A Trip Down 57th Street

Rush hour on November 10, 2010.

Pixie Taxi

Isn't this what you would call a classic pixie cut? They seem to be coming back in style.

It's always a little awkward to hail down a taxi cab. You can't really pose or look great doing it. You just flail your arm out there and hope for the best. She seems to be doing a good job looking good and getting a cab.

Oranges and Tulips

I told you we would check in the with the Park Avenue tulips. They are coming. While you're waiting, enjoy an orange.

Tulips on Park Avenue

I've been monitoring the tulip situation on Park Avenue and it's only a short while before fields of my favorite flowers will be blooming. We've had some excellent growing days this week. More to come.

Lunchtime Delivery

Everyone in NYC seems to love it when lunch gets delivered. I prefer to get out of the office. At any rate, here's a typical delivery of about 20 lunch bags en route to some midtown Manhattan office tower. Looks like it's going to be sushi for lunch.

Plenty Should Be Enough

It should be, but it never is.

The latest artwork installed at Lever House on Park Avenue between 53rd and 54th is Barbara Kruger's immersive installation entitled "Between Being Born and Dying." Using enormous bold white Helvetica ultra-condensed adhesive vinyl letters on a black background, many as tall as seventeen feet, the artist has plastered them over the inside and the outside of the entire lobby.

As Arthag points out, it also reminds me of those reconstituted 80's Frankie Goes To Hollywood t-shirts.

Smoke on the Water

Catching a smoke in the rain outside the Consulate General of Austria on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Granny's Lost Jewelry

That's a pretty big reward for a bunch of jewelry. It was lost in the vicinity of Park Avenue so it's a good bet that these gems are probably worth way more. When I find these missing jewels, I'm gonna hold out for 100 $100 bills. Cash only.

Explanation of Don't Walk

As if we really needed another confusing sign to specifically explain what WALK and DON'T WALK means. This brilliant sign is located somewhere on Park Avenue.

Lunch Time at Brasserie

Brasserie is a French restaurant in the Seagram Building off Park Avenue. It's been around for a long time (since 1959?) and the food is generally excellent. It's a place I like to go for lunch or a weekend brunch which I don't do all that often, but when I do it has never disappointed. Many eons ago it used to be open all night long, but in its newest incarnation it closes at a regular hour (regular for New York is 12 or 1am). I realize that things shut down in other cities at around 10 or 11pm so this is still on the late side if you're from Texas, but I kinda wish places like this were open all night long. They serve French onion soup day and night that is all right by me. If you go here, definitely try to get a booth. The semi-private booths are the way to go.

I bought some Keebler Fudge Shoppe Deluxe Grahams. They say the serving size is 3 cookies, but who can eat just three? I had seven. Cookies are good. Especially ones with chocolate. But don't buy any of that refrigerated cookie dough. Bad news.

Tiptoeing Down Park Avenue

More tulips on Park Avenue. These fine flowers are pictured at full blown and seemingly shouting up to the sky for more rain.

Sunday Photo Overload

The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) had their annual photography show at the Park Avenue Armory last weekend. It's the longest running international show of fine art photography.

My friend Spencer called me at around 11am on Sunday morning and asked me if I wanted to head over there and check it out. I was still in bed when he called and had to get up anyway so I'm glad he called. I was sort of sleeping late, but I wasn't sleeping until noon. Actually, I woke up really early (7:35am), but I was still so tired that I went back to bed and was just waking up when he called.

Spencer has an upcoming exhibition of his work in Mexico and wanted to look at some different framing techniques. He's shipping all his work down there (his prints are fairly large) and he wanted to figure out the best way to frame and mount his photos for this exhibition.

If you like photography, it was a really great show with so many photographs crammed into the space. I was surprised by the vast numbers of people there admiring (and buying) the work. Jeremy Irons was there too. I took a rather blurry picture of him. He's wearing glasses and boots and you can see him standing in the background of the group of people (he's the tall one) engaged in an animated conversation presumably about photography. It looked like he just came from riding horses in Central Park. I thought he was so great as Claus von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune." He's playing the legendary photographer Alfred Stieglitz in an upcoming TV movie about Georgia O'Keeffe. If you look closely at the picture (and if you give him a mustache), he looks just like Stieglitz.

10AM Graffiti Truck - 2

A sharp looking graffiti truck with 12 tags moving Hwang's Meat down Park Avenue on Tuesday morning.

Second Seats Go Missing

Anything can go missing in NYC, even the second seat on your tandem bicycle. Park Avenue in front of the Istituto Di Italiano Cultura.

Headless Mao

A 5.5 ton, 10-foot tall metal sculpture of a Mao jacket on the median of Park Avenue in front of the Asia Society at 70th Street. The sculpture, by Chinese contemporary artist Sui Jianguo, will be on display through mid-November in conjunction with the Asia Society Museum exhibition "Art and China's Revolution."

Entry Lion

A large brass lion door knocker on the Upper East Side. Park Avenue in the 70's.

Sleepy Stroll

Who needs a Peg Perego stroller? Low cost innovative baby-carrying apparatus on Park Avenue around 3PM.