Capote, Taylor, Warhol, Williams

Truman Capote, Elizabeth Taylor, Andy Warhol, and Tennessee Williams were not only giants of their respective fields, but their mutual friendships inspired some of their greatest works. As a young artist in New York, Warhol idolized Capote, modeling his path to fame on the writer's own journey to celebrity. Taylor, who passed away last week at the age of 79, just days before the 100th anniversary of the birth of playwright Williams, brought four of his dramatic characters to life on screen.

Image: Phillips de Pury

After Williams died in 1983, Capote penned an article for Playboy titled "Remembering Tennessee," illustrated with a Warhol portrait. This coming May, Warhol's "Liz #5," a rare beauty, goes up for auction, expected to bring in at least $20 million. These friends constituted a mutual appreciation society of high accomplishment and fame. Only the others could really understand what that level of fame was like. What follows is a list of selected intersections between two or more of these fab four, with a special emphasis on their crossroads in New York.

First, the vital stats:

Truman Capote. Born Truman Streckfus Persons, New Orleans, LA.,, September 30, 1924 – Died Los Angeles, CA., August 25, 1984, age 59

Elizabeth Taylor. Born Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, Hampstead Garden Suburb, near London, February 27, 1932 – Died Los Angeles, CA., March 23, 2011, age 79

Andy Warhol. Born Andrew Warhola, Pittsburgh, PA., August 6, 1928 – Died New York, NY February 22, 1987, age 58

Tennessee Williams. Born Thomas Lanier Williams, Columbus, MS., March 26, 1911 – Died New York, NY, February 25, 1983, age 71

• Capote/Taylor. Upon the passing of screen legend Elizabeth Taylor last week, the mass media offered many multimedia tributes to her life and work, highlighting pictures of her gorgeous violet eyes, her film and charity work, her life with several husbands. It all seemed the same after awhile, so it was a great pleasure to read an insightful essay from 1974 by her friend, Truman Capote, reprinted in The Telegraph, that brought many aspects of her personality to life. Capote's essay was first published in Ladies’ Home Journal in 1974.

• Capote/Williams. One of Capote's final essays, "Remembering Tennessee," captures both the sadness and humor of the playwright. Capote reminisces that he first met Williams, thirteen years his senior, when he was just sixteen, while waiting tables at the Greenwich Village Cafe. He writes, "We became great friends -- it really was sort of an intellectual friendship, though people inevitably thought otherwise." Capote helped act out the playwright's earliest one acts as well as the play that would become The Glass Menagerie, assuming the role of the daughter. (What Capote or Williams fan wouldn't have liked to overhear that?!) Williams's issues with drugs and alcohol became more problematic over time, Capote remembered, and his Blanche-like sadness set in. Beset with similar issues, Capote died the next year. From Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote. Random House, 2007. Capote dedicated his 1980 book of stories, Music for Chameleons, to Williams. A chapter of Answered Prayers, Capote's unfinished novel, titled "Unspoiled Monsters," is a satire on his playwright friend.

• Warhol/Williams. The two were friends as well. Warhol made screenprint portraits of the playwright, too. Here's a picture made by a staff photographer for the New York World-Telegram & Sun, donated as part of a collection to the Library of Congress. The date is 1967, and Warhol and Williams are aboard the SS France. Filmmaker and frequent Warhol collaborator Paul Morrissey is standing between them in the background.

A Walk to Macy's Flower Show

Strolling from Washington Square Park to Macy's in Herald Square makes for a short but entertaining walk, filled with window-shopping, excellent eateries, expensive shops, cheap bargains, breathtaking architecture, historic parks, hotels, and pedestrian-friendly places. That is, if you walk via University Place to Broadway and then up to Herald Square. (A map follows.) There much to do, and no wonder these streets are often crowded.

Northwest corner, Union Square

Macy's Flower Show opened Sunday, offering a chance for those of us who simply cannot wait for spring blossoms to go someplace where they are already in full bloom. The day was chilly but brilliant, one with translucent blue skies. It was one of those days where the wind had blown away any stagnate air, so that the skies seemed to confer perfect vision. The sun was strong enough to draw people outside to dine on the sidewalk or to take their time with window-shopping.

