta/Manhattan
A Natural History of New York City
May 19 - October 13, 2009

National Academy Museum, 1083 Fifth Avenue:

The 184th Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Art
Through June 10, 2009
Good, but not as good as the 151st or the 74th.

Neue Galerie, 1048 Fifth Avenue:

The Birth of Expressionism: Brücke in Dresden and Berlin, 1905-1913
Through June 29, 2009

The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 235 Bowery:

The Generational: Younger Than Jesus
Through June 14, 2009
The New Museum's first triennial with 50 artists born after 1976 from 25 countries and with a slightly offensive title.

Intersections Intersected: The Photography of David Goldblatt
July 15 - October 11, 2009

Emory Douglas: Black Panther
July 22 - October 18, 2009

New York University, Grey Art Gallery, 100 Washington Square East:

John Wood: On the Edge of Clear Meaning
Through July 18, 2009

Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue At 75th Street:

Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT
Fifteen-year survey exhibition
Words, words, words.
Through May 31, 2009

Photoconceptualism, 1966-1973
Opens May 22, 2009

Dan Graham: Beyond
Opens June 25, 2009

Image: Pulitzer Fountain, Grand Army Plaza, on April 11, 2008. Also, outside the Guggenheim, from the Fall of 2008. Images by Walking Off the Big Apple. The fountain was designed by sculptor Karl Bitter (1867-1915) and architect Thomas Hastings (1860-1929) of the New York architectural firm Carrère and Hastings. Featured is Pomona, the goddess of abundance.

A Stroll West Along Atlantic Avenue, and Finding My Way to Carroll Gardens

After a nice lunch with a friend at Cafe Lafayette in Brooklyn this afternoon, I felt like taking a walk. Though it was chilly, the sun was bright, and the insane winds had died down. I wanted to walk without too much over-determination (otherwise, a stroll becomes too much work) and just drift. I wanted to see new streets and sidewalks, Really, all I require in a New York walk is knowing the location of a subway station that I know can take me home.



As a resident of Manhattan, I often guilt-trip myself about Brooklyn, thinking I should be more familiar with places like Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene, or Carroll Gardens. I'm vague about the neighborhood of Williamsburg, the home of most everyone I meet under the age of 29. I know the borough's facts - that Brooklyn is New York's most populous borough with two and a half million residents and that it is pretty, with trees, and very literary and full of famous and talented people, and if counted by itself, it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. I know this, but my knowledge of the borough is admittedly shallow, built upon familiarity with Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo, some streets in Park Slope and several sections of Prospect Park. On every trip to Brooklyn, when I step out of the subway, I am shocked to see the presence of so much sky.


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I'm trying to walk off my guilty unfamiliarity with Brooklyn one step at a time, and so following last week's excursion to Myrtle Avenue and Fort Greene, today I explored blocks of Atlantic Avenue, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens. I mainly wanted to see Carroll Gardens at the end of my walk, because I'm attracted by the idea of these beautiful brownstones set back far from the street. The spaces in front allow for gardens. Along the way, as I passed by a couple of urban gardening shops, I remembered that the average last frost date is still six weeks off but that I couldn't wait for spring.

Look at these pictures. Isn't Brooklyn fabulous?

See how youthful Brooklyn brings us fabulous food in the article "Brooklyn's New Culinary Movement" from The New York Times, 2/24/09. Includes another interactive map.

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple from February 24, 2009.

WOTBA New York Cultural Events Calendar: Monday, February 23 - Sunday, March 1, 2009

I don't know whether to be alarmed or excited that the month of March approaches, but I'll try to dispense with annoying February deadlines and look forward to a season of spring (but not hay) fever. I feel like dancing. So, it's good that I have Paul Taylor tickets for Sunday afternoon. In the walking department, I'll be heading to Brooklyn again early in the week and the Lincoln Center area on Wednesday.

Here are 10 events I've placed on my calendar:

• ART. Monday, February 23. The Art Show. Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street. $20. Last Day. noon- 5 p.m. With 70 arts dealers, considered a bell weather of the contemporary art market.

• MUSIC. Tuesday, February 24. Celebration of life and career of legendary folksinger Odetta with performances and readings. At 7 p.m., Riverside Church, Riverside Drive at 122st Street, Morningside Heights, (212) 870-6700, theriversidechurchny.org; free.

• TV POLITICS & MARDI GRAS. Tuesday, February 24. President Obama's Speech to the Joint Session of Congress.

• MUSIC. Wednesday, February 25, 2009 1:00 PM. Free Concert - Wednesdays at One. Alice Tully Hall, Starr Theater. Juilliard School Faculty and students of The Juilliard School perform an all-Schubert program. Free, hour-long lunchtime concert on most Wednesdays. No tickets required. Doors open 30 minutes prior to concert. A great chance to hear the new acoustics at the renovated hall.

• FILM. Wednesday, February 25, 2009 Astra Taylor's Examined Life. IFC. Thinkers and philosophers walk around and talk about ideas and life. Article from the NYT here that discusses the filmmaker's choice to talk to the philosophers while they walk around. Of course, I love this idea.

• DANCE. Wednesday, February 25, 2009. Paul Taylor Dance Company opens up a series of performances at the New York City Center. Through March 15.

• ART. Thursday, February 26. The Birth of Expressionism: Brücke in Dresden and Berlin, 1905-1913 opens at Neue Galerie, 1048 Fifth Avenue. Through June 29, 2009.

• ART. Friday, February 27. Opening of What We Call Progress Is This Storm, art by Christopher Lowry Johnson. Through March 28, 2009. Winkleman Gallery, 637 W 27th St.

