Untitled

Untitled, originally uploaded by xuan alyfe.

"la proprieté c´est le vol" (J. P Proudhon)

"la proprieté c´est le vol" (J. P Proudhon), originally uploaded by escif.

Austin, Texas

0726155501, originally uploaded by VökL.

Alice Pasquini - Brest (FR)

Alice Pasquini - Brest (FR), originally uploaded by AliCè.

Digital snake

Digital snake, originally uploaded by KD_space.

via Lariana 14

via Lariana 14, originally uploaded by romephotoblog.

City Guide Part 17

Modern day 5th Avenue is a shopping mecca. Retailers strive to offer the latest in fashion. Store windows are full of shirts, dresses and accessories that, in a few months time, will be considered out of style. But when you near the corner of 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, the frenzied feel of consumerism changes and is replaced with the pastoral calm emanating from the classically "Beaux-Arts" inspired grounds of the New York City Public Library. 

         It was late afternoon as we walked between the two large lion statues guarding the main entrance. The library's archive room was preparing to close, so we slipped in before the doors were locked for the evening. Inside the archive room, rare books, maps and important government papers are kept for public viewing. The centerpiece of the archive room was a Gutenberg Bible. 

        This library has a feel similar to that of the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Unlike the neighborhood libraries most of us are accustomed to, this library is meant for serious study and not for tourists like us to poke around. We decided to go back outside and join the dozens of people enjoying a rest on the cool stone steps of the main entrance. We talked about what we wanted to do that evening. I remembered the two men the evening before at the exit to the ferry selling exotic merchandise. I suggested we go back to Canal Street to see firsthand some of the bizarre items we could find there. 

Canal Street is one of only a few streets on Manhattan that do not run on a grid of right angles. Back in the 1600's, lower Manhattan was a Dutch village, and the land north of the village was cultivated.  Farmers built a canal running diagonally from the northwest the southeast.  When they harvested their produce, they simply took it to the canal where it could easily be transported down to the village and to the the harbor where ships waited to transport it to Europe.  Gradually, as the town grew, buildings went up on either side of the canal, until citizens decided to drain the canal and build Canal Street in its place.  That is not the only contribution of the early Dutch settlers on Manhattan.  They built a long wall just north of their village to separate the village from the farmland.  Eventually the wall went down, but the name remained, so that today we have Wall Street, the hub of international commerce, on the original location of the stone wall that separated agriculture (commerce) from village life.

 

 One more contribution of those early Dutch - Among the first settlers in that little village was Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt, whose descendents would eventually change their name slightly, and from that line came two of our country's presidents - Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt.

 

    Modern day Canal street is lined with small sidewalk stands and shopkeepers who invite passers by  to look at their goods. Several men came up to me and asked in a hushed tone, " Would you like to buy a Rolex watch? Very cheap; Fifty Dollars."   

We stopped in several shops, but all we found found were low quality sunglasses, towels and t-shirts. 

After exiting one of these shops, Mom, Dad and I  stepped out on the street expecting Scott to be right behind us. After walking down the street we realized that Scott was nowhere in sight. We traced our steps, looking in each shop until we entered the shop where we last saw him. Right at that moment, the wall at the back of the store opened up. Scott poked his head out and said, "Hey guys, in here!"  Mom, Dad and I walked through this hidden doorway into a small room with shelves of beautiful handbags. Many of these handbags looked perfectly identical to the handbags I had just seen in the glamorous windows of 5th Avenue. After a while, Mom found a bag she was very impressed with. Because there were no visible prices, she asked the man attending this speakeasy the price. After he quoted a price, mom set the bag down, thanked him and started to walk back out the door. The man stopped us, and quoted a much lower price for the bag. Mom agreed that the price was fair. Dad paid for the bag, which the shopkeeper then placed in a nondescript black bag, and he let us out of the room. Mom was pleased with her new bag.

   The plan for our last evening on Manhattan was to watch the sun set from the top of the tallest building in the city.  We took the train back uptown and entered the first floor level of the Empire State Building. On the train ride uptown, I noticed the handbags of several women sitting in the train car, and wondered if they had bought their bags on 5th avenue or Canal Street. It was impossible to tell. It was early evening as we entered the ground floor of the Empire State Building.

 

                 Continued in part 18

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Fedz

Fedz, originally uploaded by romephotoblog.

Rome, Italy.

Maxine

Maxine, originally uploaded by - GoddoG -.

Here is a shot from 2008

Neoproto on Vimeo

Neoproto on Vimeo

the animartronics

the animartronics, originally uploaded by daversion.

Banksy

Banksy, originally uploaded by karinfreda.

Banksy

Banksy, originally uploaded by nastyKEMical.

Girl With the Pearl Earring 2011

Girl With the Pearl Earring 2011, originally uploaded by romephotoblog.

C215

C215, originally uploaded by romephotoblog.

Rome, Italy.