Approaching Madison Square Park

The old stretch of Ladies Mile between Union Square and Madison Square, once the most fashionable shopping district in the city a hundred years ago, still attracts many customers, although the businesses these days are less about what to wear than how to decorate the apartment. ABC Carpet, a vast interior decorating palace, is always worth visiting, even if a pillow is the only thing some of us can find affordable. Style and affordability lures many of us to Fish Eddys, hoping that our smart dinnerware patterns will be enough to satisfy visitors. Pressing on north of Madison Square, it's hard to skip the vast attractions of Eataly, the popular Italian food emporium, or two blocks later, the chicken and biscuit fortification at Hill Country Chicken (and don't forget the pies). Nor are we stopping in a wholesale store or a wig shop today, or even more alluring, the bars of the Ace Hotel. Not today. The Flatiron area is full of distractions. That's why it works.

New York Scenes in the Life and Death of Tennessee Williams

March 26 is the birthday of American playwright Tennessee Williams, whose centennial we are celebrating all year. As anyone who has followed the life and work of the playwright of The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and many other famous plays, the author was a restless soul, never content to stay in any one place. But New York was the home of the theater, and so his work brought him here. And New York is where he died. Here are a few notes on Tennessee Williams's life and fitful relationship with the city, taken from biographies and letters, arranged as scenes. Imagine them set to music.

Scene One
In July 1928, when he was 17, Thomas "Tom" Lanier Williams (born March 26, 1911 in Columbus, Miss.) stopped in New York City on his way to Europe with a church group led by his grandfather, Reverend W. E. Dakin. The two stayed at the Biltmore Hotel, a luxury hotel next to Grand Central Terminal. While in New York, the teenager and his grandfather visited Grant's Tomb, Saint Paul's and Trinity Church, and they saw Florence Ziegfeld's production of Show Boat. Tom was like any other tourist. (from Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams by Lyle Leverich. Brown Publishers, 1995. pps. 89-91)

Scene Two
Seeking success as a playwright, Tom, becoming "Tennessee," traveled to New York in September of 1939 to pursue a career in the theater. According to his recollection, he "arrived in New York broke, unshaven and looking 'pretty disreputable,'" but he headed straight away to Rockefeller Center to meet with Audrey Wood, his talent agent. To make it in the theater in 1939, succeeding on Broadway was mandatory. In letters to family, he expressed a loathing for New York. He moved several times within that city that fall. (Leverich, p. 326)

On the Site of the Triangle Fire, 100 years Later

On March 25, 1911, a terrible fire killed 146 garment workers working inside the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Building at 23-29 Washington Place. At the time of the fire, the building housed a factory that made women's blouses and employed 600 workers, most of them immigrant women and many of them quite young.

They worked long shifts and were paid low wages. When the fatal fire broke out in the factory, seamstresses on the ninth floor found one staircase full of smoke and flames, and the other exit door was locked. Many jumped to their deaths. The shame of the working conditions revealed in the tragedy helped spur growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (now part of UNITE, Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees). Today, March 25, 2011, marks the 100th anniversary of the horrible event.

iPhone Apps for New York Culture On the Go

For those wanting to know more about the Met's exhibit on guitar craftsmen, the latest Public Art Fund's installation in Central Park, the history of the Flatiron Building, ticket availability for Wednesday's matinees on Broadway, or hear a favorite chamber music performance at Lincoln Center,  just pull out the smart phone. Yes, "there's an app for that," to quote Apple's now popular and trademarked phrase. Several New York institutions and publications have jumped on the mobile bandwagon by developing apps to supplement your culture on the go. Here are several worth downloading.

The links provided below connect to their iTunes previews. Prices listed for the apps, where applicable, are subject to change. A few of these apps are available for the iPad and iPod touch, as well as other operating systems including Android.

