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Walking journal and art reviews by a Texas-born New York resident with entertaining commentary on the cultural life of the city.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'architecture'
A Walk in Turtle Bay: Beekman Place, the U.N., Tudor City, and E. 42nd St.
I recommend that visitors to New York, if they have time, should escape the more manic tourist attractions to discover quieter parts of the city. It's not only nice to get away from the crowds, for a ...
Grand Central Theatre, and A New Walk Begins
After scouting new walks around Midtown East today, I made my way back to Grand Central Terminal to catch a downtown train home. When I entered the terminal I noticed that the light looked particularl...
Waxing Poetic About the McDonald's at Broadway and Thomas
I was walking south on Broadway the other day to look at the Woolworth Building when I was struck by the spectacle of this vernacular burger franchise. I've written about more elegant buildings, inclu...
Jean Nouvel, Cass Gilbert, and the Hugh Ferriss Degree of Separation
In the image here, a streetscape along Mercer Street in Soho, the dark glassy building on the left is 40 Mercer, a luxury condo development by architect Jean Nouvel completed a few months ago. Yesterd...
The Woolworth Building
Minnesota architect Cass Gilbert (1859-1934) designed several important buildings for 20th century New York. The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House (1902-1907) at 1 Bowling Green, his first big com...
The Tribeca of Duane: Duane Street and Duane Park
On my walks through Tribeca last week, I found that my head and feet propelled me toward Duane Park, whether I liked it or not. This particular triangular streetscape, with its little well-groomed isl...
Tribeca's Most Tripped-Out Vista
Whoa...This afternoon, after spending most of my time wandering Tribeca's pretty cobbled streets and looking at nineteenth century manufacturing buildings, I walked west on Duane Street, through Wash...
Tribeca Living: A Building for Chocolate and One for the Wool Trade
The Powell Building (1892) at 105 Hudson Street (at Franklin St.), shown on the left, was designed by Carrere & Hastings, the architects of the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Str...
Monday Roundup: Chelsea Planning Tip, Whitney Biennial, Green Peppercorn Sauce, and Other Items
Visiting Chelsea. Maybe the following quick Descent Into Art Hell in Chelsea has happened to others: I hate when I'm in Chelsea and I've just realized I wanted to visit a particular gallery but it's f...
Letter to the Editor: The Not-So-Pink Building
"I tried to leave a comment on your blog, but I'm not so good at figuring out how to do that.Anyway, I just wanted to say that your article on the pink building inspired me to go out yesterday in the ...
Schnabel, WOTBA, and Venetian Masks: Most Popular Search Terms
I like to know the means by which new readers come to this website, and perusing the list of most popular search terms from time to time, I begin to ascertain patterns. I am also curious how well I he...
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: The Walk, and a Map
Visiting the four major building projects of architect Raymond Hood - the Daily News Building, the Radiator Building, Rockefeller Center, and the McGraw-Hill building, constitutes a pleasurable midtow...
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: Final Thoughts
Raymond Hood did not live to see the completion of the vast Rockefeller Center complex. An untimely death in 1934 at the age of 53, he had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. His architecture practice...
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: Rockefeller Center
Walking the long cool dimly-lit black and gold power corridors of the GE building in Rockefeller Center, beginning my journey at the west entrance on the Avenue of the Americas and moving toward the e...
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: The McGraw-Hill Building
The McGraw-Hill Building at 330 West 42nd Street, built in 1930, is unusually blue-green. In fact, architect Raymond Hood's use of glazed terra cotta tiles in shades of blue-green constitutes one of ...
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: The News Building
In 1919 Chicago Tribune co-publishers Joseph Medill Patterson and Robert R. McCormick couldn't agree over the content of the newspaper, so they decided Patterson should start a different newspaper in ...
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: The Radiator Building
After architect Raymond Hood finished the renovation of Mori's restaurant in Greenwich Village in 1920, he found success designing radiator covers for the American Radiator Company. The income allowed...
Raymond Hood Designed My Duane Reade, Well, Sort Of
Born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on March 21, 1881, Raymond Hood attended Brown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Hood returned to the United...
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect
During the heady years of the late Jazz Age in New York, architect Raymond Hood (1881-1934) presided over some of the city's most dazzling projects. Catapulted to fame after winning the 1922 competiti...
WOTBA's Walking News Digest: Walking Felon Preachers, Maryland's Issues With Walking, and No One Walks in Arlington
Florida Man Shoots Himself While Walking His DogFlorida Today.com. When I'm walking my dogs, I try not to carry too much in my pocket. I don't advise packing heat.Walking Preacher Is Really a FelonNat...
Inside the Daily Planet
Image: "Clark Kent Contemplates the Gulf of Mexico." Lobby, The New York Daily News building, 220 East 42nd Street (at 2nd Ave). 1930. Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells, designers. Photo: WOTBA, Febr...
Weekend Frivolities: Cupcakes, Buildings, Obama, Comments Now Open
• After finishing that last self-guided walk, Fifth Avenue and The High Road to Taos, I felt like I had walked from Fifth Avenue to Santa Fe and back. That was a big walk! I'm still putting together...
The Building that Would Glow at Night: Raymond Hood, Georgia O'Keeffe, and the American Radiator Building
From the walk, Fifth Avenue and The High Road to Taos: Mabel Dodge, Georgia O'Keeffe and New York City.Whenever I come upon the Radiator Building on 40th Street on the south side of Bryant Park I am i...
Ladies of the Canyon: Mabel Dodge and Georgia O'Keeffe
"Trina wears her wampum beadsShe fillls her drawing book with lineSewing lace on widows' weedsAnd filigree on leaf and vine"-Joni Mitchell, "Ladies of the Canyon"See the post Fifth Avenue & The Hi...
Too Much LOGO and Not Enough LEGO at the Center for Architecture
If you think I write too much, then you will be amazed at the amount of wall text wrapped around the interior walls of the Center for Architecture's new exhibition, Berlin-New York Dialogues: Building...
LEGO Copenhagen: Architecture for the Danish Welfare State
The other day I was trying to pass some pedestrians near Kenmare Street when I accidentally catapulted myself through the pivoting doors of the Storefront for Art and Architecture. Once landed, I spen...
The Glass Curtain: Promiscuous Conspicuous Consumption
People who live in glass houses should zip up their pants.Penelope Green's exposé, "Yours for the Peeping," in the Nov. 4 edition of the NYT poses an insightful connection between the vogue for glass...
Then We Take Berlin: Berlin in Lights Festival Underway
The Berlin in Lights festival is now underway at many venues throughout the wider New York area, celebrating the emergence of Berlin as a dynamic changing city. The rise of Berlin as a cultural center...
Garbo Walks: Into The Modern
When Garbo walked to the intersection of 53rd Street and Park Avenue in 1953, she would have encountered the brand new Lever House (1950 - 1952), a glass-box modernist building by Gordon Bunshaft of t...
