Schwarz
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Volunteers will be assigned a zone with about 300 trees, and will be trained to identify species, take measurements and assess health. They will also learn to identify the Asian long-horned beetle, which destroys hardwood trees. Beetle larvae have been spotted in two American elms in Central Park this spring. For years the parks department has been diversifying its tree population to deter insect infestations and the spread of diseases. "If the Asian long-horned beetle is infiltrating a certain area, we should diversify further," Mr. Benepe said. Volunteers "can enlist friends or bring their families," said Jennifer Greenfeld, the director of New York Tree Trust, a program of the parks department and the City Parks Foundation that is running the census. "Some of the folks who did it 10 years ago can't wait to do it again." For information on the census: 311, or www.nyc.gov/treescount.
perplexi
As a result, the major architectural players at ground zero - Mr. Libeskind, Mr. Gehry, Santiago Calatrava, David Childs, Mr. Arad and the Snohetta architects, to name the most obvious - have never sat down in a room together to discuss their growing concerns about the overall plan, let alone exchange ideas about how best to improve it.
This constitutes an enormous squandering of talent, as well as a total disregard for how the creative process unfolds. And it has essentially shut the public out of the process.
So far, such inflexibility has been justified by political calculations. Open discussion of what isn't working, and why, might slow the pace of rebuilding, the thinking goes, and send the wrong message to the world - as if indecision were somehow a sign of weakness. Given how the project has stumbled, that argument is looking more and more specious. And it ignores the fact that the city, and those of us who care about it, will have to live with the consequences of these decisions for decades.
Governor Pataki should take advantage of the most recent delays to take a big step back and rethink what has become a debased process. Planning should be open to intense public scrutiny. And by encouraging the architects to talk with one another and to the public they serve, he could finally take advantage of the talent that he has right under his nose.
right wing real estate blog "curbed" exclaiming 'bout 29-45 million dollar asking prices for modules in the calatrava tower and thi$ guy is yakking about it. that and all the different hats that calatrava wears. so what.
Known for her innovative space planning, Florence Knoll Bassett ("Shu" to her friends) recently designed an installation of her work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Since interviewing the legendary designer, I've become one of her many dedicated fans. Bassett defined the look for corporate interiors in the 1950s and profoundly influenced post-World War II design.
Mr. Rampe's departure comes at a particularly sensitive moment for a rebuilding effort that has recently been plagued by bad news. The construction of the Freedom Tower, the site's most prominent structure, is months behind schedule, and faces even greater delays after the New York Police Department last month delivered a disturbing assessment of its security shortcomings. Larry Silverstein, the lead developer of the site, has signaled that he may need hundreds of millions of dollars from the government to address the security concerns.
The decision by the Wall Street firm of Goldman Sachs to shelve plans for building a headquarters near ground zero was another setback. And to this day, three and a half years after the destruction of the two towers, a number of the architects, engineers and designers involved in the rebuilding effort have complained privately that a lack of creativity and communication still besets the project.
EDITOR'S NOTE: ArchNewsNow is going on the (Internet-deprived) road...the newsletter will return Wednesday, May 4. ------ It seems to be "culture vs. construction" all around NYC. -- Then there's NYC's Olympic bid, and recalling the city's two World's Fairs. -- It's back to the drawing board for Freedom Tower. -- Mulling mall plans in downtown Salt Lake City (developers will still have the last word - it's their money, after all). -- Forget baby boomers, Gen X'ers...now we have GUPPYS - green urban professionals who are young. -- A university builds a sustainable community in British Columbia. -- Starchitect-designed condos going for big bucks (like, $1,100/sq. ft.!). -- Two major projects opening in Ottawa and Montreal. -- Viñoly launches program of master classes and research grants. -- The Guggenheim continues to think big. -- Eco-friendly lumber gaining popularity (even Gibson Guitars has bought in).this is why ive been coming up short on the architecture stuff lately.
Three Songs by Leadbelly (1945)
This is the only known film appearance of the legendary singer. Edited by folk hero Pete Seeger. (9 min 18 sec)
from the wfmu blog... again.
rat rod pick of the week
ill be posting stuff from joes upcoming family road trip on this thread.
vegas>>deathvalley>>vegas.
they leave later this week.
diy classic car restoration
diy.net
vanilla pop
He might not have been a punk but the man had attitude to spare Django Reinhart could play some guitar and here's the video's to prove it---
more awesome shit from record brother
The creative period of New York graffiti art lasted for about a decade, beginning with the appearance all over Upper West Side walls and sidewalks of "TAKI 183" in 1971 and culminating, around 1980, in the realization of spectacular works by individual masters that covered the sides of subway cars. The artists called themselves "writers," and their primary works were alphanumeric signatures, or "tags," executed in fonts of singular originality, occasionally illuminated with vernacular images poached from comics or from recent art history. I suppose the closest analogy would be the creation of intricate capital letters by Celtic scribes in such works as the Book of Kells. Seldom has a movement gone so far so fast. The illustrations in a book like The Faith of Graffiti, published in 1974, show tags that have evolved well beyond TAKI 183, but scarcely prepare one for the baroque splendor of those in Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant's 1984 edited collection Subway Art, most of which were executed around 1980. Subway Art ends with an inscribed rap epitaph by the writer Lee Quinones in relatively straightforward lettering: "There was once a time when the Lexington was a beautiful line/When children of the ghetto expressed with art, not with crime...."
The centrality of the signature is easily grasped, since the primary goal of graffiti was "getting fame," and the subway car--or "burner"--offered a billboard-size surface with the added advantage of mobility. Glory consisted in the abrupt emergence of one's freshly painted tag from a tunnel's darkness onto a viaduct, like the one across 125th Street. The primary audience consisted of other writers, who knew one's identity, appreciated the dangers involved in "getting up" and admired the artistry and originality of one's achievement. In a recent letter, Tony Silver--who made a wonderful documentary with Chalfant, Style Wars--wrote, "I liked the idea that the transgressive writers with no consciousness of the art world had taken over public space as vandals with their tags and burners, and discovered they could be artists, creating their own canon."
When I asked Silver why Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was something of a graffitero in the early 1980s, was not included among the writers in his film, he said that he could not fit him in. Despite the fact that Basquiat worked as a street artist for a time and even had a tag--SAMO--he viewed himself, from the outset, as a fine artist, and the unprecedented art world of the 1980s rightly accepted him on his own terms, though the outlaw aura of graffiti probably abetted his meteoric ascent. By 1984 some of the writers were trying to cross over into the gallery scene, but it proved impossible to sustain the energy that had made them underground stars. Basquiat, however, flourished in the downtown art world. In May of that same year, he had his first one-person show at Mary Boone, one of the hottest galleries of that moment, and was included in "An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture," with which the Museum of Modern Art inaugurated its 1984 reopening. He had re-created on canvas the visceral excitement other writers achieved only in the rail yards of the MTA.
just to top it off i went over to apartment therapy to see whats happening there. some important news on spring home furnishings and linen sales. heady stuff. did these people completely miss the whole barbara kruger thing ?(when the going gets tough the though shop sales?!) t-shirts available at regular price from the ICP.
Spring Sales...
Area
Sample Sale - below wholesale! - on all modern bedding and table linens
When: May 4-5
Where: 180 Varick Street #936 (212.924.7084)
Versace
"Decadent" home furnishings are 60% to 75% off
When: April 28-29
Where: 645 Fifth Ave., 12th fl. (212.317.0224)
[...]
Lorimer Loser: Stop This L Train, I Wanna Get Offyep, folks this is really what bkln realestate blogs are talking about
A picture is worth a thousand words on this one. A million bucks for three stories of charmless, 1970s-era interiors in second-stop Williamsburg. Puhleeze! Perhaps there's some way to rationalize this as an investment property, but we just can't imagine anyone paying this kind of dough to live here. (We doubt even the die-hard modernists on the blog will defend this one.)
from brownstoner
in defense of rezoning williamsburg from curbed, one of my favorite right wing nyc realestate blogs
schwarz omitted from design*sponge list of favorites:
maybe it's the sun outside, maybe it's the fact that i'm going home to VA on thursday, maybe it's ac's new job, but for some reason, i'm just happy today. and i thought, while i was thinking about all the things i'm happy about, why not share my love for my fellow design bloggers?