•  Asian Art New York
This monthly guide by Asian Art Newspaper to Asian and Islamic art in galleries, auction houses and museums, searchable by names and categories, is especially helpful during Asian Art Week (March 22-25) but good for the rest of the year. The comprehensive exhibition listings, going beyond New York City, serves as a good reminder to check out several must-see exhibits at the Japan Society and the Rubin Museum, for example, but also works at the China Institute Gallery and the Museum of Chinese in America. Price: $0.99

•  Brooklyn Museum Mobile
Brooklyn Museum's straightforward app provides boiler plate press releases of exhibitions and a useful calendar of events with brief descriptions. The special feature on Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, the feminist landmark artwork installed in the museum, includes biographies of all the women invited to the table. Kids can play the "Gallery Tag" game, accumulating points for spotting fruits, dogs, flowers, and more in the artworks. Free.

Moon River

Johnny Mercer wrote the lyrics for "Moon River," the song from 1961 that won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The song belonged to Breakfast at Tiffany's, the film version of Truman Capote's novella. Mercer and composer Henry Mancini tailored the song for Audrey Hepburn, the actress playing the lead role of Holly Golightly, the Texas girl who fled her roots in poverty to make a new life for herself in New York City. The song about "two drifters off to see the world" has only nine lines, but Mercer's poetic river reverie aches with a longing for a better future.

Moon over the East River, above the Manhattan Bridge, as viewed from the Brooklyn Bridge, March 19, 2011.
The moon's beauty was hard to capture, especially on an iPhone.
The reflection of the moon in the river reveals some of the beauty.

The moon rising over Brooklyn.

The lyrics of the song reveal a self-conscious awareness that dreams can be broken, but the dreamer also asserts the determination to make it. In this respect, "Moon River" may be seen as part of the tradition of New York songs that comment on the willfulness it takes to become successful in the big city. Kander & Ebb's "New York, New York" and the Jay-Z and Alicia Keys versions of "Empire State of Mind," a response to the first song popularized by Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli, are part of this tradition. "Moon River" expresses the wish in a slow and quiet, even southern, way.

The Long Green Line: Pictures from the St. Patrick's Day Parade, New York City

Prepare for an extra dose of green.

While New York's St. Patricks' Day Parade was shortened a few blocks this year, ending at 79th Street instead of the area north of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as has been the custom, it seemed to take longer than usual. Several marching bands and legions of proud Irish were still marching up Fifth Avenue at 5 p.m.

The weather on Thursday brought a hint of spring green, right on cue. It often feels like New York owns the seasons, with spring not allowed to officially commence until the sons and daughters of Ireland hit the streets of the city.

The New York of Augustus Saint-Gaudens

As we're celebrating all things Irish on St. Patrick's Day, it's time to take note of the contributions of Irish-Americans to New York City's culture. While the list is long, here's an artist of note. While walking along 2nd Avenue between E. 19th and E. 20th Streets be sure to check out the fancy gate on the east side of the avenue. The playground is named after the Irish-American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907), the Gilded Age creator of the Admiral Farragut Monument in Madison Square Park, the golden Sherman monument in Grand Army Plaza, and the Peter Cooper Monument in Cooper Square. His well-crafted works are known for their balance between realism and a heightened emotional expression.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens playground. 2nd Avenue.

Born in Dublin to an Irish mother and French father (hence the last name), Augustus was raised in New York City after his family immigrated. He was just a baby. The growing adolescent showed great skill in the arts, apprenticing to a cameo cutter while taking classes at Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design. Life many artists of his day, he left for Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts. When he returned to New York he met with great success, often working with established architects like Stanford White. His most moving work is in the Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C. - the Adams Memorial, commissioned by writer Henry Adams as a memorial to his wife, Clover.

The life and work of Saint-Gaudens in New York should be appreciated in relationship to other prominent artists and architects in the city. He was personally and professionally close to the architects Stanford White and Charles McKim and painter John La Farge and often collaborated with them. He was also personal friends with painters Winslow Homer and William Merritt Chase. The mutual friendships contributed to a flowering of the arts in New York City in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a time of monumental building projects and civic ambitions. A dignified man with steady emotions, a polite demeanor, and strong artistic focus, Saint-Gaudens was the most celebrated American sculptor of his day.