• WINE. February 27-28. New York Wine Expo & Tasting: Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York City. Friday: 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM; Saturday: 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM. 655 West 34th Street, New York, NY 10001. Fri. $85; Sat. $95

• SITUATIONIST FILM ALERT. Sunday, March 1. A retrospective of all six of Guy Debord's films at the Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center. For details and to order tickets, see here.

Image: spring bulbs for sale on the streets of New York. by WOTBA.

A Timely Visit to The Museum of American Finance

One day this past week, while watching the opening minutes of the markets on various TV channels, experiencing vicariously the adrenaline rush, or in this case, the nausea, that attends the opening bell, it seemed like American finance, as we've come to know it, was entering a dramatically tense chapter in its story. At some point, I remembered that New York is home to an institution called the Museum of American Finance, and looking up its hours and address (48 Wall Street, fittingly, in the Bank of New York building), I made note to visit.

Wall Street on a Saturday morning lacks the bustling atmosphere of the trading week, but as of late the ranks of finance have been thinning anyway. On this morning, many tourists were out and about, mostly milling around George Washington's statue in front of Federal Hall and taking pictures of themselves. The museum, down the way on "the street," occupies the building once home to the oldest bank in the country, the Bank of New York. The state bank was founded by Alexander Hamilton, a Founding Father from New York, and the biggest nationalist of them all. If you recall, 'twas Hamilton that proposed the idea of a national bank - First Bank of the United States- as President Washington's Secretary of the Treasury. I expect we'll be hearing more of Hamilton's thoughts on banks in the coming year.

The building at 48 Wall that houses the museum dates from the 1920s, and the interior's richness of architectural detail, historical murals, and formality makes it a good venue for the historical visual presentation of money, banking, the stock market, mercantile exchanges, technology and the markets, and more. The Museum of American Finance, founded in 1988, was located in the Standard Oil Building on Broadway until its move here in January of 2008. Because the museum is relatively new at this location, the presentation of information is up-to-date and hip to multimedia presentations.

The museum, an affiliate of the Smithsonian, doesn't try to put forth a highly ideological argument; rather, the exhibits only suggest that the world of American finance and banks is a fascinating one. Indeed, along with the story of banks, we're treated to a few monitors showing us the top names in the history of robbing banks - Butch Cassidy and Bonnie and Clyde, for example, and in another exhibit, we learn of shameful acts of insider trading, accompanied by pictures of Michael Milken, Enron, and Martha Stewart. In a field loaded with jargon, the museum nicely explains the historical march of finance clearly and without any insider lingo.

Other highlights include the artifacts of Wall Street technology - from messenger pigeon to the Bloomberg terminal, the source of our Mayor's wealth; the story of the Buttonwood Agreement, the forerunner of the New York Stock Exchange; the presence of John Thain, the last chair and CEO of Merrill Lynch, with famous tastes in redecorating, as a talking head in the video explaining how stocks are traded; and a beaver pelt in the History of Money exhibit.

The museum needs a few extra panels explaining what has occurred in finance since the autumn of 2008, but I would not be envious of the person assigned that task.

The Museum of American Finance (link to museum website)
48 Wall Street
New York, NY 10005
HOURS:
Open Tuesday - Saturday, 10 am - 4 pm
Closed national and stock market holidays.
Adults $8; Students/seniors $5; Museum members and kids 6 and under FREE

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple from Saturday, February 21, 2009.

A Three-Mile Walk Through Fort Greene and Clinton Hill

I set out on Tuesday afternoon just to view the Tree Hugger Project on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn (previous post), but the attractive architecture and street life kept me going much farther. As I mentioned in the last post, I started out near downtown at the Jay Street station and walked through the Metro Tech Center before heading out Myrtle Avenue.

After walking past Fort Greene Park and stopping at the temporary art installation of the sculptures, I continued walking east down Myrtle Ave., a nice street of diverse businesses and past a drive-through White Castle, the home of the small, square "slider" (a hamburger). There, I felt like I had hit suburbia in true form. Turning at Classon Avenue I made my way to the Pratt Institute, a leading arts school, to contemplate art education in the age of post-capitalism. I'll save my thoughts for another post, but for now, I wandered onto the campus, not really sure if I was permitted, and looked at all matter of sculpture installed in their commons. From campus I wandered back toward the west on lovely Willoughby Avenue, a street with pretty brick apartment buildings. As it was winter and a weekday afternoon, I came across few pedestrians and so was left to my own thoughts. I walked past the Eglise Baptise d'Expression Francaise, a French-speaking Baptist church that serves a large Haitian community.


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Coincidentally, The New York Times ran a feature the day after my walk on good restaurants in Fort Greene that feature African food. Now, I have an excuse to go back. In addition to its early connection to the writer Walt Whitman, Fort Greene is known for its successes as a racially diverse neighborhood. The final stretch of the walk took me past beautiful townhouses along Carlton Avenue. When I arrived at the Lafayette station, I realized how close I was to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a favorite venue I've been to several times. Many reasons to return, I thought.

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple from February 17, 2009.

The Tree Huggers on Myrtle Avenue: Public Art on a Mainstream Street

A tree is hugged in Brooklyn.

I had every intention of visiting the Chelsea art district today, but wanderlust overtook me for the greener (though winter now) pastures of Brooklyn. Curious about the Myrtle Avenue Public Art Program's ambitions to install temporary outdoor sculptures along a stretch of a needy major commercial thoroughfare, I decided to visit Person Square (Myrtle and Carlton Avenues) to visit the first of these installations, Wiktor Szostalo and Agnieszka Gradzik's Tree Hugger Project.

