atlantic & bond

Move it on over

2006-10-01T13:58:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted here, and it's going to be a while before I ever do again, if I do. So if you're wondering what I've been up to lately, check out my new concerns, BklynDad and Observations and Insights

our new apartment

2006-09-06T11:24:00.000-04:00

notlantic nor bond
Uploaded by jeanphony on 28 May '06, 3.52pm GMT+5 PST.

Empanadas, Arepas and deep fried Chicharrón.

2006-08-02T18:16:00.000-04:00

A remote soccer field in Brooklyn is one of the city's best-kept foodie secrets, a cornucopia of hard-to-find Latin specialties.

Every weekend from now through October, hungry New Yorkers in-the-know follow Latinos from the Metropolitan area to a corner of Red Hook for some of the best Hispanic food in the city.

"It's like you're home," said Juan Gomez, a truckdriver from El Salvador who travels from New Jersey on weekends to Red Hook Park for fried pupusas.

At first glance, the food stands look more like a shanty town than an open-air feast, which opened last weekend.

But behind the weather-beaten tarps and scratched-up vans, families from Mexico, El Salvador and other Latin American countries serve up tamales, tacos and other specialties - which rival the soccer games as the park's biggest draw.

Highly... HIGHLY... Recommended. Pic via The Lightning Field. Quote from NY Daily News.

Cape Wind

2006-06-03T09:56:00.000-04:00

While visiting Boston for the weekend, we discovered that offshore Wind Farms are proposed for New England. Apparently there is quite a bit of controversy about the topic. Graphic from "Mass. is urged to lead the way on wind farms."

Playing with YouTube

2006-05-27T01:05:00.000-04:00

Wind farm

2006-05-26T14:40:00.000-04:00

I'm fascinated with these things lately... Photo courtesy of Luke Walker via Unbeige

Happy Birthday to the Boy

2006-05-21T15:12:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Vincent (and his dad) for the photo.

We're 3

2005-11-10T16:38:00.000-05:00

Open House New York

2005-09-27T17:33:00.000-04:00

The third annual Open House New York is taking place Saturday, October 8, and Sunday, October 9.

As part of the city’s Architecture Week, OHNY Weekend opens the doors to some of New York’s most celebrated achievements in architecture and design by providing free public access to 150 exceptional sites, many normally closed to the public, as well as tours, talks, walks, performances and family programs.

For those who don't know, the annual event opens normally inaccessible private buildings to the public for the weekend. It's free of charge, and one of the best opportunities all year long to get a weekend-long architecture fix. Highly recommended.

...and now for something completely different

2005-09-26T13:07:00.000-04:00

Artists erect giant pink bunny on mountain

An enormous pink bunny has been erected on an Italian mountainside where it will stay for the next 20 years.

The 200-foot-long toy rabbit lies on the side of the 5,000 foot high Colletto Fava mountain in northern Italy’s Piedmont region.

Viennese art group Gelatin designed the giant soft toy and say it was “knitted by dozens of grannies out of pink wool.”

And Gelatin members say the bunny is not just for walking around - they are expecting hikers to climb its 20 foot sides and relax on its belly.

Via Ananova.

Brooklyn Responds

2005-09-20T17:04:00.000-04:00

The fine folks at JellyNYC, Trampoline House, and KEXP (that’s right, KEXP, the Seattle-based public radio station) have put together a two-night showcase of indie music to provide aid to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The concerts will be held at Southpaw and all proceeds will benefit the American Red Cross, America’s Second Harvest, and Humanity First. Via Greenideas.

Atlantic Antic

2005-09-20T10:33:00.000-04:00

Further proof that interesting things happen on Atlantic Avenue only when I go out of town: The Atlantic Antic street festival is this Sunday.

Come on over for one very crowded mile of local merchants, non-profit organizations, community groups, arts & crafts, and food vendors. There’s even an after party at Magnetic Field.

Not sure? Check out photos from last year on Flickr.

Floating Island

2005-09-14T11:56:00.000-04:00

More on Robert Smithson, from the NY Times.

Robert Smithson, “Floating Island to Travel Around Manhattan Island”
In conjunction with the seminal earth artist’s retrospective on view through Oct. 23 at the Whitney Museum, the Whitney will create one of Smithson’s heretofore unrealized proposals, using the artist’s 1970 drawing called “Floating Island to Travel Around Manhattan Island.” A tugboat will haul a large barge planted with vegetation around Manhattan. Both will be visible from shore at a number of publicized sites on the Hudson, Harlem and East Rivers. The island will sail daily from Saturday through Sept. 25.