Many New York visitors would be familiar with the final work of Saint-Gaudens - the Sherman monument in Grand Army Plaza. Following the death of William Tecumseh Sherman in New York City in 1891, the City's Chamber of Commerce commissioned the work. Saint-Gaudens already knew Sherman, as the Civil War general had previously sat for the artist in 1888. The artist greatly admired Sherman and spent a great deal of time in his two studios, one in Paris and the other in his beloved home in Cornish, New Hampshire working on the statue. The work took a toil on his health, and it was not unveiled until Memorial Day in 1903. The artist managed to attend the ceremony.

The allegorical woman figure leading William Tecumseh "War is hell" Sherman stands as a symbol for peace. As with many of his female figures, she was modeled after Saint-Gaudens's mistress. The original gold leaf had flaked off through the years, and the monument was restored in 1989. Source: The New York Parks page on the monument.

Sherman Monument in Grand Army Plaza by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. 59th St. and Fifth Avenue.  Image from April 17, 2009.

From Walking Off the Big Apple

Saint-Gaudens contributed a lasting work to the city of his birth, Dublin. On the north end of O'Connell Street, the city's own Broadway, the tall obelisk of the Parnell Monument, unveiled in 1911 after the sculptor's death, is dedicated to the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891). Collaborating with architects Henry Bacon of McKim, Meade, and White, and Irish architect George Sheridan, the monument features the figure of the leader, his arm outstretched, at the base. Above him is etched a golden lyre, the national symbol. Next to it are the words from a speech by Parnell to his fellow countrymen:

“No man shall have the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation.

No man has a right to say to his country Thus far shalt thou go, and no further.

We have never attempted to fix the ne plus ultra to the progress of Ireland's nationhood, 

and we never shall."

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple, from the archives.

The Metropolitan Museum of art has several important works by Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907). See their Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Win a Trip for Two to San Antonio, Texas

It's one thing to read about visiting San Antonio, Texas, but thanks to VisitSanAntonio.com, a lucky reader of Walking Off the Big Apple will win a getaway for two to San Antonio! Now you, too, will have a chance to remember the Alamo, explore the River Walk, and enjoy this fast growing metropolis.

The winner will receive the following great prize package:

• Hotel: Emily Morgan - 1 two night voucher
• Restaurants: La Gloria Ice House, Guenther House for four
• Airfare: $1000 Visa Gift Card
• The winner will also receive passes to: SeaWorld, Six Flags Fiesta Texas, Witte Museum, Buckhorn Museum, Alamo Audio Tour, Alamo at the IMAX, and City Sightseeing bus.

Fun! That should cover you - lodging, food, and excellent sightseeing. That Visa gift card should be able to handle transportation to the Alamo City. Sweet.

Picture yourself here. On the left, the Emily Morgan Hotel. On the right, the Alamo.

25 Great Things to Do in San Antonio

This fast-growing cosmopolitan city encompasses a great number of natural, culinary, historical, and artistic attractions. Several can be explored along the River Walk or clustered in other areas of the city. Here are 25 favorites.

1. The Alamo. Begin with the shrine at the center of Texas history. San Antonio is celebrating the 175th anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo (read WOTBA's account) with events all year. Watch living history reenactors demonstrate how people lived, fought, and worked in the Texas of 1836.

2. The San Antonio River Walk. Stroll the historic walk along the San Antonio River and enjoy restaurants, shops, and music. Read about the major expansion of the historic downtown River Walk.

3. Tower of the Americas. This 750-foot-tall signature feature of the San Antonio skyline, built for HemisFair '68, is open for great views, dining, drinks, and even a 4-D theater show.

4. Menger Bar at the Menger Hotel is where Theodore Roosevelt recruited his Rough Riders. Hang out and drink in this hotel home of Texas elegance.

5. La Villita. Originally a settlement for Spanish soldiers assigned to the Mission San Antonio de Valero, and later for Santa Ana's troops, this little village now houses a thriving arts community.

dinner cruise,
San Antonio River

6. Arneson River Theater. Within La Villita, visit the premier River Walk venue for the performing arts.

7. Little Rhein Steak House. Also at La Villita, this fine restaurant offers romantic views of the River Walk. Even on a chilly night, it's still possible to enjoy dining outside on the patio - the staff will provide a warm wooly pancho.