The journey to look at these fetching twiggy people hugging the trees on a triangle of Brooklyn became something of an adventure. Emerging from the bustling Jay Street station, I got turned around until a policeman pointed me in the right direction to Myrtle Avenue. It's a fun, bustling world, this downtown Brooklyn, and I was glad I decided on an unknown walk rather than a familiar one. Soon I found myself walking along the Myrtle Avenue promenade within Brooklyn's expanding MetroTech Center. I couldn't decide whether I was walking through a campus or within a business mall, but as it turns out, the juxtaposition of a Marriott Hotel, Polytechnic Institute of NYU, a couple of banks, and a few non-profits made it seem a little of both. Nice trees along in here, I thought, even though it's winter still and they're bereft of leaves, and there's plenty of sculpture to stop and contemplate in this MetroTech.

Leaving the Center and walking east invited some doubts, however, as I seemed to be walking into a neighborhood searching for definition. New condo developments seemed like question marks. For a while, the urban landscape was not so pretty. As I continued east, tall brick public housing structures on the right and left came into view, with little in the way of mixed-use development to engender social life. Though this stretch was bleak, a product of ill-informed planning of decades past, I had no reason to be fearful. Anyway, these blocks came to an end, and Fort Greene Park appeared on my right, a reminder once again that Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux own this city.

At the end of the park and to my left, I saw the Tree Huggers in their small triangular park. I stopped and enjoyed their desperate and loving embrace, the tree partners so taller than their companions. Looking past them and down the street toward the west, the Empire State Building came into view, shimmering from far away and mythical across the water. I then realized that these kinds of views, of looking from a distance back to the shore where one lives, always cheer me up. I feel like I've gotten away just for a little while and can see things from a fresh perspective.

The next few blocks of diverse businesses proved most congenial. I stopped at a muffin shop, a sure sign of embourgeoisiement of these parts, where I enjoyed some decaf and a yogurt cake. If I had known in advance about the drive-through White Castle a few blocks later, I would have stopped there, too.

They've done the right thing, the folks on Myrtle Avenue. Put art in places close to where people walk, shop, and eat, and make it a part of everyday life in the neighborhood.

My walk continued through other places in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, but as I feel like I overstretched myself this afternoon, I will save the rest for another day. I need to hug a tree.

For more on the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership and the public art initiative, please visit their website.

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple. February, 17, 2009. Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn.

After the Boom, Assessing the Contemporary Art Market in New York: Thoughts and Links

It seems to me that artists should be able to weather a severe recession. Creative types routinely make art anyway, come hell or high water, and the lack of any conventional means of support does not ordinarily diminish the urge to create. Artists like this are in it for the long haul, just like those of us who lose their money in retirement funds but keep it there anyway. Some artists are lucky or bewitching enough to have landed supportive partners. On the other hand, the artists who make art solely for an art market and not for themselves are really business people in artist disguise, and unlike real artists, are too other-directed for their own good. They just want to please the teacher. Real artists work from within and eat cheap food. Artists do what they have to do. They just might not be able to sell anything in the current market.

Still, in a time when commercial galleries start closing and museums fight for more funding, visual artists encounter real problems finding places to exhibit their work. This is true even in good times. Writers and journalists are better off. They may have suffered from the general fall of print media, but the digital means of production and self-publishing online are available to those who work with words and sentences. For example, if you're a writer in need of a publisher, go to the upper right-hand side of this page and click on the words "Create Blog." Filmmakers, at least the ones comfortable with the look of digital conversions, can also find new homes of the net. Much visual art, however, the kind where the work's material qualities matter- i.e. brushstrokes, tactile surfaces, relationship to 3-D space, etc., needs to live in the real world and be seen in person.

While many artists are brilliant in the studio, they're hopeless when the work goes out the door. Many can't talk about it, frame it, explain it, market it, or sell it to anybody. They need a professional intervention. That's when they hope the commercial art market steps in. Then they'll meet all sort of people - dealers, curators, directors, archivists, and assistants, several of whom will make their lives a living nightmare. Many artists need and want galleries, and that's a problem if galleries start closing.

One thing writers and artists share in the current economy is a crisis in value. What are these words worth? What price shall we put on this painting? Writers are ahead of the artists right now, because we've already seen the contraction of the print industry, the place where words exist in a tangible way and where writers were often paid for their work. Now, many writers publish in digital spaces like this one and give words away. Others are remunerated through a base salary with a bonus based on hits and links. Visual artists who often put high price tags on their work haven't wandered into this territory yet.

I've rounded up some recent articles on the current state of the contemporary art market. Compounding the problem, of course, is the state of the global economy and the forecasts for New York's art economy.

"The Boom is Over. Long Live the Art" by Holland Cotter. The New York Times, February 15, 2009. After giving a succinct history of recent contemporary art, Cotter argues that art schools should rethink the standard curriculum and encourage art students to be more interdisciplinary. He also suggests critics need to go back to school to broaden their knowledge and that the art industry should drop its attachment to "art’s traditional analog status."

"Down With the Cube!" by Jerry Saltz. New York Magazine. Feb 8, 2009. On the anniversary exhibit at the White Columns gallery.

"Frieze After the Freeze" by Jerry Saltz. artnet.com. November 3, 2008.

"Recession strategies for commercial art galleries" by Edward Winkleman. artworldsalon.com. January 13, 2009

"Chelsea Dealer Downsizes His Roster." Art Info. February 12, 2009

"Art Dealer Zach Feuer Drops Eight Artists to Weather Recession" by Katya Kazakina (who does good art reporting in general for Bloomberg News). Bloomberg News. February 12, 2009.

For uncertainty about the New York local economy, read "Economists’ Forecast: Chance of Change 100%" by David W. Chen. The New York Times. February 16, 2009

And, for the long view, read Bohemians of the Latin Quarter, by Henry Murger from 1851, a translation of Scènes de la vie de bohème at Project Gutenberg.

Image: "Art and Literature" by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), 1867, oil on canvas, Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY. The artist was wildly successful during his lifetime. This painting would look ten times better in person.

