An update on the MUJI in Soho,
An update on the MUJI in Soho, three days before it opens. I’d loveto go to the opening, but it’s gonna be a zoo and a half down there on Friday. (thx david)
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kottke.org posts about nyc
Robert Benchley, reviewing the New York City
Robert Benchley, reviewing the New York City phonebook in 1921:
But it is the opinion of the present reviewer that the weakness of plot is due to the great number of characters which clutter up the pages. The Russian school is responsible for this.
(via clusterflock)
I went to a mini conference put
I went to a mini conference put on by Core77 on Friday and I’ll post a bit more about a couple of the participants in a day or so, but if you were in attendance, you may not have noticed that the person onstage claiming to be artist/designer Tobias Wong was not actually Tobias Wong (more).
The setup was an art project on Tobias’s part, they practiced together for some time to make it work. There were a lot of little jokes in fake Tobias’s talk for people who knew what was going on. Tobias was in the audience, actually answered a question for fake-Tobias during his talk.
A taxonomy of NYC restaurant tables, from
A taxonomy of NYC restaurant tables, from the lowly Sucker Tables to the Closer Tables. Two examples of the Closer Table are the cheeky Table Sex at Milk & Honey and the even cheekier Table 69 at Alto.
The Warhol Economy
Two quick reviews of Elizabeth Currid’s book, The Warhol Economy, which argues that New York’s “vibrant creative social scene” is what makes the city go. First, James Surowiecki in the New Yorker:
Of course, everyone knows that art and culture help make New York a great place to live. But Currid goes much further, showing that the culture industry creates tremendous economic value in its own right. It is the city’s fourth-largest employer, and generates billions of dollars a year in revenue. More important, New York has no real global rival for dominance in the culture industry. Using an economic-analysis tool called a “location quotient,” Currid calculates that New York matters far more to fashion, art, and culture than to finance. To exaggerate a bit, if New York suddenly disappeared, stock markets could keep functioning, but we would not be able to dress ourselves or find art to put on the wall. Currid suggests that, in the fight among cities for business, being the center of fashion and art constitutes New York’s true “competitive advantage.”
And from The Economist:
New York’s cultural economy has reached a critical juncture, argues Ms Currid, threatened by, of all things, prosperity. The bleak economic conditions of the 1970s allowed artists to flock into dirt-cheap apartments and ushered in the East Village scene of the early 1980s. The boom of the past decade, by contrast, has priced budding Basquiats out of Manhattan, pushing them across the water to Brooklyn and New Jersey. Studio flats meant for artists-in-residence get snapped up by bankers. The closure last year of CBGB, a bar that became a punk and art-rock laboratory in the 1970s (and whose founder, Hilly Kristal, died last month) came to symbolise this squeeze.
Ms Currid sees this expulsion of talent as a serious problem. The solution, she argues, lies in a series of well-aimed public-policy measures: tax incentives, zoning that helps nightlife districts, more subsidised housing and studio space for up-and-coming artists, and more.
The first chapter of the book is available on the Princeton University Press site.
A pair of Lego skyscrapers (made from 250,000
A pair of Lego skyscrapers (made from 250,000 pieces and inhabited by 1000 Lego people) are on display at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in NYC through November 24. Dennis Crowley’s got some pictures and a short movie. Details include a wee Banksy piece on the side of the building and tiny iPod ads. Here’s a timelapse video of the construction. (thx, dens)
New York has a decreasing number of
New York has a decreasing number of Jewish delis, but the reopened Second Avenue Deli will be among them.
Federman said that his clientele has gone from “95 percent Jewish to 50-50” and that changing with the times is part of business. (He now sells three varieties of tofu “cream cheese.”) “I think Second Avenue Deli, Katz’s, us, we’re all making our little sphere of the world a better place,” he said. “Doctors and lawyers basically live off other people’s misery. Part of the perk of working here is people coming in and being so happy.”
The deli’s general manager recalled his favorite customers at the old location:
But my favorite was when we had five nuns eating matzoh balls served by a Lebanese waiter — in a kosher deli. That’s New York.
See also a writeup of a panel on Jewish Cuisine and the Evolution of the Jewish Deli on Serious Eats.
NYC’s Chinatown is Hillary Clinton country.
NYC’s Chinatown is Hillary Clinton country.