Free Public Opening
Saturday, September 17, 5 – 7 pm
Hudson River Park, Pier 46 at Charles and West Streets
Remarks: 6:30 pm

Viewing Schedule: 8 am – 8 pm daily
Saturday, September 17 – September 25

More information available at Whitney Museum of American Art and New York Magazine’s fall art preview. Image from this morning’s Today in New York on WNBC.

Deep deep hole

2005-09-10T17:02:00.000-04:00

When you were a kid, did you ever wonder where you would end up if you dug a hole straight down, through the center of the earth and out the other side. Well, if you started at Atlantic & Bond, this is where you would end up. Find out where your hole would be. Via Captology Notebook.

One lonely house

2005-09-09T13:42:00.000-04:00

More Images of Slidell from WDSU in New Orleans.

Slideshow 1 | Slideshow 2

"There were homes that were totally destroyed and were no longer on the lots," St. Tammany Parrish Sheriff Jack Strain said. "Apartment complexes, with multiple housing units are no longer there. They are totally gone."

Confirmation: Slidell fish camps gone

2005-09-02T19:51:00.000-04:00

Found on the Katrina Information Map. This is an aerial photograph of the area on the north coast of Lake Pontchartrain between Highway 11 and I-10. Via Google Maps Mania. Wired News covers the map in this article, A Disaster Map 'Wiki' Is Born.

New Orleans Fairgrounds Race Track

2005-09-02T00:54:00.000-04:00

Another image of New Orleans... of another favorite place, the New Orleans Fairgrounds Race Track. The infield is the site of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival every spring.

According to a this MSNBC article:

Video of the racetrack broadcast on television showed a roof shorn from the grandstand and significant debris and damage throughout the grounds, with water lapping on the infield and in the barn area. The video footage was shot Tuesday morning, before a levee break on the Orleans Parish line released more water from Lake Pontchartrain into the city.

Click here for an idea of the impact the levee breaks have had on the neighborhood surrounding the Fairgrounds. Images from Digital Globe.

Fish Camps

2005-08-31T08:11:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite places in the world... likely gone now according to reports from Slidell, LA.

Calling the devastation “total”, Schedler said, only slabs remain where dozens of houses were blown down and several feet of water remain in the Slidell Memorial Hospital on Gause Boulevard as well as throughout the old town area off U.S. 11.

Immobile Home

2005-08-22T11:31:00.000-04:00

No time to comment... just thought I'd share this unique solution to the challenges of urban living. From the New York Times (reg. required)

Smithson at the Whitney

2005-07-30T15:41:00.000-04:00

Recently seen: Robert Smithson at the Whitney.

Originally organized by Eugenie Tsai for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, this retrospective will be at the Whitney through October 23. In addition to some of the pieces he created for display in (and critique of) “the white box,” there are several films documenting the creation of his more well known, site-specific, earth art works, like “Spiral Jetty” and a variety of in process drawings, proposals, and instructions on ongoing care. The glimpse these artifacts offer into Smithson’s creative process exposes some of the threads that tie together many of his pieces. This alone makes the show worth seeing. And finally, something more to look forward to, from New York Magazine’s review.

Next September, the Whitney and an organization called Minetta Brook will present one of Smithson’s unrealized proposals, based upon a drawing called “Floating Island to Travel Around Manhattan Island.” A tug will pull what looks like a chunk of Central Park (itself a kind of island) around Manhattan. The idea is whimsical, of course, but also telling. In Smithson’s universe, nothing is solitary, isolated, or fixed. Even the islands move.

Picturing Augusta

2005-07-27T17:35:00.000-04:00

Maybe it’s the heat this summer, but I can’t seem to get my mind out of the South. So, further exploring the theme of Southern culture, I’ll share a recent find called City of Dust. This blog showcases photographs and stories primarily of Augusta, Georgia—where I spent most of the hot summers of my childhood. Quoting the author:

Augusta is the second largest city in Georgia, but you wouldn’t know it by driving through downtown. The city center, although attempts at revitalization are underway, is largely vacant, the victim of suburbanization and the desire of most folks to shop in safe, pleasant malls. The city is old, worn-out, run-down, and oft-maligned. But, you know, the town has got soul.

One of my favorite Augusta stories is of the Haunted Pillar (above):

In 1829 a visiting preacher was said to have been mocked and scorned by Augusta’s citizens. He swore a curse on the city, predicting that only one pillar of its market would stand and, as if that wasn’t enough, even the pillar would be cursed. On February 8, 1878 a cyclone destroyed the entirety of the lower market and all that remained was one pillar, which was moved to its present location at Broad and 5th shortly afterwards. That’s almost fifty years after the original curse, so either the preacher was patient or believed that revenge is a dish best served cold. Be that as it may, people that have touched the pillar are reported to have been variously struck by lightning, felled by heartattacks, and killed in car crashes within minutes.

