Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: New York

  • 2022 US Trip – Day 3 (Vessel at Hudson Yards)

    2022 US Trip – Day 3 (Vessel at Hudson Yards)

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    This rather exciting piece of architecture is Vessel and is part of the artworks at Hudson Yards. It was designed by the British architect Thomas Heatherwick, who also designed the ill-fated Garden Bridge project in London. Not to be done with that, he designed the 2012 Olympic Cauldron and the new Routemaster bus, so something of a modern day George Stephenson.

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    In all of this are 154 flights of stairs, 2,500 steps and 80 separate landings, so some considerable opportunity for exploration is possible. The cost though was ridiculous, at $200 million, and there’s no way that a sum of money that large should have been spent on an art project. That would have been enough to endow an art museum, despite the excitement of pretending you’re in a honeycomb. Although to be fair, I doubt they would have started off on the project if they had realised the cost, it was originally meant to be much cheaper.

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    Unfortunately, it can’t be climbed at the moment, due to a series of suicides meaning that they’re putting nets in and adding some other safety features. It must be sad for a designer to see their project become a suicide hotspot, but at least there are efforts to re-open it. It was free to climb initially, but the cost of safety improvements means that there is now (or will be again when it re-opens) a $10 fee other than for those arriving in the first hour of opening and they can have a walk around free of charge.

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    Looking out over the Hudson River, those aren’t roofs in the foreground, they’re trains parked up and it’s part of the High Line behind them. More of that later in the week.

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    Looking out from the shopping centre, there was some controversy for a long time at the lack of disabled access at Vessel, although they’ve made some changes to improve that as well. As if all of that wasn’t enough controversy, they also got into a mess with their photo policy, but more about that at https://ny.curbed.com/2019/3/21/18275790/hudson-yards-vessel-photo-policy-social-media. It looks good though, I have to give them that and perhaps I’ll get to have a bit of a walk about on it one day.

  • 2022 US Trip – Day 3 (Dylan’s Candy Bar)

    2022 US Trip – Day 3 (Dylan’s Candy Bar)

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    Not a particularly in-depth blog post this, I just liked the name, as did someone called Dylan that I know ? They don’t seem to sell much branded stuff, it’s just an emporium of sweets, which is something I think the Dylan that I know would think was quite marvellous. This is their grand outlet at the Hudson Yards shopping centre, a rather upmarket boutique type of place.

  • 2022 US Trip – Day 3 (Flixbus in the United States)

    2022 US Trip – Day 3 (Flixbus in the United States)

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    Oh good, they’ve expanded to the United States now….. I’ve had mixed journeys with Flixbus, mostly poor, and it feels a shame that they haven’t fixed a lot of the problems with their European operations before starting on the United States. I saw their bus terminal in the city, which is effectively a small car park. There’s a sign saying “if you’re early, don’t stay here, go and stand by the blue wall” as if passengers are some sort of sheep that needed to be herded into standing in the corner. There are no facilities such as seats (let alone toilets or something similar) by the wall, it’s all part of their low-cost operation.

    I think this article at https://farawayplaces.co/flixbus-usa-review/ on Flixbus US seems reasonable, the booking of a ticket can be cheap, but the operation is hugely variable depending on who they’ve got the management arrangement with. It’s a risky operation getting a Flixbus, although they’re a bit cheaper than Amtrak. I’m writing this in Richmond, Virginia, and the bus would have been $40 or so, which is around what I paid for the Amtrak service. Strangely, because American rail takes so long, it would have been quicker to get the bus, but I enjoyed my comfortable rail journey. Oh, and their silly $4 ticket fee annoys me, it would be much more honest to just add it to the ticket price.

    I’ll stop going around the houses, and mention buyer beware with Flixbus…. Anyway, I’ve digressed once again.

  • New York – National 9/11 Memorial (Engine of New York City Fire Department Ladder Company 3)

    New York – National 9/11 Memorial (Engine of New York City Fire Department Ladder Company 3)

    These photos are from 2015, so as another advance warning, their quality is pretty low. The fire truck belonged to New York City Fire Department Ladder Company 3 and it arrived at the North Tower of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.