In April, a single [Clinton] fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000. When Sen. John F. Kerry ran for president in 2004, he received $24,000 from Chinatown.
Aleksandra Mir’s Newsroom 1986-2000 project features huge
Aleksandra Mir’s Newsroom 1986-2000 project features huge hand-drawn reproductions of tabloid front pages. Show is up through Oct 27 in NYC. (via quipsologies)
Lagerfeld Confidential is a documentary film about
Lagerfeld Confidential is a documentary film about Karl Lagerfeld, the first such film done with Lagerfeld’s authorization. It’s playing at Film Forum in NYC later this month.
The NYC Dept of Transportation is introducing
The NYC Dept of Transportation is introducing compass decals to be placed on sidewalks at subway exits to help orient disembarking passengers. I thought I’d posted a link about this idea before on kottke.org, but the only reference I can find is a discussion about compasses on manhole covers. (thx, erik)
Update: Aha, here’s the entry. John has more.
Design, Wit, and the Creative Act, a
Design, Wit, and the Creative Act, a half-day event put on by Core77.
How do designers employ wit, irony — even subversion — in the service of making a connection with their audience, and how can they replicate these connections across a body of work? Are there limits to commercializing this kind of design, or are we seeing new opportunities for the provocateur in an ever-commoditized world? What is the role of the brand in this context, and to what degree does a sly exchange between designer and user create a new kind of brand experience?
Featuring Ze Frank, Steven Heller, and others…Nov 9 in NYC.
The total area taken up by all
The total area taken up by all the Wal-Marts in the world is bigger than Manhattan.
BLDGBLOG talks with experimental architect Lebbeus Woods
BLDGBLOG talks with experimental architect Lebbeus Woods about his work, starting with an image he made of Manhattan with dams on the Hudson and East Rivers, which reveals a deep canyon between lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Hitotoki, short stories about New York…”short
Hitotoki, short stories about New York…”short narratives describing pivotal moments of elation, confusion, absurdity, love or grief — or anything in between — inseparably tied to a specific place”. Also available in the original Tokyo flavor.
I’m no Yankees fan, but I got
I’m no Yankees fan, but I got a little sad reading this article about Joe Torre’s possible departure from the team after 12 years. It seems like the individual leader gets too much credit for successes and is assigned too much blame for failures these days. Surely the team’s poor hitting and pitching was a big contributing factor that Torre couldn’t do much about?
(Last night’s game was great, BTW. The way those fans almost willed the Yankees back into the game while Cleveland held fast was fascinating to watch.)
Parkour in New York
As part of this weekend’s New Yorker Festival, a parkour demonstration was held at Javits Plaza. Before the demonstration, Alex Wilkinson talked with David Belle, the inventor of parkour and the subject of Wilkinson’s NYer article about parkour from April. In the interview and the Q&A that followed the demonstration, Belle explained that parkour is not about competition or showing off or being reckless. It’s a test of self, of control, of deliberate practice. The journey is the point, not the sometimes spectacular results.
The demonstration consisted of a group of about 20-30 parkour practitioners, beginners and experts alike from all over the country. It seemed as though they included anyone with parkour experience who showed up and wanted to participate, and instead of a highly polished display of high skill (which is what I think the audience might have been expecting), we were treated to a more authenic look at the sport. The first five minutes were taken up with calisthenics and stretching in preparation of the jumps and vaults to come. After warming up properly, they began running through the course, each participant picking his way through the course according to desire and ability.
Experimentation was the rule of the day, not performance. With each pass, you could see the group learning the particulars of the course, where the good holds were, finding smoother combinations, and, much of the time, trying and failing. And then trying again until they got it. There was a single woman participant, one of several beginners in the group. When she had some trouble with an obstacle, Belle and his “lieutenant” stopped to show her some moves, a moment that revealed more about parkour than Belle’s jump across a ten-foot gap twenty feet off the ground. Belle himself didn’t do too much during the performance — a couple of high jumps — and had to be coaxed during the Q&A to perform one last big move for the audience. He shrugged off the applause and attention as he back-flipped down to the concrete, knowing that the true parkour had taken place earlier.
A reader of New York’s Grub Street
A reader of New York’s Grub Street blog recenty wrote in, saying that he was about to have surgery that might permanently impair his sense of taste and he was looking for recommendations of places to go for his potential last few meals. Hearing of his plight, Eric Ripert agreed to cook the fellow a special Doomsday Menu at his 4-star restaurant, Le Bernardin.