WOTBA New York Cultural Events Calendar: February 16 - 22, 2009

Once again, here's a small selection of upcoming cultural events in New York City for next week. A long list of events, while more accurate in reflecting the vast array of choices available for spending a week in the big city, is way too overwhelming, I find. My philosophy is the same as for managing goals and tasks - choose, prioritize, and try to accomplish big tasks in small steps. When I make these shorter lists for the calendar, I find that I actually attend at least two of the events (weather permitting). And that's better than none.

Perusing the short list below, the week emphasizes the visual arts. The Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory affords the opportunity to survey trends in contemporary art with over 70 art dealers represented. I would have added two more musical performances to this list - M. Ward and Vivian Girls at the Apollo Theater (253 W 125th St.) and Leonard Cohen at the Beacon Theatre (2124 Broadway), both on Thursday night, but they're sold out. I suspect I'll be writing a lot about art this coming week.

• MUSIC. Monday, February 16. 10 p.m. Our Hit Parade with Kenny Mellman, Bridget Everett, Neal Medlyn, Molly Pope, Billy Eichner, David Neumann, Lady Rizo, Jenn Harris, Varsity Interpretive Dance Squad and more 10pm. Joe's Pub at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St.

• MUSIC. Tuesday, February 17. Terence Blanchard 9pm. Village Vanguard, 178 7th Ave S.

• LITERARY. Wednesday, February 18. Peter Matthiessen 7:30pm. Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), 30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn.

• FILM. Thursday, February 19 - Saturday, February 21. Three days of films, including many new shorts, by artist and filmmaker Alfred Leslie. Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue. Programs begin at 7:30 p.m. See website for details.

• ART. Thursday, February 19. Lisa Yuskavage. David Zwirner, 533 W 19th St. (533 Viewing Room). Through March 28, 2009.

• ART. Thursday, February 19 - Monday, February 23. The Art Show. Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street. $20. With 70 art dealers, with proceeds benefiting the Henry Street Settlement.

• MUSIC. Thursday, February 19. The Silos. 9 pm. Lakeside Lounge, 162 Avenue B (between 10th & 11th Streets). Free.

• MUSIC. Friday, February 20. Ute Lemper. 8:45 pm. Café Carlyle, 35 E. 76th St.). Through March 7. These shows are NOT free. $60-$75 cover at tables; $95 VIP; $40 at the bar

• ART. Friday, February 20. Apparently Invisible: Selections Spring 2009. Presents work by nine artists selected from the Viewing Program. The Drawing Center, 35 Wooster St. Through March 28, 2009

• ART. Friday, February 20. Simon Evans: Island Time. James Cohan Gallery, 533 W 26th St. Through March 21, 2009

• MUSIC. Saturday, February 21. B.B. King and Buddy Guy. 8 p.m. Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway. $62–$139.50

• TV. Sunday, February 22. The Oscars. 8 p.m. ET. Your couch, ABC.

Image: Movie Star News, 134 West 18th St. Enormous selection of movie posters, pinups, and photos, just in time for the Oscars. See their website for hours.

The Insane Wind: The Wind-Tunnel Effect in New York and Historical Wind Storms

Yesterday, strong and relentless winds blew through the streets and urban canyons of New York, with occasional gusts as high as 55 to 60 mph. I spent much of the morning and afternoon working at home, and watching and hearing the trees sway so violently outside the windows made concentrating on my tasks too difficult. One of the dogs kept barking, so I had to leave the desk several times to calm it down. The loud noises made by some construction equipment across the street compounded the problem, and when I heard a big crash I went to the window to see that one of the crew's saw horses had blown into the intersection. By the end of the afternoon I felt like I needed a padded room. Fortunately, I had plans to go out to dinner, and spending a couple of hours inside a warm SoHo restaurant had the effect of keeping me sane for a few more hours. Walking in the wind to and from dinner, although still feeling vulnerable amidst flying objects, seemed less terrifying than staying inside and listening to the winds rip around the building.

With the presence of so many tall buildings in the city, the conditions of gusty winds set up the phenomenon of the wind-tunnel effect. Wind trapped between buildings is forced to accelerate. Several places within the city are famous for the velocity of the winds, most notably the Flatiron Building on 23rd and Fifth and Broadway. Near the tapered corner of this famous triangular architectural monument, skirts billow up, hats blow off heads, and it's hard to maintain an upright position.

Opening the digital archives of The New York Times reveals many reported incidents of terrifying wind storms in the city's history. One storm in February of 1893 was noted to have "several remarkable features," including 45 mph winds, a furious snow, and thunder and lightning. The dropping freezing temperatures and high winds caused particular problems with the ferries from Manhattan to Brooklyn. The boats became stuck in icy waters, forcing commuters to make some of the journey on the ice. Many Western Union telegraph wires went out of service. Poorly-built buildings in Brooklyn collapsed in a matter of minutes.

A storm that blew through the city in October of 1900 produced hurricane-force winds. As with our own storm yesterday, three deaths and many injuries were attributed to the windy conditions. The weather service reported a high gust of 73 mph at one point but with sustained winds of 36 mph for several hours. Like with many of these wind events, a cold front was rapidly passing through, and temperatures dropped dramatically in a short time. The Times reported that many windows blew out, horses became frightened and ran off, a fence toppled onto several children at play. The newspaper reported a stunning-looking double rainbow in the eastern sky after the frontal passage.

An account of a "furious wind storm" reported in the February 26, 1909 edition of the Times includes a long list of accidents, including a mention of the wind tunnel effect - "Down Broadway, the wind swept to the Battery, where the skyscrapers made a funnel, through which the gale spilled itself out over the harbor." During the course of the storm, a 600-pound statue of the Angel Gabriel blew off St. John's Cathedral onto the roof but with no major damage. A flagpole on top of a bank at Broadway and 32nd Street broke off, flew in the air, hit a cornice where it cracked in two, and debris flew everywhere. A pedestrian was knocked cold by a piece of flying flagpole but, according to the Times, was treated and able to walk home. According to the report, "Broadway had no end of trouble," with many glass doors and windows blown out in the storm. Uptown, an 11-year-old boy was blown off his feet, and when he came down to earth he fell under a passing hearse. He survived.

