Fashion Week will descend on Lincoln Center for the first time tomorrow, but the buzz is already in the air. Film crews, trailers as press points and an added presence of police were out on the scene this morning. On Saturday, construction crews were still building the spiral walkway and today they were inflating a giant rectangular faux marble balloon, providing an aura of permanency to the very-temporary event. The balloon is supported by steel beams inside,which were still visible on Saturday in the picture below.

Entrance to the Spring ’11 Fashion Week shows, under construction Saturday. The seats were for the Metropolitan Opera Summer HD Festival.
(Photo by Augustin Pasquet)

It’s interesting to me that they chose to put the entrance to the tents offside, not in the center of the Lincoln Center Plaza. In Bryant Park, the tent entrance was just at the top of the central staircase on 6th Avenue, and the whole affair was quite visible to the passerby. As a resident here, I am certainly grateful my morning walk to the subway will not be deluged by fashion week attendees.

However, I used to be one of those attendees. Most people want to know how to get tickets to these events. Well, the answer is that the fashion shows are not intended for the mass audiences not so much to be exclusive but that they are intended for press (and celebrities) of course, before the clothing actually gets produced and shipped to stores six months later. The New York Times today reported on the battle for front row seats this year, but I once finagled my way into first and second row seats (now known as “Siberia”) and even into shows I lacked tickets for by befriending the security guards. Be nice to them! But you will need to get through the front doors first. My highlights getting many pairs of free Havaianas (before they were cool) at the Rosa Cha show where all the top models walked including Naomi Campbell and Carmen Kass, attended by Jay-Z, Beyonce, Cuba Gooding Jr., Russell Simmons and more, and talking to Andre Leon Talley (Vogue) about the Tracy Reese Show.

Carmen Kass and Naomi with designer Amir Slama, Jay-Z and Beyonce in the front row
(Photo by Michelle Young)

After working for IMG/Fashion Week and then as a buyer for Calvin Klein, I (happily) exited the fashion industry. I still help out designer friends for their fashion week shows, so I will be reporting this year on what it is like for designers that do shows outside the tents, which is a much more cost-effective strategy for up and coming designers. IMG/Fashion Week is hoping that the larger Lincoln Center space will provide the opportunity to host exactly those newer designers in the future. Let’s hope they make it financially viable too.

Looking at online comments about this strip club located on Greenwich Street just south of Ground Zero, people love this place precisely because it’s grungy and hasn’t changed since the 1970s. It’s one of the last neighborhood bars in the area, that just happens to have a long stage with dancers. In 2006, I went to the lounge to listen to a friend, DJ Rob Paterson spin on the second floor of the venue. Today, despite rapid construction and controversy over at Ground Zero, this street doesn’t look too affected at all. Despite a luxury condo at 88 Greenwich, the Pussycat Lounge and the next door sex store “Thunder Lingerie” still retain their distinctive facades. The Remy Lounge has closed and is now boarded up with rodent extermination signs but the rare wooden facade and curvilinear engaged column is still visible.

Facade of Pussycat Lounge

Facade of the former Remy Lounge

The 4-story brick row building which houses the Pussycat Lounge was constructed in 1799 by Augustus Hicks Lawrence, a Wall Street financier. Before its life as the Pussycat, it was previously a restaurant and a brothel, not too dissimilar from the history of nearby 103 Washington St, now Moran’s Pub. In a complicated twist of events, hotel developer Sam Chang purchased the building for $3.5 million while the Pussycat Lounge owner was trying to get the building landmarked. Chang threatened to demolish the building but then abruptly sold it to the lounge owner at a $1 million loss. Meanwhile the DOB permit for alterations writes of a one-floor addition but there appears to be even more being added (tip and photo: Curbed).

Next door, I particularly love the door at 94 1/2 Greenwich. Not only is it wooden with vintage doorbells, but it has a decorative concrete archway and still retains the  ”MR.” of a now defunct store sign. When the neighboring business put up a new green awning, they didn’t bother removing the section above the private doorway.

Pussycat Lounge: 96 Greenwich St at Rector St.
Subway: 1 to Rector St., R to Rector St. 4/5 to Wall St.

