what about the plastic animals?

Rainbow

On Sunday afternoon I was doing important consumer research in Madison Square Park when I realized the sky would soon be right for a rainbow.  I walked over to the west side and, sure enough, there was a faint rainbow over the Empire State Building.  Seeing how faint the rainbow was, I adjusted the image to bring out the colors.  The result wasn't very attractive but at least the rainbow was clearly visible.  I put both images on Flickr and people went crazy for the adjusted image.  It is now the most often favorited item on my photostream. Go figure.

Hamilton Grange on the Street

South side of Hamilton Grange, unseen since 1889
  North Side of Hamilton Grange, unseen since 1911

New home

There's been a lot of progress in getting Hamilton Grange, Alexander Hamilton's last residence, ready to move to its new home since my March visit.  The house is currently sitting in the middle of Convent Ave. awaiting the move to St. Nicholas Park this coming Saturday.  To get into the street the house had to be lifted 35 feet to get over the porch of the church next door.  The house was being lowered to near street level when I visited on Thursday.  I was part of an exclusive tour, complete with an ultra-secret password!

The house will be placed on nine dollies and rolled down Convent Ave, make the turn onto 141st St. before being wheeled into St. Nicholas Park.  Hamilton Terrace, the hill the house now sits on is rather steep, so the move could be exciting!  The fun begins at 7 a.m. on Saturday.  Too bad I'll be out of town.

Kalahari Begins Deconstructing Before Construction is Done

The Kalahari, whose construction I have lovingly chronicled through the last couple of years, began self-destructing Thursday afternoon (check out my fine Photoshop skills in that Gothamist article).  A three-story high chunk of the exterior wall on the 115th St. building peeled away and fell on the Harlem Market below.  By Thursday night a demolition crew had started removing the remainder of the wall's exterior.  The crew is just about done removing the exterior of the 116th St. building today.  There's more pictures in this Flickr set.

Hamilton Grange on the Move

Current home

Future home?

Hamilton Grange, Alexander Hamilton's farmhouse from 1802 until he was killed by Aaron Burr in an 1804 duel, is about to move.  Or not.  You see, this is one of those complicated New York real estate stories.

Hamilton, perhaps Columbia University's (then King's College) most important graduate, co-author of the Federalist Papers, founder of the Bank of New York, first Secretary of the Treasury, all-around hot-head, and scandalous adulterer, had this federal style house built on his 32-acre estate.  In 1889 the house was bought by St. Luke's Episcopal Church and moved two blocks to its present location.  As you can see it is hemmed in by the church on the right and an apartment building on the left.  The original entranceway and wraparound porch were removed.

In 1962, the National Park Service became the owner of the house.  In the early 1990s a plan was put in place to move the house down the block into St. Nicholas Park.  After many years funding was allocated and the house's new foundation is being prepared in the park.

Here's the catch.  The original orientation of the house was to have the front face southwest.  Were the grange to face southwest in the park the front entrance would be staring at the side of a cliff and the back of a City College building.  The Park Service decided to rotate the house so the front points northeast, toward 141st St.

The reorientation has some historic preservationists upset.  Last week the local Community Board voted to oppose the move.  I'm not sure how much sway that decision has with the city and National Park Service.

Two Views of 5th on the Park

Looking west from beyond Pleasant Ave on 120th St.

From atop the outcropping in Marcus Garvey Park

Although still under construction, 5th on the Park, the 28-story apartment building at Fifth Avenue and 120th Street is now a dominating presence on the local skyline.  It's taller than the fire watch tower in Marcus Garvey Park!

Archstone

This building, which is called the Archstone, has no archstone.  I feel like I am not understanding something.

Orange and Rockland

Rockland County Courthouse, New City, NY

Orange County Government Center, Goshen, NY

In last week's list of links I pointed to the US County Courthouse group on Flickr.  There's a map on that page indicating the counties in which a courthouse had been photographed.  New York is oddly underrepresented.  To prop up the Empire State, and since I have the good fortune of having many vacation days to use in the next few months, I took a day trip today to photograph the Rockland and Orange County courthouses.  That sounds impressive but the Rockland courthouse is only a ten minute drive from work and Goshen is a mere half-hour beyond that.  I also went sightseeing along the Delaware River (saw two bald eagles!).

The Art Deco Rockland County Courthouse was built in the late-1920s.  The courthouse is on the National Register of Historic Places.  It is the third building on that location since Rockland became a county in 1798.  Before it became a county, Rockland was Orange County "South of the Mountains". 

Today's Orange County is all north of the mountains.  The county seat of Goshen is also home to the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame, which is conveniently located across the street from the county courthouse.  The current courthouse was designed in the Brutalist style by Paul Rudolph, then dean of the School of Architecture at Yale, in 1963 and completed in 1967.  The building is very cubical.

Regun Theatre

You would never guess it is an old building but according to PropertyShark, the building that houses the fish market across the street from my apartment was constructed around 1913, possibly earlier.  One bored evening this summer I came across a Flickr photo of the storefront.  The picture is crap but the photographer is a movie house buff.  In an earlier life the Sea & Sea Fish Market was the Regun Theatre.

The Regun Theatre is known to have operated between 1916 and 1950.  On May 22nd, 1923 the theater hosted Annie Mathew's "Kiddies' Day", an event sponsored by the Register of New York County.  It was estimated that over 3000 children saw two performance that day.  According to the Times the kids were treated to "a first-class orchestra" as well as showings of "Daddy's Boy" and "The Little Church Around the Corner".  The highlight of the day was a performance by "Miss Rita Hogan, the youngest child actor in the "movies" who sang and danced for them [the kids] at both performances".

A couple months later the Regun was involved in an ugly incident next door.  The Regun screened movies on the roof during the summer.  The July 12th, 1923 issue of the Times reports that Jacob London, owner of the two six-story walk-up tenements next door filed suit against a number of his tenants.  The tenants, Mr. London alleged, were inviting friends over to watch the movies next door from the roof of their building.  Actually he asked for a restraining order to prevent his tenants from

congregating on the roof at any time to witness moving picture performances; from holding meetings or assemblages on the roof; from gathering collectively ion the roof for social or amusement purposes; from occupying windows connected with the common halls to witness moving picture performances; from inviting, soliciting, encouraging or urging persons to assemble with them, either on the roofs or in the hall windows to witness moving picture performances or for any unlawful purpose...

Up to 200 a night were congregating on the roof, possibly causing the roofing to sag.  The headline of that article is "Brings Suit to Keep Tenants Off Roof".  The scanner must have had a hard time distinguishing U from H as the headline in ProQuest when I did the search was "Brings Shit to Keep Tenants Off Roof".  Anyway...

A shorter article a day later sheds a more familiar light on the situation.   Max Klein an attorney for the tenant claimed that the landlord was using the roof issue as an excuse to get rid of the tenants.  The tenants named in the suit had lived in the building for 6-10 years and were protected from increases by rent laws.  Mr. Klein said the landlord was trying to get rid of the tenants so he "could get new ones who would have to pay $15 to $20 a month more" in rent.

On June 24th, 1930 five Hispanic men were arrested after they tried to storm the Regun in protest of its showing of "Under a Texas Moon", directed by Michael Curtiz. who later directed "Casablanca", and the first western filmed in color.  The news article is sketchy on details but it refers to the neighborhood, which was primarily Jewish at the time of the rooftop lawsuit, was now a "Latin-American colony".  On the night of the arrests about 100 protesters marched upon the theater carrying placards that read "Down With Under a Texas Moon.  It is a reflection on the women of Latin America."

The most recent article concerning the Regun that I could find in the Times was on November 10th, 1936.  Four people were injure when plaster fell from the ceiling of the theater.  The rooftop projection booth (the article says the building had formerly shown outdoor movies) sat on iron stilts.  The stilts rusted away from lack of maintenance and gave way on the night in question.  About 150 moviegoers "stampeded from the auditorium".  The story did not mention what movie was playing.

Guthrie Theater

Guthrie Theater and Gold Medal Flour elevator.

Inside the cantilever.

Collapsed I-35 bridge.

Looking out the window toward the Gold Medal Flour grain elevator.

The rotated building on the previous post is the cantilevered part of the new Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.  The building sits on the bank of the Mississippi and opened last year.  There are great views up and down the river from the edge of the cantilever. 

Arcus Brothers, Bloomsburg, PA

Had I gotten on the interstate right away I would never had seen the Arcus Brothers store in Bloomsburg.  They were closed when I stopped.  It appears they sell mattresses, furniture, slot machines, condoms, musical instruments, movies, and probably items too numerous to mention.  I didn't take a photo of the whole building, but someone did in 2003.

That's it for the trip to Ohio.  I'm at a loss as to what to chronicle next.  The trip to Iowa?  All of this summer's bike rides around town?  Maybe it's time to back to the Midwest!