8. San Fernando Cathedral. Founded in 1731 by families from the Canary Islands, the Catholic cathedral played an important role in the Battle of the Alamo. Santa Ana raised the "no quarter" flag from the original tower. Some say David Crockett is buried there.

9. Tower Life Building. Long known as the Transit Tower, this historic neo-Gothic tower, built in 1928, was designed by the local Ayers & Ayers firm, complete with gargoyles staring down at pedestrians and the barge crowd along the River Walk. The building is indicative of the wealth of commercial architecture from mid-20th century in the city, easily explored near the city center.

10. Aztec Theatre is one of the great 1920s dream movie palaces, decorated in the Meso-American style.

The Alamo (1)

11. Blue Star Contemporary Art Center (116 Blue Star). The contemporary arts scene in San Antonio rivals any large city, in large part due to this pioneering art space near the city's King William and South Town communities.

12. Guenther House. In the gracious home of the founder of the Pioneer Flour Mills, you'll find this exceedingly tasty and scenic spot for a great breakfast or lunch. The biscuits and delicate waffles are particularly wonderful. Stroll the nearby King William Historic District after.

13. Steves Homestead House Museum. Located at 509 King William Street, this three-story mansion serves as a fine example of the prosperity of San Antonio's German community in the 19th century.

In San Antonio: Stories of Remembrance and Reclamation, Part II: Reclaiming the River

Anyone who has visited San Antonio, Texas over the past sixty years or so would no doubt be familiar with the city's lovely River Walk (Paseo del Rio), but for those who have not made it back to the Alamo City in the last couple of years may be in for an awakening. The existing River Walk, the popular and lushly landscaped feature that is lined with restaurants, shops, and hotels, and importantly tames the downtown section of the San Antonio River, has undergone a major $384 million expansion project. To the north, a $72 million project called the Museum Reach opened in May of 2009, adding 1.33 miles of art and historical-themed landscaping to connect downtown with the San Antonio Museum of Art and the now repurposed Pearl Brewery complex. To the south, an even more ambitious project is underway, the Mission Reach, a stretch of the river that not only will meander all the way down to the city's historic missions but also reclaim the river itself. It's an urban planner's dream, but the River Walk's expansion will mean much more to the city's residents.

The initial idea for the River Walk was long in the making, born out of the necessity to control the San Antonio River. In the wake of a terrible flood in 1921 that claimed lives, San Antonio native and architect Robert H. H. Hugman proposed the beautification plan of walkways and bridges that would serve as the basis for the walk. The Great Depression delayed the construction for a decade until the federal government's WPA project made the funding possible. Hugman served as the project architect, overseeing its development. Early visitors to the post-war River Walk would still today recognize Casa Rio, the first restaurant to open on the River Walk in 1946. The River Walk underwent extensive improvements in 1968, the year of HemisFair '68. The futuristic world's fair did much more than bring a new 92-acre park and a new landmark, the Tower of the Americas, to San Antonio. It's understood within the city that the international fair, requiring a considerable investment of public and private money, catapulted the city into another league, a destination city with a significant amount of attractions.

Pictures from 70 Days of Walks: Days 64 - 70

And thus concludes this 10-week series, created on January 1 as a New Year's resolution. The initial idea was to walk a couple of miles each day for 70 days and take a picture along the way. While I entertained an expectation that the walks would lead to some weight loss, the main impetus was to get out of the apartment and have something of an adventure, not necessarily dramatic, every day of the week.

I had no idea on January 1, of course, that the winter weather in New York this season would turn out so cold and snowy, with the snowiest January on record. When we weren't having a blizzard, we often had cold winds. Conditions often made it hard to motivate myself to get out and walk. Sometimes, I would walk in circles close to my neighborhood so I could get back inside quickly. On several days in the worst weather, I fell short of the 2.5 mile goal. I sometimes felt defeated.

Day 64  The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas  (March 5, 2011)

It was fun for me to walk at least a few days in my home state of Texas. Warm weather with sunny skies and temperatures in the 80s didn't hurt. I felt I needed to mix up pictures of Washington Square Park, a place near my current residence, with at least one of the Alamo and one of the River Walk.