While the supply of heirloom tomatoes was not as extensive as the Lincoln Center Greenmarket, the rest of the offerings quite offset this miss. The market also carried organic milk, eggs, baked goods, poultry, turkey, duck and many, many organic vegetables.

The award for best visual merchandising goes to Stannard farms, who use wooden crates and barrels exclusively with the vegetables overflowing as if from a plentiful bounty.

The most niche product goes to Wager’s Cider Mill featuring only grapes and grape juice!

Another fun tidbit is that the manager of this greenmarket, Luz Portillo, focused on the use of urban areas for environmental purposes in college and “feels that Greenmarket merges her interest in urban spaces and organic gardening.” A small selection of the farms present:

Samascott Orchards: Apples, cherries, strawberries, peaches and cider from Columbia County, NY. (Sun, Thurs)
DiPaola Turkeys: Turkey from Mercer County, NJ. (Sun)
Milk Thistle Farm: Certified organic milk from Columbia County, NY. (Sun)
Ardith Mae Farm: Goat cheese from Susquihanna County, PA. (Sun)
Stannard Farms: Vegetables, orchard fruit, plant and meat from Washington County, NY. (Sun, Thurs)
New York Food and Wine: Locally grown and produced wines from Long Island (Sun)
Hudson Valley Duck farm: Fresh duck as well as smoked and preserved duck products (Sun)

The market is open year round Thursdays and Sundays from 8am to 5pm.

Subway: 1 train to 116th street.
Bus: M104, M11, M4 or M60

According to the New York City Zoning Map, this lot has the same zoning code as the Aire complex, “R8.” This is defined as a non-contextual moderate and higher-density district “where there is a mixture of building types and no predominant context.” For more detailed information on the allowable floor area ratios (FAR) for this lot, see the New York City Zoning Reference. The building can be up to 8 to 10 stories if it takes up the entire lot, or much taller if it is set back from the street (exactly how the “Aire” got its height).

Today, with residential skyscrapers stretching from Broadway to the West Side Highway, it’s hard to imagine that this was once primarily a low-density neighborhood. I moved to the Upper West Side in 1994 into one of the only two skyscrapers in the vicinity. I had unobstructed views to the Hudson River, the George Washington Bridge, Central Park and a view of Amsterdam Avenue stretching infinitely towards the horizon. Even more drastic than the changing skyline is perhaps the change in use. Back in the early ‘90s, the only major retailer was the now defunct Tower Records at 66th and Broadway, in a building that has since been demolished and rebuilt. Columbus Circle was a dangerous and abandoned marketplace and there was a post office and a burger joint in what is now the 5-floor Barnes & Noble. There were two small movie theaters, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas playing independent and foreign films and a two-screen theater playing the latest hits.

Now there’s the Loews multiplex theater, an Apple store, Best Buy, Pottery Barn, West Elm, and a slew of clothing and makeup retailers. The Empire Hotel is now a pop-culture landmark thanks to Chuck and Blair from Gossip Girl. The forthcoming closure of the Barnes & Noble in January heralds a shift in this neighborhood as it redefines itself once again: A Burberry Brit store opened on Columbus Avenue and Fashion Week will open its tents in Lincoln Center for the first time next week. Lincoln Center itself has just been completely revamped in an urban planning and architectural feat. It’s extremely well-planned, user friendly, modern and shiny. The austere marble and granite architecture is now partially re-clad in glass, silver and even green grass. And as a neighborhood you’ve made it when double-decker tour buses drive by.

Nonetheless, all these changes always seemed organic and almost natural. I saw an old film once, where a character was crossing Broadway in front of what is now the Barnes & Noble and I was reminded that there was really nothing there before. People didn’t live right on Broadway until the old buildings were demolished and rebuilt as high-rise condos. And since the beautiful Beaux-Arts buildings lay further north near 72nd street, there was nothing architecturally missed when many low-rise buildings were knocked down. Only Broadway was changing, while Columbus Avenue’s brownstones and cafes remained practically untouched. Amsterdam Avenue south of 72nd street never had much, but perhaps change is in the “Aire,” so to speak. Gentrification is the wrong word to use here, because not too much was pushed out. But the question is, can Lincoln Center retain is cultural cache if surrounded by an overwhelming presence of capital consumption?