there are so many wonderful blogs out there that share my passion for design and have made this wonderful design community what it is, so i just wanted to send a little d*s virtual love note to each and every one of them. today is about celebrating you guys- you're amazing, you keep me up to date on all the wonderful things about there and i'm so lucky to be involved in a community full of great people like you guys. keep up the great work! (and if you haven't seen some of these sites, please check them out!)
to apartment therapy: you are the lifeblood of this community. thank you so, so much for your heart and all your dedication to making our apartments as wonderful as they can be.
to land+living: i just love you guys. you have just a nice, positive vibe on your site and you review really thoughtful projects that i wouldn't have heard about anywhere else. keep up the great work guys!
to josh rubin: you're the coolest of cool, josh. i don't know what we'd do without your insights on fashion, design and everything else that makes our lives just a little bit hipper. thanks so much for your eye and your dedication to finding the best of the best.
to core77: you guys are great. coroflot is a wonderful resource that i couldn't live without. you feature wonderful technological advancements in design and i'm always amazed by some of the stuff i see up there.
to unbeige: thanks for always investigating issues i wouldn't think to delve deeper into- your insights are thoughtful and timely- i really enjoy your site.
to treehugger: you know i love you guys- you're the greatest. putting out such wonderful, earth-friendly designs, you guys are in a class of your own. keep up the great work!
to id fuel: dom and crew, you guys rock. nuff said.
to not cot: welcome! you've got some really great stuff up there! i always love seeing what you've discovered!
to josh spear: we're in the young club together- don't know what i'd do without your insight on all things cool and buzz worthy.
to mocoloco: the classic, the ultimate- you consistently provide us with the best in european and american design, thank you for your commitment to excellence in design.
Rock-a-billy artist Hasil Adkins diesfrom brian at fmu
April 27, 2005 11:47 AM
MADISON, W.Va.
Rock-a-billy artist Hasil Adkins, a one-man band whose screaming vocals and freestyle approach to rhythm landed a cult following, has died.
He was 67.
Adkins' body was found yesterday at his Madison home, where he lived alone. The cause of death has not been determined but it does not appear suspicious.
Guitar, harmonica, drums, foot-rhythm instruments -- Adkins played them all.
Known to his fans as The Haze, Adkins struggled for decades to get noticed. In a 2002 interview, he said he mailed out thousands of tapes and records over a 30-year period while fishing for a record deal.
Adkins was the original star of Norton Records, a label built around the primal recordings he produced beginning in the Eisenhower era.
Adkins claimed to have written more than seven-thousand songs. He first emerged in the 1950s, only to disappear again. European fans kept the rock-a-billy rage alive, and when the Cramps did an early 1980s remake of "She Said," Adkins' records suddenly became hot again.
His other hits included "Poultry in Motion," "Chicken Walk," "The Hunch," "Chocolate Milk Honeymoon," and "Boo Boo The Cat."
you would think they could just grab their slide-rules and sort this out in advance!
What’s up with Los Angeles architects and their sun problems? First, there was Frank Gehry; the polished stainless steel that clads part of his Walt Disney Concert Hall has produced so much heat and glare that it’s having to get sandblasted as we speak. And now Thom Mayne’s much-praised Caltrans District 7 Headquarters in downtown L.A. is also proving to be solar-challenged. As reported in The Los Angeles Times, some Caltrans employees are complaining that the new 13-story building not only has too few water fountains and toilets (oops), but that the perforated and louvered metal screens that shield much of the glass structure, and that are among its most distinctive design elements, aren’t always doing their job. Apparently, the sunlight still gets so bothersome inside that a source now tells us up to 900 new MechoShade blinds, joining an existing 200 to 300, will need to be installed at a likely cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Mayne’s rep tells us that only a few areas of the building have glare issues, and only at certain times of the day and year. However, extra shades are being installed for visual continuity.) In any case, this seems to make Mayne’s secondary metal skin somewhat redundant. At least it still looks cool.