Day 65 River Walk, San Antonio, Texas (March 6, 2011)

If I had to do it again, I would pick the 10 weeks starting this week with spring on the horizon. Yet, walking in Spring is almost too easy. I probably avoided the winter blues in January and February by forcing myself to get out and walk. After the first bone-chilling mile, the body warms up to it.

Day 66 Houston Street, New York (March 7, 2011)

In San Antonio: Stories of Remembrance and Reclamation

Part I. Remembering the Alamo. March 6, 2011, 6 a.m. The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo, a multi-day event held in downtown San Antonio near the iconic shrine that symbolizes the historic siege, culminated in a solemn pre-sunrise ceremony on the clear and cool Texas morning of March 6, 2011. In the early morning darkness, hundreds of visitors, some direct descendants of the fort's defenders, gathered around the re-enactors as announcers memorialized the last moments of the fallen. Men representing Travis, Crockett, and Bowie resembled their movie counterparts, at least in costume details, but the ceremony, too, asked those who had gathered to remember all those who died - several women, many of Texian-Mexican descent, their children, the slain soldiers of the Mexican army under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna, and others now lost to history. Piercing the cool quiet morning was the shockingly loud sound of musket fire, awakening the ceremony's witnesses into imagining the visceral horrors of the warfare on that morning on March 6, 1836.

What we've come to call The Alamo, the Mission-style structure that originally served as the sanctuary of the compound and was altered to its present form in the years after the battle, looms so large as the symbol of Texas's origins that visitors expect a monument of Texas-size scale. As many attest, however, it's surprising to encounter a modest, even small, building in a relatively small park and adjacent plaza in the middle of downtown San Antonio. The shrine itself, off limits to photography, maintains a hushed reverence and aura. One afternoon, a tall older man, gaunt and pale, as if he long held a deep spiritual connection to this spot, stood in silence within the frame of an arched doorway, holding his cowboy hat reverently to his chest.

A New York Spring Calendar 2011: Blooming Times and Seasonal Events

After this past snowy winter, too long and too deep according to many observers, New Yorkers deserve a great spring. Let's get on with it. If you start seeing small yellow flowers on the bare stems of small ornamental trees this coming week, you're likely looking at the Cornelian Cherry Dogwood, an excellent harbinger of spring. Keep your eye out also for the sunny small flowers of yellow jessamine and forsythia.

It's time to take note of our seasonal blooming times, the best locations for witnessing spring's beginnings, and springtime events in the big city. We're just a short time away from parades and opening days. Though we typically will slosh through a few more weeks with chilly days, it's time to play ball.

Blooming Times

• Central Park Conservancy's website lists blooming times within the park. During the month of March we begin to see crocus, daffodils, forsythia, snowdrops, witch-hazel, and hellebores. Species tulips will emerge in several places, but the Shakespeare Garden and Conservatory Garden are particularly good places to catch the beginning of Spring blooms.

• By the first week of April, the callery pears should be in bloom, providing a soft white canopy on many New York streets. See these pictures from last April 2 on the trees in bloom in Greenwich Village.

• Citywide Blooming Calendar from New York City Department of Parks & Recreation

April is the month when full blooms appear in New York City, and this NYC Parks website provides a handy monthly guide to the specific locations of blooming trees, flowers, shrubs, and buds.

• Heritage Crabapple Trees. New York City Department of Parks & Recreation

Celebrating the great beautiful flowering crabapples, this page on the NYC Parks site explains why you can't buy and plant a crabapple today and expect it to look as beautiful as those in Central Park.

• Check out The Orchid Show: On Broadway, a special theatrical presentation of a dazzling collection of orchids brought to you by The New York Botanical Garden in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Bronx River Parkway at Fordham Road Bronx. The special show continues through April 25, 2011. The Garden is open year-round, Tuesday-Sunday, 10am - 6pm. Check the website for exceptions.

Pictures from 70 Days of Walks: Days 57 - 63

It's been a week of long strolls in two cities. Plenty of great food, diverse urban landscapes, two Alamos, and many tourists. More in the coming week on San Antonio and its relevance to New York, so consider this just a teaser. This is the second to final installment in a series that began January 1, 2011.