Started in San Francisco in 2006 (inspired by New York’s Transportation Alternatives 2005 parking squat in Brooklyn), the event now takes place in 100 cities around the world. I see it as a personalized version of the pedestrian only streets introduced in New York City last year.

For more information: http://parkingdaynyc.org/

Since I accidentally started a trend of finding real and ghost planes in Google Maps last week, I figured I would follow that up with a post on ghost bikes. These bikes are real (although upon investigation, many ARE missing). The bikes, painted white and chained to street furniture, serve as a memorial to those that have died in cycling accidents in those locations. In June, the city’s Sanitation Department announced a plan to remove bikes deemed “derelict” (with missing parts), and even went as far to call them “eyesores.” This led to an expected public outcry, causing the city to back out of its plan, relieving countless family members and the community group, Street Memorial Project, that installs the bikes.

I pass the ghost bike on the cross-park section of 66th street several times a week and it never fails to strike a chord. When I heard of the city’s removal plan, I sent photographer Christoffer Delsinger (responsible for the tip on the Bushwick plane) and writer Amanda Chatel to investigate the ghost bike situation. Armed with the map from ghostbikes.org (which has ghostbike maps of not only NYC but all over the world), they went on a mission. If the city hadn’t conceded to public outcry, I was going to do a photographic documentation of all the bikes remaining. Amanda reported that she “found it quite sad that most of them are no longer up” (at least around Soho). Here are some additional snapshots that Amanda got:

New York City’s transportation commissioner, Janet Sadik-Khan proclaimed this year that New York City is the “bicycling capital of the United States.” There has been some debate as to the validity of that claim, and I would personally like to see a public bike system like Paris’s Velib (already in Denver, and now Chicago!) and streets that are more friendly towards mass transportation and cyclists. It IS possible and here’s a great recent article on how Paris has reclaimed its streets, regardless of width. “The street is ours,” goes a French saying.

Over the weekend of June 25th, not only will the W train die, but the MTA is also doing away with the V train, cutting over 30 bus routes, cutting the G ‘s route permanently in half, increasing waits for nighttime subway service, and cutting Metro North and Long Island Rail Road service. These cuts will affect millions of New Yorkers and a broken state transit funding system is largely responsible for it.

Meet at 7:30 at Times Square Station for the procession/funeral (the area near the last car of the Uptown N/Q/R/W) or meet us at Astoria Blvd Station at 8:15 for a short rally. We’ll all walk over to Bohemian Hall after.

Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden is located at 2919 24th Avenue (between 29th and 31st Streets – don’t get the Queens streets and avenues confused) near the Astoria Blvd N/W stop.

If you are interested in taking photographs of the event for Untapped, please comment below or send an email to untappedcities@gmail.com.

Photograph © Untapped New York by Amanda Chatel

Untapped New York took a trip to the Empire Diner, a month after it closed. Brooklyn-based writer Amanda Chatel and our photographer for this post reports that it looked “sad and desolate. The boarded up windows made it feel cold and lonely. The liveliness and energy was gone. And the worst part was there were all these tourists walking by (because the High Line is right there) and they weren’t even aware of what the Empire Diner represented and how the neighborhood lost a bit of color the day it closed.” Even more tragic was that it closed because the landlords wouldn’t renew the lease, not because it was out of business.

The original diner was built in 1946 in a New Jersey factory by Fodero Dining Car Company, founded by immigrant Joseph Fodero. The diner closed in 1976 and was saved by three New Yorkers: Jack Doenias, Carl Laanes, and Richard Ruskay, who renovated the diner. Its signature stainless steel façade, black and chrome trim and art deco logo, remained an architectural staple, even as the Chelsea and the Meatpacking districts transformed dramatically. In 1998, The New Yorker proclaimed it the “latest hangout [for] artists, starving and otherwise.” The iconic diner was featured in Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” “Men in Black,” the Billy Joel song “Great Wall of China,” and Bette Davis reportedly proclaimed it to be her favorite diner. Its clientele has always ranged from the quotidian to the rich and famous, representing the physical juxtaposition of social classes that can be New York. John Gray, previously a writer for Knight-Ridder, described The Empire in 1995 as a “place of glam and ham,” a place he fell in love with not for “just its food, but the way it captures the serendipitous excitement of a city where anything can happen.”

