Archive for the ‘Landscape’ Category
In which The Gay Recluse celebrates the demolition of an eyesore. Location: The intersection of Amsterdam and Saint Nicholas, between 162nd and 163rd Streets, in Washington Heights. Previously: We wish we had a photograph, but — alas! — a search through The Gay Recluse archives came up empty. Thus you will have to imagine a […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Knockbusters, Landscape, Photography, Subway, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Amsterdam Avenue, Camper Van Beethoven, Columbia University, English Elm, Knockbusters, Rite-Aid, Saint Nicholas, Useless Shit, Washington Heights
In which The Gay Recluse live-blogs the Super Bowl. 5:58. Our friend T___ arrives to give us haircuts. He tells us that his mother, who is only 64 years old, has just been diagnosed with an inoperable form of brain cancer. She has just begun chemotherapy, and to give him encouragement, we tell him about […]
Filed under: Addiction, Dissonance, Dream, Film, History, Landscape, Photography, Technology, Television, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Contempt, Giants, Haircuts, Hong Kong, In the Mood for Love, Jean-Luc Godard, Le Mepris, Maggie Cheung, Netflix, Patriots, Super Bowl, Tawaa, Tony Leung, Wong Kar-wei
In which The Gay Recluse updates his informal but rather telling quantitative analysis of Modern Love, the weekly Style Section (of The Times) column in which openly gay writers almost never appear, and even less frequently describe a romantic relationship. This week’s piece: An Open and Shut Marriage Subject: Married woman describes doubts about “open” […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, Landscape, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Daniel Jones, Fashion & Style, Gay Stereotypes, Gay Voice, Gay Writers, Homophobia, Marriage, Modern Love, Relationships, Straight Women, The New York Times
In which The Gay Recluse ponders the transformation of the monumental into the mundane (and vice versa). Date of Incident: January 31, 2008 Time: 7:23 pm Causes of Disaster: Sprawling development in dwindling reserves of space. Remarks: Unplanned and haphazard growth has resulted in dangerous towers of material. Falling debris has already made the area […]
Filed under: Disaster Footage, Health, Infrastructure, Landscape, Photography, Technology, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Books, Disaster Footage, Homeland Security, Magazines, Paper, Shelving
In which The Gay Recluse ponders the transformation of the monumental into the mundane (and vice versa). Date of Incident: January 29, 2008 Time: 6:04 pm. Causes of Disaster: Heedless galloping of invasive species across fragile ecosystems. Remarks: A once pristine landscape has been ruined, and is seen here with buckled terrain and dangerous fault […]
Filed under: Animals, Disaster Footage, Landscape, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Cats, Dante, Disaster Footage, Homeland Security, Pouncing, Rugs, Zephyr
In which The Gay Recluse, with very little sarcasm or irony, reports on real estate in Washington Heights. Description: Triple-lot vacant land, long used as an illegal outdoor parking lot. Address: 573, 575 and 577 West 161st Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam. Total lot size = 60′ by 100′. Remarks: This site first sparked our […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Decay, Gentrification, Landscape, Monopoly, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: 10032, Christian Orthodox, Columbia University, Department of Buildings, DOB, Monopoly, Real Estate, St. Mary Magdalen, Uptown
On The Rainmaker
As we watch the first few minutes of The Rainmaker (some fifty years after its release, in 1956), we are impatient and judgmental; the set is generic Hollywood Western, while the men in the family — a father and his two sons — come off as caricatures (stern older brother, mischievous younger, wise dad). Even […]
Filed under: Film, Gay, Landscape, Longing, Technology | Leave a Comment
Tags: 1956, Burt Lancaster, Con Artist, Drought, Katherine Hepburn, Old Maid, Spinster, The Rainmaker, Western
In which The Gay Recluse ponders the role of technology in the transformation of the monumental into the mundane (and vice versa). Date of Incident: January 15, 2008 Time: 6:34pm. Causes of Disaster: Narrow countertop; careless placement of container; fatigue; needless “multi-tasking.” Remarks: After much debate about whether to even supplement the salad in question […]
Filed under: Gay, Government, Landscape, Technology, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Cherry Tomatoes, Cooking, Digital Photography, Disaster Footage, Grape Tomatoes, Salad Dressing, Salad Preparation
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
On the Beauty of Extreme Weather