For the Times account of the wind event yesterday, read "Disruption and Death Accompany High Winds" in today's newspaper.

A Dog's Guide to New York City

Friends who visit New York are always surprised to see so many dogs everywhere and not just when the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is in town. They think that because the city is full of concrete it must be inhospitable for the canine friends. Operating on the assumption that dogs need exercise, a freedom to roam beyond the end of a leash, and lots of green grass, all true, they wonder if dogs are somehow imprisoned in the urban jungle. Not really. We love our dogs and do the best we can. Dog owners try to provide fresh air and exercise by strolling with Max, Maggie, Buddy and Lucy (among the most popular dog names - a website lists them) to the nearest dog park and letting them run around free in their butt-sniffing crazy eights. Some even argue that dogs in New York are more sociable and well-adjusted than those from the countryside.

Many New Yorkers seem to enjoy outfitting their pets, a necessity for short-haired breeds in the cold weather, and over this past winter, I've been party to many conversations about a particular dog's cute new winter jacket or sweater. One of my dogs wears a brown corduroy coat that fastens by Velcro underneath his chin and torso. When it's cold, he likes to bow his head, indicating I need to put on his coat.

When they were puppies, my own dogs used to run around the back yard of a house, but now that they're grown up and have become denizens of an apartment building, they have adjusted to a different lifestyle. Going out for walks three times a day and seeing the other dogs in the big city seems to please them, and when they come home, a doorman opens the door for them and gives them cookies. That's a nice life. The doorman doesn't give me cookies.

A List of Fascinating Dog-Related Links:

• How do dogs put one paw in front of another? A new study shows that illustrators, toy designers, and others get it wrong when showing a dog walking. All four-legged animals walk this way, in this order: left hind leg, left foreleg, right hind leg, right foreleg. Science Daily has the story.

• NYC Parks page: Dogs in New York Parks. See rules and regulations and list of dog runs.

• A special website for the Dog Heroes of September 11th.

• New York Dog Statuary: Central Park, Balto, East side of the park near E. 67th St. by Frederick George Richard Roth, 1872 - 1944. Hero husky that led a dogsled team through a blizzard to get medicine for a diphtheria epidemic in Nome, Alaska in 1925. On December 17, 1925, 10 months later, Balto attended the unveiling in Central Park. Balto died in 1933 in Cleveland, Ohio, where his stuffed body is on display at Cleveland’s Natural History Museum. NYC Parks page on Balto.

Also, Seward Park, Lower East Side at Canal, Hester, Essex, Jefferson Sts. Bronze statue of Togo, a contemporary of Balto. NYC Parks page.

Prospect Park, Boy and Dog Statue. Curious marble sculpture depicting a nude boy with a faithful dog from the post-Civil War era. NYC Parks page.

• Dogs in Art History. While at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, I flipped through William Secord's fascinating new book, Dog Painting: A History of the Dog in Art. Secord's gallery at 52 East 76th Street specializes in fine art dog painting. See gallery website for more information.

• Abraham Lincoln had a dog when his family lived in Springfield, Illinois. His mixed-breed yellow dog was named Fido. See more at the National Park Service website on pets.

WOTBA's personal recommendations for dog resources in the Village:

• Does your dog have tons of hair and needs a good haircut every spring? How about day care in a Sponge Bob-themed room? Visit Happy Paws Pet Resort, 316 Lafayette Street. New York, NY 10012. 212-431-6898

• Is your dog regularly throwing up on your nice big area rug? See Washington Square Animal Hospital, 23 East 9th Street, (between 5th Ave & University Pl). New York, NY 10003. (212) 674-1670

• What happens when your dog gets a shish kabob skewer stuck in the roof his mouth (sideways) on a Sunday morning? Answer: Fifth Avenue Veterinary Specialists. 1 West 15th Street. New York, NY 10011 212-924-3311

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple. See my photo essay on the 133rd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and extra images in a set on Flickr WOTBA.

An Afternoon Gone to the Dogs: A Photo Essay of the 133rd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden

Attending the Westminster Kennel Club dog show at Madison Square Garden is like going to see a play but with the added freedom to move around the theater with access to makeup rooms, wings of the stage, and the green rooms. Though the atmosphere is fun and lively, the pressure on the players is intense and palpable, and from time to time some of the actors actually bark.



I had intended just to walk around the Garden this afternoon to pick up any outside vibe that champion dogs may be on the premises, but as this area of Midtown is not a walking-your-dog type neighborhood (in contrast to my own canine-friendly Greenwich Village), all the action was inside. In sum, I decided to spend a happy afternoon among the great family of dogs and man. Hanging out with the dogs as they awaited their turn in competition or watching them get prettied-up back stage or petting them as they chilled out in a vast area offstage cluttered with crates and human junk food pulled me into the drama of the competition. I feel now, as I await the televised show of the final acts, that I have several dogs in the chase.

I had a different sense watching the show in person than on television. First of all, I saw many more dogs in person that one would consider conventional and normal-looking, the kind that you would take to the park to play catch. Sometimes, the TV competition provokes the reaction of "What kinda dog is THAT?" The retrievers, setters, and other sporting dogs I saw this afternoon had a way of imposing themselves in noble fashion amidst the lap dogs of the bourgeoisie. Second, I was struck by the intensity of the judges as they concentrated on making their selections. It was exhausting, really.