The current owners are looking for new locations for the diner and are open to suggestions in New York and anywhere around the globe. The vacancy left will be replaced by another, probably banal looking restaurant or glass store. The Empire Diner website is still up and you can read their blog and shop their apparel shop at http://www.empire-diner.com/. From a photographic perspective, I was intrigued (but not surprised) by how many photographs in Flickr people took of themselves in the Empire Diner, rather than of the building itself. I think this simply demonstrates the diner’s landmark and iconic status in New York.

How to Get There:

210 10th Avenue, at the corner with West 22nd Street
C or E train to the 23rd Street

A mosaic from c. 100 AD of Alexander the Great who tried to capture the world through might and warfare

A different type of mosaic than that of Alexander the Great, but The New York Times LENS blog is putting together a global mosaic of photographs all to be taken at approximately 15:00 hours (U.T.C.) on May 2nd. Anybody can submit: amateurs, professionals, taken on your fancy DSLR or your cell phone. That’s 11am in New York City. How many will be hungover?

This project piqued my interest because it’s not about where you are from, but where you will BE. Underlying the project is a commentary on globalism, multiculturalism, technology, transportation and more. There has been some criticism that the project unfairly biases those parts of the world that will be daytime to the exclusion of East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand (where it will be 3am Monday morning). I hope there are some die-hard photographers in those parts of the world! Maybe a follow-up project where the Western world will be in darkness, thus enlightening the supposedly enlightened part of the world about life when they are sleep. A side-by-side comparison would be quite striking.

Nonetheless, a cool concept. And from an art perspective, I am curious what form it will take digitally. A literal mosaic of the globe? A slideshow? An interactive map? To participate:

The original LENS blog post
A time converter to find out what time to take your picture
Submit your photo to submit.nytimes.com/moment

Global. Timeless. Placeless.

These were the keywords from a publisher who was interested in my photography for the cover of a forthcoming book by architect Jan Gehl, who designed the new pedestrian spaces in New York City, including Times Square and Herald Square. Gehl’s new book is about people and the urban spaces around them. After taking 650 photographs, I was viscerally reminded that we love New York City precisely because its identity is so indelible and palpable. I began to wonder if this assignment was even possible in New York. But in the end, my best photograph was one where location was subordinate to the humanity of the lived space. Where, for a second, I was able to forget the grandeur of New York’s architecture and remember that it’s the interaction of the people with the built environment that truly captures the essence of the city. New York without people is still recognizable but unsettling and haunting, as seen in the photography of Christopher Thomas. Or a city where the the line between model and reality is blurred, like the work of photographer Patrick Messina.

Photos by Christopher Thomas, Source: New York Times

Photo by Patrick Messina

The photo assignment took me on a pilgrimage through public spaces both contemporary and historic. From “park” to “public space,” the terminologies tell an etymological story. As architects and planners, we are no longer designing parks isolated from the urban fabric, like in the case of the walled Central Park or the elevated Bryant Park, but we make use of underutilized and ambiguous spaces within our midst. We challenge the traditional strict separation of functions–pedestrian, automobile, building, open space–and now even question whether “green space” necessarily entails grass and landscaping. In sum, we undermine the rationality of the street grid put forth 200 years before.

But as users, we transform conceptual space into lived space, and give final proof of the validity of a design. The popularity of disparate open spaces like Bryant Park and the pedestrian islands between Times Square and Herald Square, demonstrate the foresight of New York’s urban planning and the adaptability of its citizens to new configurations. Forthcoming will be the recap of my photo journey, with additional suggestions of other great public spaces by borough in honor of the arrival of spring!