What? Only two inches of slush? That’s not a storm! It’s a transition, a pause, a hiccup and (most of all, after all the buildup) a disappointment. But seriously, do you remember the time — we were still in school then, so it would have been at least 100 years ago — when it snowed […]
Filed under: Landscape, Memory, New York City, Pleasure, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: Down Jacket, Snow, The Great White Hurricane, Winter
On the Blue Atlas Cedar in Snow
The first snow of the season in our Washington Heights garden, and naturally we are drawn to that most unnatural of colors: the electric slate blue of the atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica). Suddenly — are you with us? — we are on a train in northern Italy, watching the countryside drift past; here, it seems […]
Filed under: Communism, Landscape, The Gay Recluse, The Russian Blue, The Winter Garden, Travel, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Blue Atlas Cedar, Cedrus atlantica, Columnar, Fastigiata, Saturnine, Snow, Turin, Venice
The deserted, haunted quality of the oldest mansion in Manhattan is — like so much of Washington Heights — almost exhilarating when you consider the extremes of neglect it has endured to join us here today. The sign tells us that George Washington made his headquarters here during the fall of 1776, following a British […]
Filed under: Decay, Drag Queens, History, Landscape, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Alexander Hamilton, Candy Darling, George Washington, History, John Quincy Adams, New York City, Revolutionary War, The Morris-Jumel Mansion, Thomas Jefferson, Washington Heights
Ferocious and (like all plants) unapologetic, the wisteria growing in the vacant lot next door is poised to take over the entire crumbling shell of the adjacent building (and possibly our life along with it!). Nor — like some — are we deceived by the delicate and emphemeral blooms of the morning glory, which (equally […]
Filed under: Decay, History, Landscape, Memory, The Autumn Garden, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Coba, Maya, Mexico, Morning Glory, Vines, Wisteria, Yucatan
On Breakfast with the Damned
Each morning Zephyr wakes up and positions himself in front of the western window, where he sits perfectly still as the new day permeates the gray dawn. “For one so young, you seem remarkably serene,” we noted as we passed by to announce that breakfast would be imminently served. “It is true that I have […]
Filed under: Dream, Landscape, The Russian Blue, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Apartment Towers, Breakfast, Cats, New Jersey, Palisades, Sunrise, Zephyr
Unlike The Times, which in honor of today’s Halloween festivities speculated about paranormal activity in different luxury apartment buildings around the city — e.g., The Ansonia, The Dakota — we are more inclined to look at the question from a slightly different angle; to wit: is there anyone who walks down Broadway between 96th and […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Drivel, Gentrification, Landscape, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Bank of America, Chase Manhattan, CVS, Duane Reade, Halloween, New York Times, Upper West Side, Washington Mutual
Like Ann Coulter, the ailanthus tree is noxious, unsightly and invasive, and can be found almost everywhere in the United States, not only in vacant lots and highway meridians, but in once pristine forests, where it wreaks havoc on local ecosystems. It does not favor diversity or nuance, but — and with just the most […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Landscape, Resignation, Sickness, The Autumn Garden, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Ailanthus, Ann Coulter, Bronx Tree, Death, Fire, Invasive Species, Vermilion
On Autumn Dreams
In winter we had no dreams; it was too cold to consider anything but the brittle landscape outside and the frozen tributaries of our past within. In spring we were nervous and agitated, our thoughts scattered like cherry-blossom petals in the wind. Summer came and we were boldly confident, perhaps even arrogant; who could not […]
Filed under: Dream, Landscape, Resignation, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Autumn, Books, Dreams, Fog, George Washington Bridge
A young runner — perhaps twenty years old — had stopped to stretch at one of the Parcourse installations in Rock Creek Park; it did not take more than a single glance to realize why he looked so familiar. In a short conversation, he confirmed that he had in fact just this year graduated from […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Decay, Good Rock, Infrastructure, Landscape, Memory, Nostalgia, Opera, Pleasure, The Gay Recluse, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Center for Marine Conservation, Cornell University, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Parks, Rock Creek Park, Running, Stretching, The Meat Puppets, The Smiths, Washington DC
The Gay Recluse 