This past weekend, Tobias Frere-Jones led a
This past weekend, Tobias Frere-Jones led a typography tour of lower Manhattan for the AIGA, which I’m sad I missed (out of town guests + didn’t get a ticket in time). Luckily several people have uploaded photos from the tour (set 1, set 2, set 3, set 4), including a shot of one of my favorite lunchtime destinations, the Cup & Saucer. Love that sign (see close up).
Not sure why Mas warranted so many
Not sure why Mas warranted so many negative comments on this Chowhound thread about the worst nice restaurants in NYC. We were there last night for my birthday and everything was great: service, wine, and food. It was our 5th or 6th visit over the past 3 years and nothing’s ever been amiss.
Bringing back the housecall
Dr. Jay Parkinson M.D. emailed in to tell me about his new medical practice in Williamsburg. He’s got no office (housecalls only), takes appointment requests via SMS, email, or IM, handles some follow-ups over video chat, and specializes in the 18-40 age group without traditional health insurance. The goal, states Parkinson, is to “mix the service of an old-time, small town doctor with the latest technology to keep you and your bank account healthy”.
To give you an idea of how the practice operates, here’s a recap of his first day on the job:
Yesterday went quite well and I was very happy with the amount of money I kept out of the hands of companies that attempt to take advantage of how difficult it is to find prices for medications and healthcare services. For example, the first patient I saw needed a medication that Walgreens offered for $60. I called my tried and true Williamsburg mom-and-pop pharmacy only a few blocks from Walgreens and talked to Arthur the Pharmacist who said he sells it for $15. “Thanks Arthur.” “No thank you Jay.” The way it should be done.
My second patient was getting a certain medication for years every month by mail from Walgreens that costs $63 per month. I knew where she could get the same medication for $42 a month. I just saved her $252 per year. After she made her $200 down payment on my services via PayPal, her monthly fee for my services is now only $17 a month. But I just saved her $21 a month on her monthly mail order medication. She’s essentially getting the rest of the year of my services for free. Not bad.
Sounds fantastic. If only every doctor was this much of an advocate for his patients.
P.S. Parkinson also happens to be a heck of a photographer (@ Flickr). Some photos NSFW. I linked to this interview about his photography between him and Joerg Colberg last May.
Update: The WSJ Health blog has a short interview with Parkinson, followed by a lengthy comment thread.
A neat comparison of butcher’s diagram of
A neat comparison of butcher’s diagram of cuts of beef and a map of Manhattan. It looks like I live in Chuck Shortribs or maybe Brisket. See also the front cover of Rats by Robert Sullivan.
Peeping on voyeurs in the park
In the 1970s, Japanese photograhper Kohei Yoshiyuki stumbled upon a couple in a park engaged in sexual activity in the darkness and, somewhat more curiously, two men creeping towards the couple, watching them. Over many months, he followed these voyeurs in the park, befriended them, and outfitted his camera with an infrared flash so as to blend into the crowded darkness. The result is a fantastic series of photos called The Park. As you can see in the photo below, Yoshiyuki even caught some of the peeping toms touching their “visual prey”.
Yoshiyuki’s photographs explore the boundaries of privacy, an increasingly rare commodity. Ironically, we may reluctantly accommodate ourselves to being watched at the A.T.M., the airport, in stores, but our appetite for observing people in extremely personal circumstances doesn’t seem to wane.
The NY Times has an audio slideshow of some images from The Park, which is on display at the Yossi Milo gallery in NYC until October 20 (more photos). A book of Yoshiyuki’s photography is available at Amazon.
The Times article mentions several photographers whose work is similar to Yoshiyuki’s. Merry Alpern took photographs through a window of prostitutes plying their trade with Wall Street businessmen. Weegee used an infrared flash to capture kissing couples at the movie theater (although it seems that particular shot was staged) and on the beach at Coney Island (last photo here). Walker Evans photographed people on the subway without their knowledge.
Jane Jacobs and the Future of New
Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York is an exhibition at The Municipal Art Society of New York.
Coming at a time of unprecedented growth and redevelopment in the city, this exhibit aims to encourage New Yorkers to observe the city closely and to empower them, with a combination of tools and resources, to take an active role in advocating for a more livable city.