Day 57 (February 26, 2011) Gonzalez y Gonzalez, closed, Broadway

Day 58 (February 27, 2011) Bleecker and 7th, warm day

Day 59 (February 28, 2011) window of DoJo, 4th and Mercer

A Tale of Two Alamos

Photo below from Wednesday, March 2, 2011 5:13 p.m. "Alamo," (1967) a sculpture by Tony Rosenthal (1914-2009), Astor Place, New York, New York. Rosenthal said that his European-born wife, having read a lot of American history, started talking about the Battle of the Alamo and told him that he should name this sculpture "Alamo." He said OK. Many people just call it the "Cube." (Source of story - this video interview with the artist on The Hamptons website.)

Photo below from Thursday, March 3, 2011 4:04 p.m. (CST) The Mission San Antonio de Valero, San Antonio, Texas. The story of how the building came to be known as the Alamo remains vague. Some contend that the Alamo refers to the company of soldiers once garrisoned there. Others talk of the Alamo as the Spanish word for the cottonwood tree, prominent in the area. The name grew in popular acceptance in the few years prior to the Battle of the Alamo (February 23 - March 6, 1836). The battle took place 175 years ago this week.

Both images by Walking Off the Big Apple, who will be reporting from Texas this weekend.

At The Skyscraper Museum: Vertical Urban Factory

According to the instructive exhibition, Vertical Urban Factory, on exhibit through June at The Skyscraper Museum, thousands of factories and hundreds of thousands of factory workers once kept New York City humming to the sound of machines. In our day, those numbers have considerably dwindled. The enormous shift from a roaring manufacturing city that made, shaped, or assembled material goods to a high-tech city that creates and manipulates symbols constitutes one of those most important undercurrents in the contemporary life of the city.

Tall buildings that once housed teams of workers running integrated factories now accommodate fashion designers, artists, public relations professionals, and digital entrepreneurs. As factory production shifts overseas, most notably to China where urbanization is hurrying along at breakneck speed, New Yorkers must explore the possibilities of creating new types of sustainable industry within the city. Vertical Urban Factory, curated by architectural historian and critic Nina Rappaport, explores the architectural designs of past and present city factories to address these challenges.

The exhibit looks at examples of vertical factories of the past and future, including in Fiat Lingotto in Turin, Italy, 1916-23; company towns, represented by Bat'a in Czechoslovakia, 1923-39; the curved glass of the Van Nelle coffee, tea, and tobacco factory in Rotterdam, 1925-31; Sainsbury's, a grocery business in London, 1934-36; Corbusier's modular Claude & Duval factory France, 1946-51; and Buckminster Fuller's dome design for a vertical cotton mill, unrealized from the early 1950s. The factory exhibits are complemented by a thorough timeline of urbanization and industrialization, contemporary plans for new sustainable factories exhibited on stilled conveyor belts, and filmmaker Eric Breitbart's effective compilations of factory work moving images.

Remember when The New York Times printed out the paper in the same building that housed its writers, editors, and ad people? That practice ended in 1997, and the printing moving to an automated production process in a rather stunning building in College Point, Queens. In addition to the newspaper, the city is well-represented here, including several references to the Garment District, the transformation of the National Biscuit Company building into the Chelsea Market, and the old Studebaker plant in Manhattanville at 615 W. 131st St., the Domino Sugar Plant, the enormous Starrett-Lehigh Building on the west side, and the Steinway & Sons factory in Queens and its company town. There are many more examples of what made New York work.

After leaving the exhibition space be sure to check out the museum's other offerings, including the three wall-size photographs of a changing downtown. Look at the waterfront in the picture from August 1956, and observe the many piers. Those finger piers, representing the old New York that once made goods, loaded them on boats and shipped them out to the world, were quickly becoming obsolete. The piers are gone now, by and large, though a few of them have been renovated for the recreational uses of New York’s new creative class. There’s much to read between the lines of Vertical Urban Factory. In a city of loss, it explains about everything.

_________
The Skyscraper Museum is located at 39 Battery Place, New York, NY. Museum hours are 12 - 6 pm, Wednesday through Sunday. General admission is $5, $2.50 for students and seniors. The exhibit is enhanced by a conversation series, onsite tours of factories, and a virtual walkthrough via the museum's website.

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple.