Yesterday I used my lunch hour to go to the local Barnes and Noble bookstore to get the latest issue of i-D Magazine. Turns out they didn’t have it. It’s an import from the UK and they are still one and a half issues behind on the magazine racks here (another issue is due out soon).
I was disappointed that I had wasted my time on the short drive, made long because of the traffic. But was it a complete waste?
As usual, I had one of my cameras with me. I took some meh shots walking through the bookstore …
Looking out the window by the magazine racksDescending the escalator to the lower levelAnother shot looking out the window by the magazine racksA selection of magazines (why is short American Short Fiction on the upper shelf where short people would find it hard to reach?)
… but, going back back outside through an entrance I rarely use, the area looked slightly different than I remembered. I thought I’d try doing one of the ten exercises I started writing about a year or more ago. I would stand in the same spot, moving my feet only to turn a bit, and take a series of pictures.
Here, now, I shall impose the results upon you.
They’re just moving furniture into this restaurant. One of two places that are ‘opening soon’Don’t know what either Plans A or B were, but neither proved to be successful. The sign out front advertises the ‘coming soon’ of a comedy club. The weather’s been dismal and I look forward to a few laughs.This was the something-or-other building on Tresser Boulevard. Now it’s the something-or-other-else building. Companies come and go taking their names with them; buildings stay until they start to crumble and are torn down – hopefully before falling on someone.#1 Those eyes! A mural created by Sen2 (Santo) Figuero [@sen2figueroa on Instagram#2 Same position as #1 – different focus#3 A little bit lower now.#4 And a little bit lower now.#5 A little bit higher now.
All shot with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II on aperture mode with LUMIX II Aspherical 20mm f/1.7 lens
The Silk Clock, 470 Park Avenue (corner East 32nd Street), New York City, NY
When you walk around New York City you see all sorts of interesting things. I’m always on the look out for old clocks on the side of buildings. You see them everywhere, especially below Canal. I stumbled on to this one a bit further up town on Park and E. 32nd and was fortunate to find some information about from a 1996 New York Times column. Thought I’d share it.
Q. What is the history of the interesting clock on the building at 470 Park Avenue South, between 31st and 32d Streets? There is a wizard, a man hammering and a woman on it, and they move. What does all this represent?
A. It’s called the Silk Clock, and if you look at it carefully, you can envision a scene out of Arthurian legend, says Conrad Milster, the chief engineer at the Pratt Institute and a clock aficionado. At every hour on the hour, the wizard Merlin raises his wand and taps the squatting blacksmith on the head, who hammers away at King Arthur’s sword, while the Lady of the Lake rises out of the clock’s case. The clock, built in March 1926 by the Seth Thomas Clock Company of Thomaston, Conn., got its name from the building’s original owners, Schwarzbock Looms, who worked in the silk industry. Fittingly, the face of the 2-foot-by-3-foot clock is adorned with a silkworm motif, including mulberry leaves, the worm’s favorite food. But over time, the city’s grime fouled the clock’s mechanism, and it sat idle for several years — no one knows exactly how long — until the building’s current owner, S.L. Green, asked Mr. Milster to restore it in 1984. It’s a New York rarity, says Mr. Milster, in that it’s still run by a weight-driven pendulum. And its whimsical characters create quite a commotion with passers-by when they swing into action, says Darlene LaColla, the building’s concierge. But don’t set your watch by it. Because the five-foot-long pendulum is made of wood, seasonal shifts in the humidity cause shrinkage and expansion, which can tamper with the clock’s accuracy by a few minutes.
Joearf’s Thoughts 