The exhibit runs from Sept 25 through Jan 5, 2008.
Update: A review of the exhibition in the NY Times (slideshow). Among the artifacts at the show is a letter sent by Robert Moses to Jacobs’ publisher: “I am returning the book you sent me. Aside from the fact that it is intemperate and inaccurate, it is also libelous.”
Influential Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni listens to
Influential Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni listens to the sounds of Manhattan waking up in the morning. “The sheets of metal. A short clatter, like gunfire. A train passes, perhaps the elevated. A peal, prolonged, and then the siren, abrupt. Gone. The sounds change in a moment, they arise and die again immediately. The hum reasserts itself, advancing like a camouflaged army, approaches, closes in, on the alert, ready to take over completely.” The hum reasserts. I hear that one all the time as traffic ebbs and flows outside our apartment.
Wes Anderson is promoting The Darjeeling Limited
Wes Anderson is promoting The Darjeeling Limited by releasing a 13-minute teaser film called Hotel Chevalier on the web before Darjeeling opens in theaters. Three words: Natalie Portman nude. Portman, Anderson, and Jason Schwartzman will be at the Apple Store in NYC to premiere the short. If you go, expect a freakin’ mob scene of twee hipster horndogs.
Update: New Wes Anderson Film Features Deadpan Delivery, Meticulous Art Direction, Characters With Father Issues. Completely unexpected.
Raul Gutierrez tells a great NYC story
Raul Gutierrez tells a great NYC story about his late night adventure with a bunch of strangers.
After a few minutes a very tall girl with long brown hair who I would later learn was a Parsons design student, broke social convention, turned to her fellow benchmates, and said, “My God, wasn’t today beautiful.” At first she just got a few quiet affirmations,”yeah, gorgeous”, “best day yet” etc, but then a young woman in a business suit again broke social convention and revealed personal information: “It was so nice, when I woke up I decided I didn’t want to feel miserable about anything, and broke up with my boyfriend. I ditched him at 7:30 in the morning. He didn’t know what hit him.”
Eugene de Salignac was the official photographer
Eugene de Salignac was the official photographer for the NYC Department of Bridges from 1906 to 1934. His collection of photographs was recently uncovered and, as it turns out, de Salignac was a great photographer and his photographs charted the progress of New York growing into a big city. The New Yorker has a slideshow of some of his photos and there’s an exhibit of his work at the Museum of the City of New York until Oct 28. (thx, stacy)
First NY Times restaurant review, circa 1859?
While poking around in the newly opened archives of the New York Times yesterday, I stumbled upon an article called How We Dine (full text in PDF) from January 1, 1859. I’m not well versed in the history of food criticism, but I believe this is perhaps the first restaurant review to appear in the Times and that the unnamed gentleman who wrote it (the byline is “by the Strong-Minded Reporter of the Times”) is the progenitor of the paper’s later reviewers like Ruth Reichl, Mimi Sheraton, and Frank Bruni.
The article starts off with a directive from the editor-in-chief to “go and dine”:
“Very well,” replied the editor-in-chief. “Dine somewhere else to-day and somewhere else to-morrow. I wish you to dine everywhere, — from the Astor House Restaurant to the smallest description of dining saloon in the City, in order that you may furnish an account of all these places. The cashier will pay your expenses.”
Before starting on his quest, the reporter differentiates eating from dining — noting that many believe “whereas all people know how to eat, it is only the French who know how to dine” — and defines what he means by an American dinner (as opposed to a French one). Here’s his list of the types of American dinner to be found in New York, from most comfortable to least:
1. The Family dinner at home.
2. The Stetsonian dinner.
3. The Delmonican, or French dinner.
4. The Minor dinner of the Stetsonian principle.
5. The Eating-house dinner, so called.
6. The Second-class Eating-house dinner.
7. The Third-class Eating-house feed.
The remainder of the article is devoted to descriptions of what a diner might find at each of these types of establishments. Among the places he dined was Delmonico’s, where dining in America is said to have originated:
Once let Delmonico have your order, and you are safe. You may repose in peace up to the very moment when you sit down with your guests. No nobleman of England — no Marquis of the ancienne nobless — was ever better served or waited on in greater style that you will be in a private room at Delmonico’s. The lights will be brilliant, the waiters will be curled and perfumed and gloved, the dishes will be strictly en règle and the wines will come with precision of clock-work that has been duly wound up. If you “pay your money like a gentleman,” you will be fed like a gentleman, and no mistake… The cookery, however, will be superb, and the attendance will be good. If you make the ordinary mistakes of a untraveled man, and call for dishes in unusual progression, the waiter will perhaps sneer almost imperceptibly, but he will go no further, if you don’t try his feelings too harshly, or put your knife into your mouth.