City Guide Part 16




The Louvre, London's National Gallery, The Hermitage, and the Museum of Modern Art. I stood at the doors to one of the greatest collections of art in the history of the world. New York's MOMA holds six floors containing some of the most valued human creations of the last three hundred years. I hadn't even entered the building, and I was already overwhelmed.
Upon entering at street level, a foyer greets guests and connects the museum with several staircases, elevator banks and lounging areas. We decided to begin at the 6th floor and descend floor by floor to finish at the sculpture garden.
The 6th floor was devoted entirely to Salvador Dalí.

From New York City

I was never a great fan of Dalí, and after glancing at each exhibit piece, my lack of fan status remained intact. Descending from floor to floor, I was immersed in the work of familiar artists as well as artists I had not yet heard of. Besides the art on the wall, I was also immersed in the wide variety of languages spoken by the people around me. I challenged myself to guess the languages that reached my ears. Most of the languages were easily recognized: German, Japanese, Spanish, Russian and French. But there were some languages I had never heard before that sounded as colorful and lively as the art on the surrounding walls.

The area of the museum with the most admirers was the section containing "POP ART." Most predominant among these were the works of Andy Warhol.

From July 8

It seemed as though everyone wanted to be photographed in front of an Andy Warhol piece. Non flash photography was allowed inside the museum, and the security posted in every room made sure people turned off the flash before taking a photo. A young French woman approached me and asked if I could take a photo of her in front of her favorite Warhol piece. I placed her in the lower right corner of the frame with the Warhol dominating the photo.

Rounding a corner on the next floor, I found myself standing before Monet's Water Lilies. It was an image I had seen in art books since I was very young. Now, seeing its immensity in person was a little overwhelming. I sat on a chair and slowly took it in from end to end. In the next room one entire wall was dominated by a piece created by Jackson Pollock. I had seen photographs of his work in books and was never convinced of their status as "masterpieces". But as I stood dwarfed in front of an actual Jackson Pollock piece, the style and emotion he portrayed swayed me now to define him as a master painter.

We finished the inside tour with a stop at a room on the ground floor featuring every day design. This room held common items, ranging from flashlights and blenders to furniture and toys. A typical shopper at Wal*Mart would walk past any of these items without a second glance. The display reminded us that everything has a design and a thoughtful designer.

From July 8

After a quick rest in the peaceful Sculpture Garden, we were back on the streets headed toward the New York City Public Library.


Continued in part 17

Jen & Banksy, Cargo

Jen & Banksy, Cargo, originally uploaded by law7355.

Alice Pasquini - Rome

Alice Pasquini - Rome, originally uploaded by AliCè.

Alice Pasquini - Napoli

Alice Pasquini - Napoli, originally uploaded by AliCè.

City Guide Part 14

We exited the Brooklyn Tabernacle along with hundreds of worshipers. As we walked slowly with the crowd of people, I was impressed at the care that most people took to look their "Sunday best." After we departed the building Dad began a search for a nearby restaurant he had previously selected. The restaurant was nestled in a former working class neighborhood of Brooklyn. I had heard of the "gentrification" of certain areas in cities where large numbers of young people move in to previously run-down neighborhoods. I could tell that this neighborhood at one time was probably not the best place to be after dark. Now it is an upscale area enjoyed by young professionals. After lunch, we walked over to the New York Transit Museum. The museum itself is a decommissioned subway stop. The displays began with the building of the first roads in lower Manhattan and continued on to the future of transit in the greater NYC area. Some of the most interesting displays were of old style turnstiles and actual subway cars from the early part of the twentieth century. Advertisements featured in each car correlated with the era the car was used. On special occasions, these antique cars are used on actual train routes for a day. We stayed until museum closing time and then took a train into Manhattan. I now had a new appreciation of the people and machines that made our vacation more enjoyable.

We stepped off the train at Bowling Green Park in the lower tip of the island of Manhattan and walked down to the South Ferry Terminal of the Staten Island Ferry. Security scanners and bomb sniffing dogs were in full effect. Walking into the terminal gave the impression that I was walking into an airport. But unlike an airport, no ticket or payment is required. We walked onto the enormous boat, found an empty bench and enjoyed the leisurely cruise to Staten Island. From the deck of the ferry, I could see The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, The Goldman Sachs Tower in New Jersey, The Island of Manhattan into the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn.




In front of the ferry and down the coast stood the Verrazano-Narrows bridge and beyond that, the open Atlantic Ocean. We disembarked at St. George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island and walked back onto the same ferry which was now headed for Manhattan. Staten Island from my view on the ferry looked very different from its fellow burroughs. It has the feel of a small New England city with rows of colonial houses nestled in rocky hills.

The towers of Lower Manhattan soon loomed over us as the ferry nimbly pulled into it's spot at the South Ferry Terminal. Many of the passengers looked like janitorial personal ready to clean the office buildings above us. On the street outside the terminal, men with large plastic garbage bags full of imitation designer handbags greeted passengers as we passed into a now quiet Lower Manhattan.


Continued in Part 15