Translation from English

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Pennsylvania Moon (watercolor)

No, this is not Midtown Manhattan...thought I'd break things up here with a painting I did based on a childhood trip through Pennsylvania.




The Grandeur of  Grand Central Terminal

I have been through GCT a great many times in my life, and have always been impressed by its ambitious design-- a throwback to the days when railroads were in their heyday.

Its beautiful Beaux Arts architecture would have met who knows what fate if a lot of influential people ( like Jackie Kennedy) hadn't become interested in its restoration and preservation.

I like historic buildings, subdivisions, areas and neighborhoods a great deal-- there were a good number of them to be found in Chicago when I was growing up, but I was mostly unaware of them because it wasn't fashionable in those days. Most people simply wanted to get out of the city to the suburbs-- the reverse migration didn't seem to start until the 1980's.

You can use Google in all kinds of ways to research historic buildings and districts all over the United States-- places like Harmony, Indiana, for instance, one of a number of Shaker communities. New York City, of course, is full of landmarks. 





Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Sunrise over Triboro ( now RFK) Bridge

This image was taken from the window of my apartment in the residence where I used to live on 96th street....

Will be adding some new photos and comments from Midtown soon.




"Le Joli Fevrier":

Most people don't think of New York as being very much fun in February.

When I lived on 96th Street, we had an Art Group at the residence led by a very talented artist, Ann Quintano, and we put on several exhibits.

I had one collection of photographs I called " Le Joli Fevrier" ( inspired tongue in cheek by the Chris Marker documentary, " Le Joli Mai,"--which was about France when it was having troubles in Algeria) about NYC in February...lots of nice images if you want to get out with a camera.

I think we had all of about 50 people visit the exhibit...sold practically nothing ( prices were cheap, too)-- 

This is typical of kind of photo I displayed-- it is the East River from the Esplanade looking towards Wards Island.