According to a series of articles by Joe O’Connell, Delmonico’s was the first restaurant in the US when it opened in 1830 and invented Eggs Benedict, Oysters Rockefeller, Baked Alaska, Lobster Newberg, and the term “86’d”, used when the popular Delmonico Steak (#86 on menu) was sold out, or so the story goes. O’Connell’s history of Delmonico’s provides us with some context for the How We Dine piece:
The restaurant was a novelty in New York. There were new foods, a courteous staff, and cooking that was unknown at the homes of even the wealthiest New Yorkers. The restaurant was open for lunch and dinner.
The restaurant featured a bill of fare, which was itself new. Those who dined at inns were fed on a set meal for a set price. As a result, everyone was fed the same meal and were charged the same price, whether they ate little or much. In Paris, however, restaurants offered their patrons a “bill of fare”, a carte, which listed separate dishes with individual prices. Each patron could choose a combination of dishes which was different from the other patrons. Each dish was priced separately. Thus, the restaurant was able to accommodate the tastes and hunger of each individual. The various dishes and their prices were listed on a carte or (the English translation) “bill of fare”. Today, we call it a menu.
And from Delmonico’s developed many different types of dining establishments, which the Strong-Minded Reporter set out to document thirty years later. Contrast his visit to Delmonico’s with the experience in the “sandwich-room” at Browne’s Auction Hotel, an eating-house:
The habitués of the place are rarely questioned at all. The man who has eaten a sandwich every day for the past ten years at the Auction Hotel no sooner takes his seat than a sandwich is set before him. The man who has for the same period indulged daily in pie or hard boiled eggs (there are some men with amazing digestion) is similarly treated. The occasional visitor, however, is briefly questioned by the attendant before whom he takes his place. “Sandwich?” or “Pie?” If he say “Sandwich,” in reply, the little man laconically inquires, “Mustard?” The customer nods, and is served. If his mission be pie, instead, a little square morsel of cheese is invariably presented to him. Why such a custom should prevail at these places, no amount of research has yet enabled me to ascertain. Nothing can be more incongruous to pie than cheese, which, according to rule and common sense, is only admissible after pie, as a digester. But the guests at the Auction Hotel invariably take them together, and with strict fairness — a bite at the pie, and a bite at the cheese, again the pie, and again the cheese, and so on until both are finished.
The experience of being a regular has barely changed in 150 years. And finally, our intrepid reporter visits an unnamed third class eating-house:
The noise in the dining hall is terrific. A guest has no sooner seated himself than a plate is literally flung at him by an irritated and perspiring waiter, loosely habited in an unbuttoned shirt whereof the varying color is, I am given to understand, white on Sunday, and daily darkening until Saturday, when it is mixed white and black — black predominating. The jerking of the plate is closely followed up by a similar performance with a knife and a steel fork, and immediately succeeding these harmless missiles come a fearful shout from the waiter demanding in hasty tones, “What do you want now?” Having mildly stated what you desire to be served with, the waiter echoes your words in a voice of thunder, goes through the same ceremony with the next man and the next, through an infinite series, and rushes frantically from your presence. Presently returning, he appears with a column of dishes whereof the base is in one hand and the extreme edge of the capital is artfully secured under his chin. He passes down the aisle of guests, and, as he goes, deals out the dishes as he would cards, until the last is served, when he commences again Da Capo. The disgusting manner in which the individuals who dine at this place, thrust their food into their mouths with the blades of their knives, makes you tremble with apprehensions of suicide…
The entire article is well worth the read…one of the most interesting things I’ve found online in awhile.
Update: According to their web site, a restaurant in New Orleans named Antoine’s claims that they invented Oysters Rockefeller. Another tidbit: from what I can gather, the Delmonico’s that now exists in lower Manhattan has little to do with the original Delmonico’s (even though they claim otherwise), sort of like the various Ray’s Pizza places sprinkled about Manhattan. (thx, everyone who sent this in)
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