Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Blogger Time Machine: Five Years Ago

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Bar Association Building

Bar Association is in another stately building near the Harvard Club just West of Grand Central Terminal.

Wikipedia says:
The prominent architect Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz, son of the influential New York architect Leopold Eidlitz, was commissioned to design the building. Eidlitz had designed a number of landmark buildings throughout the country, including Dearborn Station in Chicago, Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, St. Peter’s Church in the Bronx, and Bell Laboratories Building in Manhattan.
Construction was begun in early 1895 and completed 18 months later at a total cost of $584,700. The House was built in the neoclassical style, from Indiana limestone. The façade included elements of the Doric order on the bottom three floors, Ionic columns framing the fourth floor windows, and Corinthian pilasters on the fifth floor, creating a historicist “composite” of classical architecture.
The new House was considerably larger and grander than its precursors: it stood six stories tall; included a meeting hall with a seating capacity of 1,500; a reception hall with a standing capacity of 1,500; a library of over 50,000 volumes, and three additional floors of offices. The entrance hall and first floor stairways were constructed of marble, and the second floor hallway, reception hall, and meeting hall of granite, marble, and mahogany.
The Association opened the doors of its new House on October 8, 1896, with a gala of several thousand guests. The New York Times described it as “one of the most interesting and successful works of recent architecture…a work having the classical qualities of simplicity, purity, and serenity in a high degree.” ^[3]
The House was named a New York City Landmark in 1966, and named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Spooky Display

Same building that houses the big New York Public Science Library has a Museum ensconced in it too...

This is one of several window displays advertising its current show on Modern American Art.

Florist with Bears

Florist's shop near the Garment District has oversized bears out front as part of its display.

Remember reading poll once that people like looking at bears a lot--as they do cats and dogs-- despite the fact that encounters with real life bears can be risky.

Bears are not all warm and cuddly in nature.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

William Earl Dodge

This is statue I never noticed before in Bryant Park.

Internet site says:

This bronze sculpture depicts William Earl Dodge (1805–1883), one of the founders of Phelps, Dodge, a leading mining company. Dodge helped organize the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in the United States and served as the president of the National Temperance Society from 1865 to 1883. John Quincy Adams Ward (1830–1910) sculpted the piece, which was donated by a committee of Dodge’s friends and acquaintances and dedicated October 22, 1885.

Dodge is represented leaning on a podium while delivering a speech. The piece originally stood in Herald Square on a pedestal designed by Richard Morris Hunt (who designed the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty) until it was moved in 1941 to the northeast corner of Bryant Park, after the Bennett Memorial was installed at the square. The original Hunt-designed pedestal, discarded and replaced by the current granite base after the monument was moved from Herald Square, included a drinking fountain that commemorated Dodge’s commitment to temperance. The statue was renovated as part of an overall restoration of the park by the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation, completed in 1992.
Later referred to as “the Dean of American Sculptors,” Ward contributed nine sculptures to the parks of New York, among them Horace Greeley (1890) now in City Hall Park, Alexander Holley (1888) in Washington Square Park, Roscoe Conkling (1893) in Madison Square Park, Henry Ward Beecher (1891) in Columbus Park, Brooklyn, and The Indian Hunter (1869), William Shakespeare (1872), The Pilgrim (1885), and the Seventh Regiment Memorial (1874) in Central Park.

Le Pain Quotidien

This place advertises itself as a "communal bakery and restaurant"--

Looks nice but I didn't smell any fresh bread smells around it ( well, it is Sunday and door is closed for a/c I suppose).

Street Sale Equivalent of Garage Sale

See this a good deal in the warmer months: the urban equivalent of a garage sale except with everything out on the sidewalk.

Have never seen this really except in the Murray Hill area around Second and Third Avenues.

Believe these are people who have lived here for years and years in rent controlled or stabilized apartments.

Atrium?

I am not sure what this building on 42nd Street IS exactly...I think it is part of an atrium or something.

Looks like a modernistic chapel.

More about Garment Center

Over on Seventh ( Fashion) Avenue around 39th Street is statue of old garment worker..

Just like the Walk of Fame in Hollywood or something, there is a Walk of Fame here with medallions honoring well known designers set in the sidewalk...
(Shown here: Betsey Johnson and Calvin Klein ones)

Given how much garment biz in NY has shrunk ( it was once the major business of Manhattan) all this is becoming more and more just an historical exhibit.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Tudor City Park reader

Parks in Tudor City offer great havens for people just seeking peace and quiet in the middle of the Big City...

This guy seems really wrapped up in whatever it is he is reading. Maybe it is pornography.

Clash of styles

This clash of different kind of design elements in close proximity is so typical of Manhattan.

Some neighborhoods, like the West Village, have planning boards that try to make everything similar in style and prevent new buildings that would not "fit in."

This includes what kind of windows you can use.

Harvard Club

Posh looking Harvard Club ( well, what else would you expect?) in the heart of Midtown.

Wikipedia says:

The Harvard Club of New York, incorporated in 1887, is housed in adjoining lots at 27 West 44th Street and 35 West 44th Street. The original wing was designed in red brick neo-Georgian style by Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White and built in 1894. Anyone who has attended Harvard University may apply to become a member.
Originally founded without a location, the club first rented a townhouse on 22nd street.^[3] In 1888, land was acquired by the members on 44th street. The clubhouse was established in the neighborhood where many of New York City's other clubs such as the New York Yacht Club were located, and across the street from the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York.
The club publishes a Bulletin and a Newsletter. The HCNY Foundation has a scholarship fund that helps support twenty undergraduates at Harvard College and several students in graduate programs, as well as international student exchange programs.
The club's facilities include a bar, several dining rooms, game rooms, a library, an athletic facility, a business center and offers rooms for visiting alumni.^[4]

Comfort Diner

There used to be a much bigger Comfort Diner on East 86th Street but the building that housed it was torn down for a high rise condo building...

It was very similar in design elements.

Makes me wonder if there was at one time a chain of these "Comfort Diners."

Nice name for a diner, by the way.

Biking--daredevils!

Guy in red shirt had just been knocked of his bike by a "hit and run biker" who went screaming past him...

Biking in NYC is growing in popularity, but I feel it is more a daredevil feat in Manhattan than a real alternative form of transportation.

This isn't some European city with a long history of people on bikes.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Kips Bay resident with dogs

There are a lot of dogs and children in this neighborhood.

What was it W.C. Fields said, "Any man who doesn't like dogs and children can't be all bad."

This guy had just been visited by a neighbor with her three dogs...tried to get a picture of all six dogs greeting each other but was not fast enough.