Archive for the ‘Architecture’ Category
In which The Gay Recluse ponders some recent search terms used to find the very pages you are now reading. Note: All search terms listed are in the exact form provided by WordPress.com, which is the host (at least for a while) of this blog. Hyperlinks to relevant posts included. Search: where to find sweetie […]
Filed under: Architecture, Gay, Longing, Obsession, Search, The Gay Recluse, Traffic | Leave a Comment
Tags: Arthur Schopenhauer, Corsican Mint, Die Walküre, Friedrich Nietzche, George Washington, Leonard Cohen, Metropolitan Opera, Michael Kimmelman, Peter Nadas, Stephanie Blythe, Sweetie Clementines, The Gay Voice, Velcro Jeans
Given the long-ascendant Manhattan real-estate market, people are often surprised to learn the extent to which abandoned, burned-out property still plagues Harlem and Washington Heights. On our block alone — which is not even close to one of the worst around here — there are three completely annihilated townhouse “shells” and several other larger buildings […]
Filed under: Architecture, Decay, Gentrification, Government, Landscape, New York City, Pessimism, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | 1 Comment
Tags: Ailanthus, Ann Coulter, HPD, Marcus Millichap, Massey Knakal, Pigeons, Rats, Real Estate, Shells, Uptown Manhattan
More than any other neighborhood in Manhattan, Washington Heights — except for a few enclaves north of the George Washington Bridge — has existed in a state of commercial paralysis, so that as we stroll up and down Broadway, we are tempted to say (and with the expected derision) that nothing has changed for at […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Gentrification, Landscape, New York City, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: 2007 Awards, Broadway, Columbia Medical, Florist, Joa, Starbucks, Uptown, Vantage Properties, Washington Mutual
Today we dreamed of traveling to a small island off the coast of Japan called Gukanjima. Only three-quarters of a mile around, during its heyday it nevertheless was home to over 5000 people, which for decades made it the world’s most densely populated island. Looking at pictures of it now, we imagine a city block […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Decay, Dream, Gentrification, New York City, Nostalgia, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Edwardian Architecture, Gukanjima, Japan, Manhattan, Washington Heights
How sad we are to learn (this from The Times) that “the New York City Council cleared the way this afternoon for a 17-acre campus expansion by Columbia University, the largest in its history.” How sorry we are for Nick Sprayregen and his family, the owners of Tuck-It-Away Self-Storage, the largest private-property owners in the […]
Filed under: Architecture, Gentrification, Government, New York City, The Times, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Columbia University, Eminent Domain, New York City Council, Tuck-It-Away Self-Storage, West Harlem
On the Pleasure of Ruins
We read about the MTA’s proposal to raise subway fares with mixed feelings; on one hand, we would happily pay the extra five or six dollars a month for more frequent trains, but at the same time, as we consider the ruined state of our subway station — regularly cited as one of the dirtiest […]
Filed under: Architecture, Decay, Gay, Infrastructure, Literature, New York City, Subway, Washington Heights, Writers-Hungarian | Leave a Comment
Tags: Art Deco, Book of Memories, Fare Hike, MTA, Peter Nadas, Subway
On the End of November
You will be relieved to learn that the scaffolding we told you about is finally coming down; but to reveal what, exactly? A new apartment palace, a refurbished monument to gilded living? Well, perhaps for some, but as we watch the men arrive in their trucks to disassemble the steel beams and wooden planks, we are not as pleased as you might have expected. We […]
Filed under: Architecture, Decay, Memory, New York City, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Aging, construction, hope, remorse, renovation, Weather
To our dear friends, the realtors and developers of Washington Heights: thank you so much for inviting us to your delightful open house! As happy as we were to learn that you had bought the vacant “shell” on St. Nicholas and 157th Street for $1 (and don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone about the $500k […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Gentrification, New York City, Politicians, Washington Heights | 1 Comment
Tags: Developers, Flipping Out, Graft, HPD, Jeff Lewis, Price Gauging, Real Estate, Realtors
On the Dead Station
As we ride the uptown 6-train, we peer through the window to catch a glimpse of the dead station at 18th Street. A friend once went by foot through the tunnels to this station and described finding there among the abandoned gates and pillars irrefutable evidence of human habitation: a doll’s shoe, a pornography magazine […]
Filed under: Architecture, Infrastructure, Memory, Subway | Leave a Comment
Tags: , 23rd Street, 6-train, Dead Stations, MTA, New York City, Subway, Union Square
On the Empire State Building
In our dreams, the Empire State Building hovers and glows with a radiance that is seriously awesome to behold; it is a beacon to all who seek refuge in the city, and furthermore is not — as Fay Wray tells us — unstinting or cold in this respect, even if like the rest of us […]
Filed under: Architecture, Dream, Film, Gay, History, New York City, Sickness | Leave a Comment
Tags: Architecture, Empire State Building, Fae Wrae, New York City, Walter Benjamin
As we turn the corner from the Upper Riverside Drive onto 160th Street in Washington Heights, the intricate but repetitive brickwork of the apartment palace lulls us into a dream in which we hear the droning, distorted guitars of Spacemen 3. This was the “Heroin” of our youth, the soundtrack of delirious, pretentious ambivalence for […]
Filed under: Addiction, Architecture, Capitalism, Good Rock, Memory, Obsession, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: 1960s, Baby Boomers, J. Spaceman, Riverside Drive, Sonic Boom, Spacemen 3, The Beatles, Velvet Underground
The Gay Recluse 