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May 31, 2006
The First National City Bank of New York
415 Broadway. Founded in 1812, the First National City Bank of New York would go on to become Citibank, parent of multibillion dollar Citigroup. In 1919, eight years before this building on Canal St/Broadway was completed, Citibank had already accumulated assets of over 1 billion dollars. Now this great Deco structure lays abused by Sbarros, Payless, and counterfit bag merchants. A gem, gleaming, in the jostling density of Canal. Bring this beauty back from the brink. As C.J. Hughes pointed out last year in the Times, Banks can get good and profitable reuses in Manhattan. Forgotten NY has a great old bank page.
Posted by jmarston at 09:33 PM | Comments (2)
Geology with McPhee
"The towers of midtown, as one might imagine, were emplaced in substantial rock - rock that once had been heated near the point of melting, had recrystallized, had been heated again, had recrystallized, and, while not particularly competent, was more than adequate to hold up those buildings. Most important, it was right at the surface. You could see it, it all its micaeous glitter, shining like silver in the outcrops of Central Park. Four hundred and fifty million years in age, it was called Manhattan schist. All through midtown, it was at or near the surface, but in the region south of Thirtieth Street it began to fall away, and at Washington Square it descended abruptly. The whole saddle between midtown and Wall Street would be underwater, if it not filled with many tens of fathoms of glacial till. So there sat Greenwhich Village, SoHo, Chinatown, on material that could not hold up a great deal more than a golf tee - on the ground-up wreckage of the Ramapos, on crushed Catskill, on odd bits of Nyack and Tenafly. In the Wall Street area, the bedrock does not return to the surface, but it comes within forty feet and is accessible for the footings of the tallest things in town."
"The Wisconsinan ice sheet, arriving from the north, had come over the city not from New England, as one might guess, but primarily from New Jersey, whose Hudson River counties lie due north of Manhattan. Big boulders from New Jersey Palisades are strewn about in Central Park, and more of the same diabase is scattered through Brooklyn. The ice wholly covered the Bronx and Manhattan, and its broad snout moved across Astoria, Maspeth, Williamsburg, and Bedford-Stuyvesant before sliding to a stop in Flatbush. Flatbush was the end of the line, the point of no return for the Ice Age, the locus of the terminal moraine. Water poured in the white tumult from the melting ice, carrying and sorting its freight of sands and gravels, building the outwash plain: Bensonhurst, Canarsie, the Flatlands, Coney Island."
"Most of Coney Island is New Jersey diabase, Fordham gneiss, Inwood marble, Manhattan schist. The individual grains are characteristically angular and sharp, because the source rock was so recently crushed by the glacier. To make a well-rounded grain, you need a lot more time. Weather and waves had been working on this sand for fifteen thousand years."
selections from the most excellent book,
In Suspect Terrain, by John McPhee.
Posted by jmarston at 09:15 PM
Nixons Ghost on Mushrooms in Brooklyn
Posted by jmarston at 09:11 PM
Early Flatbush
147 Flatbush Ave. Rumor is this climbs 40 stories.
The project architects, Ismael Leyva, did this hilarious rendering for State St Chicago. ESB with a suburban roofline.
Posted by jmarston at 08:30 PM
Goofy Space Plastic
145 Park Place
The balconies are baloney, the glass, ok - a little Vancouver - the kicked out base, not so much, - green roof would scream LUX! the backside facade has a cheap stucco. Stone, or hi quality wood, not West Palm Yucco. The corner on the roof line is good, square windows are good. At least theres no parking. These were already overpriced back in January.
Posted by jmarston at 07:52 PM
Meier Crane
1 Eastern Parkway. Shit this is anxious, better be good Richy.
Posted by jmarston at 07:49 PM | Comments (2)
Rogers little Marvelaid.
267-287 State St. 14 Townhouses and Those upstairs windows better open!
Posted by jmarston at 07:15 PM
Blue Tarps 2
The 'address', 556 State, looking from Atlantic. Amenities include: Hi Speed Elevator, hahaha!
Is there a stop work order on this site? 457-467 Atlantic.
200 Schermerhorn St., State Renaissance Court
Posted by jmarston at 03:03 PM | Comments (2)
May 30, 2006
NOAA's Ark
The historical map & chart project on NOAA's website has some 21,000 maps, with a few very old gems in the mix. Most are decommissioned 20th century charts, which have some interesting data in and of themselves, but there are some fantastic golden oldies as well.
Here is a wonderful nautical chart of New York harbor from 1777. Note the town of Utrecht, in Brookland.
On the East River, Wallabout Bay, charted here in 1887 before the mud flats were dredged to make room for the 20th century Navy Yard. Much like how it appeared during the Revolutionary War when the British used the U-Shaped channel to anchor the prison ships.
A survey of the Mississippi basin from 1843, focusing on the Minneapolis/St Paul area, 15 years before Minnesota gained statehood. The St. Croix river sits vertically in the center.
Here is a contemporary map of the San Diego harbor which delineates the explosives dumping areas, as well as nuclear submarine routes; where one must navigate at ones own risk.
A contemporary map of the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of Maine & New Hampshire, a well traveled set of islands long before the settlement of mainland US. John Smith, the first to map the coasts of New England, made a mint fishing the deep Atlantic waters off the islands. More importantly, the Isle includes Smutty Nose Island, the namesake of one my favorite American beers, Shoals Pale Ale.
Posted by jmarston at 11:29 AM | Comments (2)
May 29, 2006
Memorial Day Offerings
Good ole BB 64, USS Wisconsin, on inactive reserve. Recently visited the battleship who sits right off the historical Hampton Roads - tucked in on the Elizabeth River, Norfolk VA. War Machines on Tour.
The turrets are the center of the construction process.
Biggest of the BB Battleships, On Wisconsin.
Historical images of USS Wisconsin courtesy National Maritime Center.
Shouts to my sister at King George Hospital- Ghent, Norfolk, VA!
Posted by jmarston at 10:02 PM | Comments (1)
Nice Temples
The largest stone Hindu Mandir in the US - Chicago. Beguiling and Wonderful.
"The Mandir opened to devotees, well-wishers, and visitors after the Pran Pratishtha ceremony performed by the hands of His Divine Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj on August 8, 2004. "
and the main Swaminarayan Akshardham in New Delhi.
Akshardham
"The complex was inaugurated on 6 November, 2005."
Posted by jmarston at 08:50 PM | Comments (1)