At the end of the day, I was happy coming home to the Village and seeing my good dogs, beautiful friends of complex and diverse heritage, and bringing them a few of the treats they were giving away at the show. Now I will settle on the couch with them later tonight and watch them fall asleep as I turn on the TV.

Images from the afternoon of February 10, 2009 of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show at Madison Square Garden by Walking Off the Big Apple.

WOTBA New York Cultural Events Calendar, with Events for Lincoln's Birthday and Valentine's Day: February 9 - February 15, 2009

DOGS. Monday, February 9 and Tuesday, February 10. The 133rd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show: Madison Square Garden, Seventh Ave at 32nd St. 8 am–11pm. $20–$145. Also on TV but you miss the smell of pretty dogs. USA & CNBC.

ART. Open Mondays. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue (at 89th St.) Currently on: The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989. Through April 19, 2009. guggenheim.org.

JAZZ. Tuesday, February 10, 2009. Cassandra Wilson at the Blue Note. Tuesday through Sunday at 8 and 10:30 p.m., Blue Note, 131 West Third Street, West Village, (212) 475-8592, bluenote.net; cover, $40 to $55.

FILM. Documentary Fortnight at MoMA begins. through Feb. 25, Museum of Modern Art Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, (212) 708-9400, moma.org; $10.

MUSIC. Wednesday, February 11. One Fine Day: A Tribute to Camilla Williams. 7 p.m. NYPL Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. 515 Malcolm X Boulevard. City Opera's first Madame Butterfly and a favorite singer of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The 88-year-old will speak about her life and career in this tribute. $10. See detailed listing at NYPL website.

WALKING. Thursday, February 12 is the 200th anniversary of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, born February 12, 1809. To celebrate, consult this post on Walking Off the Big Apple. Walk up Broadway, stop in the Corner Cafe, the spot of Mathew Brady's long-gone photo gallery at the corner with Bleecker, and then give a career-making speech at Cooper Union.

LITERARY. Friday, February 13. 7 p.m. Adam Gopnik, discussion and book signing for his new book, Angels and Ages, a comparison of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, both born February 12, 1809. Barnes & Noble, 97 Warren St. at Greenwich St. Tribeca.

CHOCOLATE. Saturday, February 14. Let's all stimulate the NYC economy by buying chocolate in great quantities for Valentine's Day. See this WOTBA list of fine chocolate stores.

MUSIC. Saturday, February 14. La Lanterna di Vittorio is a romantic cafe with a downstairs known as The Bar Next Door. Some hot music is going there many nights of the week in addition to the dining and a fireplace. So cozy. Check out the Valentines Day special events as well as themes of the other nights at http://lalanternacaffe.com/

MUSIC. Sunday, February 15. 12 p.m. Allen Toussaint. Joe's Pub at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St. Tickets: adults $30, children 12 and under $15. http://www.joespub.com

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple. You can always walk off the chocolate. Btw, I enjoyed watching the Grammy Awards last night, noting to add Adele's song "Chasing Pavements" to my flâneur's song list.

Notes: I'm updating the sidebar of this website with more lists of back posts and walks. Check it out. I also have provided links to Tribeca Film Institute's Reframe website and to Metrotwin, a site that "twins" places in London and New York. I contribute posts on these good sites also.

The Light in Edward Hopper: The Sunny Side of the Great Depression, and A Walk

Edward Hopper achieved fame relatively late in life, with his art career gaining momentum during the early years of the Great Depression. After years as a working artist, the Met, MoMA, and the Whitney started acquiring his paintings. Hopper turned 50 on July 22, 1932.

That year Hopper and his wife Jo moved toward the front of the building at 3 Washington Square North into a sunnier spot on the fourth floor that afforded a view overlooking the park. Inspired by the new point of view he started painting November, Washington Square, a landscape that showed the buildings on the north side of the park, prominently Judson Memorial Church. He set the unfinished painting aside for about twenty-seven years, coming back to it in 1959 and filling in the missing sky. Hopper shows Washington Square to be completely empty, not surprising for a painter known to remove people from his compositions. The painting shows a sleepy village, and with the earth tones and blue sky it looks like it could be a village in northern New Mexico.

Previous to the move to the sunny side, he painted an oil and a few watercolors of the views of the roofs from the back of the building, ones that show the chimney vents and such. City Roofs (1932) features the looming presence of 1 Fifth Avenue, the Art Deco skyscraper that upset the Villagers when it was erected. Interestingly, Hopper ignored many of the famous buildings of the era such as the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and Rockefeller Center and stuck mainly to pedestrian subjects. This strikes me as a wise move.

Alfred Barr organized Hopper's first retrospective at MoMA for the fall of 1933. In his review, Lewis Mumford identified a streak of loneliness in his paintings, a characterization that has stuck till the present day.

I find it encouraging to know that a hard-working middle-aged guy can catch a break in hard times. Reading the economic news can lead to some serious despair, the kind that can interrupt the flow of life and propel the worrywart back to bed. It's unfortunate that we have the same word for a sustained downturn in the economy as well as a clinical psychological state of despair. According to biographer Gail Levin, Hopper himself was prone to symptoms of depression, especially a lethargy that sometimes interfered with his work. Still, he persevered through a tense marriage and difficult economic times. Building a house on Cape Cod, and therefore having a change of scenery as well as a large studio, seemed to have helped with the mood. He also read a lot and went to the movies. *

Here's a short walk that begins at Hopper's house on Washington Square North and ends at the demolished diner made famous in Nighthawks (1942). The route goes by the original location of the Whitney Museum on 8th Street and then angles up Greenwich Avenue.


View Larger Map

Notes on the walk:

• 8 W. 8th St. Formerly home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, from 1931 until its move uptown in 1954.

• 147 W. 4th St. Hopper's first one-man show was held at the Whitney Studio Club at 147 W. 4th St. in January 1920, mainly featuring paintings from his Paris years. (We should all have our Paris years.)