    The fire truck had two crews on as they were changing shift when the call came through and it parked on West Street whilst the fire-fighters went to investigate the unfolding disaster.

    The fire-fighters got to around the 35th floor of the building and were killed when the building collapsed. The fire-fighters from this truck included Captain Patrick (Paddy) J. Brown, Lt. Kevin W. Donnelly, Michael Carroll, James Raymond Coyle, Gerard Dewan, Jeffrey John Giordano, Joseph Maloney, John Kevin McAvoy, Timothy Patrick McSweeney, Joseph J. Ogren and Steven John Olson.

    The fire truck itself was crushed when the tower fell on it and when the site was being cleared, it was moved to JFK Airport where it remained for around a decade. It was moved to the National 9/11 Memorial in 2011, where it remains today.

    This is a short documentary clip about Patrick Brown which was made by his sister, with a recording of the call he made from within the building. His call was very calm, polite and professional, a remarkable undertaking given what he must have been seeing.

  • New York – National 9/11 Memorial (Survivors’ Staircase)

    New York – National 9/11 Memorial (Survivors’ Staircase)

    These stairs, now moved into the National 9/11 Memorial Museum, were the steps that hundreds took to freedom as they escaped the damage done to the Twin Towers. They remained standing above ground after the site was cleared, another final stand, but they were nearly lost to the demolition process until their symbolic value was realised.

    A news report of the importance of the steps.

    On 18 July 2008, they shunted these stairs from their original location and lifted by crane their 65-ton weight into the site of the new museum.

    Visitors take an escalator which sits next to the 38 steps of the staircase when they arrive and leave the museum.

    There’s a video of their move here:

  • New York – Five Guys

    New York – Five Guys

    Just looking at this photo I took back in 2015 when I was in New York, I’m not entirely sure what I was thinking of when I thought that green coloured drink was a good idea…..

    I can’t even remember which Five Guys it was, but I’ve just wasted ten minutes trying to work it out. Probably the one at 316 W 34th Street, like it makes the slightest bit of bloody difference…..

  • New York – Metropolitan Museum of Art (Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze)

    New York – Metropolitan Museum of Art (Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze)

    The Met has made many artworks in their collections freely available online, so I’ll use their rather more detailed image than the one I took in 2015. I’m not exactly Sister Wendy, so there’s not much I can add about the imagery, but it is beautiful. That early US flag from the Washington-led Continental Army as they crossed the Delaware near Trenton, an important part of their winning the Revolutionary War.

    I was only reminded of this artwork when I visited the quite marvellous Kunsthalle in Bremen, as they once had a similar and earlier painting by the same artist, Emanuel Leutze. Unfortunately, the artwork was so big that they couldn’t easily get it off the wall to protect it during the Second World War, so they had to risk it. A British military attack on the city destroyed some of the gallery building on 5 September 1942, which sadly included this painting.

    The destroyed artwork was painted in 1849, the one in the Met’s collection is from 1850 and it went on display in New York in October 1851. It was purchased by Marshall Owen Roberts (1814-1880) for $10,000, a ridiculous sum of money for the time, but he could afford it with the money he had made from his transportation businesses.

    The Met’s artwork remained in the collection of Robert’s estate, before it was sent for auction at Ortgies and Company, Fifth Avenue Art Galleries for sale on 20 January 1897. It was purchased by John S. Kennedy, who promptly gave it to the Met. And here it remains, one of their more inspirational paintings.

  • New York – Metropolitan Museum of Art (Wallpaper)

    New York – Metropolitan Museum of Art (Wallpaper)

    I still haven’t found the photos that I was looking for, but I have discovered the photos from my 2015 visit to New York. And, in particular, to what I consider as pretty much the best museum in the world, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Back when I visited you were allowed to pay whatever you felt appropriate, although that system has since been heavily reformed.

    But, the above wallpaper was cleverly done and showed the scope of the collections in the American Wing of the building. It was comprised of hundreds of smaller photos which from right to left show the date of the acquisition by the museum. When material is presented like this, it shows just how large the collections of some institutions are, it’s all quite inspiring.