On the George Washington Bridge Project: Special Tornado Watch Edition
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge.
According to Stephen, when the sky turns green like this (about half way up on the right) in Michigan, it’s time to head for the basement.
“The George Washington Bridge over the Hudson is the most beautiful bridge in the world. Made of cables and steel beams, it gleams in the sky like a reversed arch. It is blessed. It is the only seat of grace in the disordered city. It is painted an aluminum color and, between water and sky, you see nothing but the bent cord supported by two steel towers. When your car moves up the ramp the two towers rise so high that it brings you happiness; their structure is so pure, so resolute, so regular that here, finally, steel architecture seems to laugh. The car reaches an unexpectedly wide apron; the second tower is very far away; innumerable vertical cables, gleaming against the sky, are suspended from the magisterial curve which swings down and then up. The rose-colored towers of New York appear, a vision whose harshness is mitigated by distance.”
– Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White, 1947.
Filed under: Architecture, GWB Project, The Gay Recluse, Weather | 3 Comments
Tags: Le Corbusier, The George Washington Bridge, Tornados
I think every person who grew up in the Midwest was taught this about green skies. I never believed my mother’s warnings about it until I saw my first tornado pass over our house on Lake Michigan when I was five, and I actually saw the funnel extend out of green clouds.
Brilliant image, and entry, as usual.
Driving over the bridge on Friday, and again home on Sunday after visiting Manhattan and also my 2 daughters on L.I., I couldn’t help but think of TGR, and wonder “weather” or not he was obsessing on the bridge as I drove across George (the upper deck).
Wow — thanks for sharing, John! You might even be in that photograph…btw, I hope you took the Palisades Parkway north…I love that route.