No word on whether City of Dust has seen any ill effects from photographing the pillar, but I don’t mind telling you that I’ve never gotten up the nerve to touch it. Though the author has recently moved away from Augusta, his archives of his time there are well worth diving into, starting with his very first post, here.

Self-Taught Artists, the Bible & the American South

2005-07-26T22:50:00.000-04:00

As an expatriate of the South, expressions of southern culture have gained a resonance for me, particularly since moving to New York. Sadly, the exhibition “Coming Home! Self-Taught Artists, the Bible and the American South,” opened and closed before I even knew of it. This inaugural exhibition of the Museum of Biblical Art showcased biblical themes in the work of some of the best known southern folk artists like Howard Finster, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Mose Tolliver, and Clementine Hunter, whose “Frenchie Goin’ to Heaven” is pictured here.

For those of us who missed it, there is an exhibition catalog, and WNYC’s Leonard Lopate hosted a discussion of the exhibition on his May 9th radio program. Also worth checking out is this reposting of a May 11th New York Times article complete with conservative Christian commentary.

Contemporary art (on the street)

2005-07-20T15:05:00.000-04:00

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming... This panel discussion on street art sounds like a pretty interesting event. Organized by the fine folks at Wooster Collective.

THE CITY AS COLLABORATOR
DOCUMENTING CONTEMPORARY ART ON THE STREET
moderated by Marc and Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective

Panelists:
KELLY BURNS, I NY,
MARTHA COOPER, Hip Hop Files: Photographs, 1979 to 1984 and Subway Art and
MICHAEL DeFEO, Alphabet City: Out on the Streets.

Join us for a vibrant and exciting exchange of ideas of how street art, has grown from and contributed to our city.

Reinventing Martha

2005-07-20T13:11:00.000-04:00

I rarely discuss work-related issues here, but Grant’s latest post on Martha Stewart piqued my interest and reminded me of a comment that Rebecca made recently when an ad for Martha Stewart’s new show aired. She observed that Martha was capitalizing on her prison experience by reinventing her brand from “Martha Stewart the aspirational (but unattainable) goal” to “Martha the imperfect (and therefore eminently more approachable) woman.”

This is the most apparent in the advertisements for her new show “Martha,” showing a bungling but lovable character who is more friend than icon. From the show description:

With an unscripted and unedited format, there are bound to be some surprises. So, what happens when Martha's carefully laid-out plans go awry?

My favorite bit from the promo—dropping a glass sculpture while working with artist Dale Chihuly. Staged? Who knows, but for me, the transformation isn’t yet ringing true.

This AP article from March lays out the that Martha Stewart empire is attempting.

“Her prison experience can be used as a new and powerful brand asset,” said John Barker, president of DZP Marketing Communications, based in New York. “What prison has done is to make her more fallible. There is this opportunity to make Martha more approachable, more empathetic.”

C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America’s Research Group, based in Charleston, S.C., agreed. “America is going to find out that they are going to see a new Martha that is more humble, more caring and more understanding of the American female,” Beemer said. “I would say it is a very clever transformation of a business icon into a real person with feelings.”

It’s a good strategy, but as Grant opines, her Vanity Fair interview gives “no indication that Martha Stewart is more interesting or complex.” Hmmm... the hardest part is the execution, isn’t it.

Is Martha transformed, or will she just play transformed on TV.

Set and Drift

2005-07-13T04:00:00.000-04:00

Set and Drift, a set of site-specific art installations, radio transmissions, and video projections sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, opens this Saturday, July 16, with an evening of outdoor concerts and film screenings. The most interesting part: the venue, Governor’s Island.

Purportedly the exhibition was designed to stimulate public interest in the history and possibilities surrounding Governor’s Island. The artists use the island’s forts, mess halls, and officers’ housing as their exhibit space and conceptual material. Each piece deals with the site and its previous military uses in some way.

The detail above is from Jesse Bercowetz and Matt Bua’s “The Last House to the Left,” an architectural addition to a civil-war era officer’s house on Colonel’s row. Because of the historic nature of the site, the artists weren’t allowed to alter the structure, and had to construct the addition without attaching to the existing house. They had planned to use found materials to create their makeshift museum for objects, images, and sounds but were disappointed to find nothing to work with at the site. “There wasn’t any trash,” Bua told Time Out.

Using the island in this way puts me in mind of Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX. Judd envisioned his enclave there as permenant exhibition space for site-specific works by Judd himself and several of his contemporaries. This kind of use is by far the most interesting (but unfortunately the least likely) approach I’ve heard to development for Governor’s Island. Read more about the exhibition in Downtown Express.

The only way on to Governor’ Island is by ferry from the Battery Maritime Building just north of the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. The ferry runs Tuesday–Saturday and costs between $3–6.