Ink Lake

My Ode To Summer

The weatherman says,
today will be a scorcher.
No need to tell me.
My Entenmann’s donut,
Rich Frosted, and just taken from the fridge,
sits on my kitchen counter.
Cool, but already sweating.

Ars Gratia Artis

Picture courtesy Pete van Vleet

Jen Chung at Gothamist tells me that the man sitting for his portrait in Central Park, is probably UK-based street artist, Banksy.

(Check out his site, and scroll to the far-right)

Johnny Cash - Ain’t No Grave

This is from the Johnny Cash Project. Every frame was drawn by a different person. Really beautiful stuff. I like  the nod to A.P. Carter at about 1:55.

The Sad Cafe

Over on Vanishing New York, Jeremiah searches for the real-life inspiration of Edward Hopper’s iconic painting, Nighthawks, depicting the late-night customers of a city diner.

Legend had it being modeled after one located at Mulry Square, where Seventh Avenue South, Greenwich Avenue, and 11^th Street, all intersect. His investigation revealed that there was very likely never any diner at that corner. Several other spots on Seventh Avenue South were also looked at, but no diners there, either.

A big reason that street was a prime suspect, is that the painting portrays a sharply angled street corner, and that stretch of Seventh Avenue has a lot of them.

That’s because Seventh Avenue originally went no further south than 11^th Street, and was extended down to Carmine, where it met Varick, only in 1917. As the Greenwich Village streets were already extant, the new road cut through the middle of many blocks. It resulted in those acute intersections, and all those odd-shaped lots.  

That lengthening of Seventh Avenue allowed the IRT Seventh Avenue Line to be extended as well. Without the street being built first, the subway would have had to cut-and-cover its way through the middle of residential blocks for half-a-mile.

That same need in fact, is the sole reason for  the existence of Kenmare Street in Nolita. It was built to provide the right-of-way for the BMT Nassau Street Line to turn west and south from Delancey Street to Center. It’s the only street in Manhattan built expressly for the subway.

As for the Nighthawks diner? It appears that it’s been in the same place all along — in the imagination of the artist, and the viewers of his works.

House Painting

As our building nears its centenary, some folks have been looking into who lived there, in years gone by. It turns out that the abstract expressionist painter and sculptor, Barnett Newman, lived there in the late 50’s/early 60’s.

None to my credit, I’m not a person who knows a lot about art, and didn’t know his name, but I’ve seen his work.

The Museum of Modern Art has ten of his works, the National Gallery of Art, and the Whitney, all have some, too. The Postal Service has released an abstract expressionist stamp series, and he’s one of the artists featured, along with people like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning.

Unfortunately, we haven’t found any of his stuff in the basement. I know what you may be thinking  — “I can paint that.”

Well, get your can of Sherman-Williams, and grab a brush. Do your best, and take it over to 53rd Street.

The Vanishing

Listen to this.

LISTEN TO THIS!

NPR calls them “driveway moments”. Those bits on the radio that are so good, that after you pull into the driveway, you don’t get out, but rather, sit in the car until the story is over.

The House On Loon Lake, is as Ira Glass says, a “real-life Hardy Boys story, or an episode of Scooby-Doo.”

• Listen to 30-second promo (stream)
• Listen to full episode (stream)
• I’ve also uploaded the MP3 , so you can listen on a ‘pod’ device

Prologue

Host Ira Glass explains that our show's a little different this week. It consists of one long story, lasting the entire hour, about a young boy, an abandoned house, and the mysterious family who once lived there but seemed to disappear without a trace.

Act One

Adam Beckman tells the first part of his story, about how, back in the 1970s, he and his friends broke into an abandoned house in the small town of Freedom, New Hampshire. The home turned out to be a perfect time capsule, containing the furniture, letters and personal effects of an entire family ... abandoned for decades. It seemed like the family just vanished one day, leaving salt and pepper shakers on the table, notes on the bedroom mirror, and a wallet with money still inside. Adam and his friends read the letters, saving some as clues, and never forgot.

I heard this episode of This American Life, when I was in SLC, and sat in a parking lot until it was finished. It was cold out, so I’d restart the car every 15 minutes or so, to get the heater going.

These, And All Else, Were To Me The Same As They Are To You

Heather Quinlan brings us Brooklynites reading from Walt Whitman’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. My favorite poem of all time. Awesome!

H/T to Brooklyn Heights Blog

Walt’s Commandments

The intro to Leaves of Grass, and with it, Whitman demonstrates why he was the coolest Brooklynite, New Yorker, American, human being; quite possibly, ever.

HT:Sullivan

Good Gowanus News

The Federal government has declared the Gowanus Canal a Superfund site, which means that it will probably get cleaned up sooner rather than later.

The City had opposed the designation, wanting to do the clean-up job itself, and afraid that the designation would scare-off developers. That’s nonsense on all counts. First, where would this broke-ass city come up with the half-a-billion dollars that is estimated will be required to do the cleanup? The Federal government is broke too, but it can at least print its own money. Second, it’s hardly a secret that the canal is heavily polluted. I think developers will have more confidence that this way, it will actually get cleaned up.

The canal is not only a big slice of the industrial history of New York, it's also the site of the first, and largest land battle of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Long Island (also known as the Battle of Brooklyn).

The Times has put up a beautiful collection of photographs and paintings of the canal and its environs. This painting by Brooklyn artist Ella Yang, is of my favorite bridge in the city, the Carroll Street Bridge. More than 120 years old, it’s the oldest of only 4 retractable bridges in the United States.

The neighborhood today is very still and quiet, and is one of my favorite places to walk and bike. I volunteer with the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, – we weed, plant wildflowers, even dumped a whole lot of mushroom spores into the ground to absorb heavy metals before they run off from the streets, and into the water. It’s cool, fun stuff.

As one of the artists said at the Times site, “it’s a special and unique place”.

Before I Forget (And It Melts)

A couple of snowman pics I liked.

On the Promenade.

 

This guy is sleeping it off in Prospect Park.

Courtesy of mcbrooklyn and newyorkshitty, respectively.