November, Washington Square by Edward Hopper, oil on canvas, 34 1/8 by 50 1/4 inches, 1932 and 1959, Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

*Additional Note: Here's an article on the Dexigner website from 2007 about the creative studio Exopolis that designed the TCM trailer inspired by Hopper paintings. Many of Hopper's paintings were inspired by the movies, and many filmmakers have been influenced by Hopper.

The Light in Hopper: The Diner on Greenwich Avenue. Yes, That Diner

June 8, 2010. Jeremiah's Vanishing New York has written a three-part thriller investigating the potential locations for Hopper's famous diner. Start with Part I here.

May 14, 2010. Update to post: From time to time, readers become interested in this post. Today was such a day. Thanks to a link from Jeremiah's Vanishing New York on May 14, 2010, a few readers have written to me about their own quest to find some certainty in the now-vanished diner. I consider the case open, because a photo of a diner resembling the Nighthawk has not yet surfaced. I based my original conjecture on a couple of things. First, Hopper said that his painting "was suggested by a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet." That gets us only so far, but the intersection of Greenwich and Seventh Avenue seemed a possibility. Second, several online sources published prior to my post cited this location (Mulry Square) as the home for the diner. When I blended my image and part of the painting together, the angles seem to match. Still, I could visit other locations on Greenwich Avenue and possibly achieve the same affect. In other words, I think this is an open case, and I encourage readers with specific local knowledge or good art history skills to offer their own theories of the location of Hopper's famous diner. It may turn out that Hopper, an artist, made sketches based on an actual restaurant, but that on returning to the studio on Washington Square, he mostly relied on his imagination. However the story turns out, I'm sorry the diner has vanished. Please leave your comments, knowledge, or speculations in the comments section. I look forward to hearing from you. - TT

In the immediate weeks following Pearl Harbor, the attack that propelled the nation into World War II, Edward Hopper was busy painting a new canvas. He made several preparatory sketches for a scene at a diner. These sketches and studies included a seated man in a hat shown from the back, one of a man seated at the counter and leaning forward and another of a woman, sketches of the coffee maker, a salt shaker and other counter necessities. Hopper made studies for the general shape of the diner as seen from the outside. The eatery sat on a corner intersection of a city and featured a dynamic curve and large windows, these more like transparent walls, and he roughly penciled in the angle of the street behind the building. The point of view is that of a pedestrian passing along the street at night.

During his lifetime, Hopper spoke little about the stories behind his paintings, but for the famous finished painting we know as Nighthawks (1942), he made the location clear. From an interview with Katherine Kuh published in 1962:

Hopper: "[Nighthawks] was suggested by a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet. Nighthawks seems to be the way I think of a night street.
Question: Lonely and empty?
Hopper: I didn't see it as particularly lonely. I simplified the scene a great deal and made the restaurant bigger. Unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city." - quoted in Katharine Kuh, The Artist's' Voice: Talks with Seventeen Modern Artists, p. 134

Following in Hopper's footsteps, I walked from the place where he lived on Washington Square North to the intersection of Greenwich and Seventh Avenues to visit the location of the demolished diner. On this spot, a high chain link fence, dotted with hundreds of individual tiles to commemorate the events of 9-11, surrounds a mostly empty lot used to store equipment. Based on my conversations, I believe many locals know about the Nighthawks story, and from time to time, someone will propose a new plan for this corner lot.

Stand at a certain spot on the Seventh Avenue side of the intersection and squint your eyes. An icon of American culture may appear.

From Winter 2009

Image: Dayhawks (2009). Photoshop image of the diner section of Hopper's Nighthawks superimposed on an image of the southeast corner of Seventh and Greenwich Avenues, taken by Walking Off the Big Apple on February 4, 2009. Nighthawks (1942), oil on canvas, 33 1/8 x 60 inches, by Edward Hopper is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. This post is part of a series about the New York of Edward Hopper.

See the walk and location on a map at this follow-up post.

The Light in Hopper: The Years on Washington Square North

Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) lived at 3 Washington Square North, in what is commonly called "The Row," in Greenwich Village from 1913 until the day he died in 1967. He was almost 85, and presumably, he saw many changes during the course of five decades as he looked out his studio windows onto Washington Square. He moved into the Village in the year of the Armory Show (1913), the New York world of the Ashcan artists, the bohemians, the theater of Eugene O'Neill and the Provincetown Playhouse, Mabel Dodge's salons, and John Reed's radical causes. In 1924 he married artist Jo Nivison at the French Evangelical Church on West 16th St.

At the time of his death, at home in his Washington Square studio on May 15, 1967, he and his wife were living amidst an equally bustling bohemia - the world of Dylan and Baez, the counterculture, and protests against the war in Vietnam. He moved into the neighborhood when Woodrow Wilson was President, and he died during the administration of LBJ. But he mostly stayed away from the party life of each era, and he didn't stay all year long in his place on the square. He liked to get into his car and drive, sometimes for months on end.

Hopper's career took off in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when he was a middle-aged man. The Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and especially the Whitney Museum of American Art (then around the corner on 8th Street) acquired his paintings for their collections. MoMA gave him the first big retrospective in 1933. Throughout the years of the Great Depression and World War II, he worked at a steady pace, and his stature and celebrity increased with each passing year. Many people associate Hopper's images with the 1930s and 1940s, especially the solitary ordinary men and women in lonely diners, offices and remote country houses.

"The loneliness thing is overdone."- Edward Hopper

From Walking Off the Big Apple

As someone who walks Edward Hopper's neighborhood, often on an early Sunday morning and who likewise enjoys the light and shadows and the colors of buildings, I'm intrigued by what he saw and painted. I want to know more of his vision of the world - the lonely and solitary, the relationship between fact and fiction, and the renderings of artificial and natural light. I want to know more about where he walked.

I'm beginning to feel some of his steps along the sidewalk now as I learn more of his attraction to certain types of places and streets. And so a new walk begins.

Images: above, 3 Washington Square North. Below, along Greenwich Avenue near 7th Avenue. by Walking Off the Big Apple.

See the follow-up post on Nighthawks.

Walking Through the Charlton-King-Vandam Historic District and Beyond

The acronym "BFF" is my new name for the neighborhood that encompasses the Charlton-King-Vandam Historic District, a name too long to use in casual conversation, as well as the blocks west of Varick Street to the Hudson River. The general area I'm speaking of is south of West Houston Street and north of Canal Street. Many label this area the South Village, but it doesn't feel like the Village to me. I shall call it BFF, which stands for Beyond Film Forum (the cinema on West Houston). The place is just kind of way over there, remote and yonder, west and south. You know, beyond Film Forum. To prove my point, a bar in that neighborhood is called "Antarctica."

The Charlton-King-Vandam Historic District is bounded by Varick, Vandam, MacDougal and King Streets, and is characterized by the quality of its Federalist and Greek Revival architecture, especially the townhouses. I forgot to take pictures of them to show you. It's a quiet and peaceful neighborhood, and consequently when I walked through the area on Sunday, I saw almost no one. After passing by the Film Forum on West Houston (where I did see several people buying tickets), I wandered around Charlton, King, and Vandam Streets and looked at neat rows of well-kept houses.


View Larger Map

Leaving the historic district, I strolled west on King Street to Hudson Street, a major thoroughfare I always enjoy because I can usually find food. Jacques Torres Chocolates has an outpost on this corner, and stopping in to smell the chocolate is almost as good as consuming it. I said "almost." The store is located between the formidable Saatchi & Saatchi world headquarters to the north and Antarctica to the south. The lobby of Saatchi & Saatchi, the agency that created the "I Love New York" campaign, features large works by Frank Stella, and you can peer in the window and see these from the street.

Strolling back east I wound up at the intersection of Spring and Sixth Avenue near the Aquagrill. Spring Street looked quite amazing from the perspective of the BFF neighborhood. Just the simple act of approaching a familiar street from a different direction can seem like a revelation.

As solitary as I was on a sunny winter Sunday, but OK with that, I amused myself mostly by appreciating the light and shadows on the buildings. While looking at the light cast on a particular building on the corner of Varick and Vandam, the home of City Winery, and seeing the diners on the covered patio of Aquagrill, the feel of the light reminded me of the New York paintings of artist Edward Hopper.

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple from Sunday, February 1, 2009. Coming soon: The Light in Edward Hopper, a special themed walk.

WOTBA New York Cultural Events Calendar for February 2-8, 2009, With News of Staten Island Chuck's Forecast

Our metropolitan groundhog, Staten Island Chuck, did not see his shadow this morning. Happy happy joy joy. Spring must be around the corner (but the corner looks to be full of snow, according to this week's forecast). Punxsutawney Phil, on the other hand, sleepy from the Pittsburgh Steelers party, did see his shadow. Never mind. We only care about Chuck.

Please forgive me for not walking much lately. It's been terribly cold. Fortunately, we had a thaw yesterday, and I roamed around the Charlton-King-Vandam Historic District on Sunday afternoon. While there, looking for a new themed walk to explore, I saw the light. Flickr WOTBA has a sneak preview. Details forthcoming.

WALKING. Monday might make a lovely day to explore the winter light cast upon the city's buildings. Or visit Staten Island where this morning Mayor Bloomberg greeted NYC's own groundhog, Staten Island Chuck.

MUSIC. Monday, February 2. Juilliard Jazz Orchestra with Terence Blanchard. 8 pm. Peter Jay Sharp Theater at the Juilliard School, 55 W 65th St. Free.

MUSIC. February 5, 6, 7. Jane Monheit. 8:30 pm Thurs and 8 p.m. Fri. & Sat.. Feinstein's at Loews Regency, 540 Park Avenue (at 61st Street).

LITERARY. Wednesday, February 4. Affliction Night. Jayne Anne Phillips + Sarah Manguso , with musical guest Daniel Knox and members of the Broadway Cast of HAIR. 7 pm. Joe's Pub at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St.

ART. Thursday, February 5. Check out Peter Doig 10am–6pm. Opened January 17 and continues through March 14. GBE (Gavin Brown's Enterprise), 620 Greenwich St.

FILM. Friday, February 6. Film Forum's 1930s film festival Breadlines & Champagne begins with I'm No Angel and Selected Short Subjects. A four-week festival of Depression era, pre-code movies. Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street.

FILM. February 6 - 19, 2009. FADED GLORY: Oscar Micheaux and Black Pre-War Cinema. Walter Reade Theater, Film Society of Lincoln Center, W. 65th St. between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.

ART. Saturday, February 7. Connections. Jenkins Johnson Gallery, 521 W 26th St. Through March 28, 2009. Historic and contemporary artists that speak on topics of race, ethnicity, identity and gender in America. Includes work by Romare Bearden, Carrie Mae Weems, Jacob Lawrence, Lorna Simpson, George Tooker, Gordon Parks, and many more.

MUSIC. Saturday, February 7. Also Feb. 4 & 6. Cleveland Orchestra 8pm. Carnegie Hall, 57th St. & Fifth Avenue. From the old joke, everyone knows the directions, but the N, Q, R, or W stops right there.

FOOD. More than 150 area restaurants are extending Restaurant Week through February 27. Lunch $24.07; Dinner $35.00 See Open Table for details.

Image: Vandam and Varick, February 1, afternoon, by Walking Off the Big Apple. The light...like something I've seen before, maybe in a painting. Yes, of course.