Mondo Manhatto - behind the lens

Earth Day - taxi and police car accident at 6:30 a.m.

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 19:03:24 -0400

Police car and taxi collide. Who ran the red light at Union Square East and 14th Street?

Demolition men

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 10:32:57 -0400

Sometimes what goes on behind plywood remains a secret, unknown to the casual passerby. At other times, when we can see demolition taking place, it is breathtaking, whereas at other times banal or merely inconsequential. Yet this crew of men with sledgehammers strikes at the heart of the matter: smash the building from the top down. Absent the usual blue or green paint, the plain plywood looks garish, especially in conjunction with the repeating signs: DANGER KEEP OUT - NO PARKING - DANGER HARD HAT AREA. Everything screams: cheap demolition on the fly. A minor smackdown. One guy pushes the broom around, and the scene is relatively quiet. You have to wonder if those Voice and Onion containers will even get a coating of dust on them.

MTA strikers: fire in a barrel

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 16:13:03 -0500

Ye olde labor unrest image: standing on the picket line, warming one's hands by the fire (image: New York Times)

homegrown boycotts

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 11:08:22 -0400

Fascinating insights into the mentality of various New Yorkers can frequently be found taped on lampposts or stuck inside the transparent front covers of streetside boxes for the Village Voice, New York Press, and Learning Annex. It is a uniquely American phenomenon that hearkens back to Colonial days of pamphleteers. Fotoblogger snapped this one in Chelsea, which apparently concerns a rather bizarre situation that an apparently elderly person wishes to protest—on perhaps appropriately peach-colored paper with hot pink tape. The penmanship alone suggests deep distress; note the word "violently" was violently double-underlined.

scaffolding peeling back layers

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 17:19:01 -0400

Busy 6th Ave @ West 4th Street is seeing a dramatic transformation, and this low-slung building that was most recently home to yet another chain drugstore looks like it's going high rise. Meanwhile, you can see some ancient layers of Greenwich Village behind the scaffolding. And what do you think about the advertising-draped scaffolding? Sure, I get tired of the standard blue or green scaffolding, but isn't it an eyesore? Isn't NYC supersaturated already with billboards and nontraditional advertising? Fotoblogger has a theory about scaffolding: there is nowhere to store it. So when the men (it's always men) come to take it down, they immediately have to erect it somewhere else.

moblog phonecam news city

Sat, 27 Aug 2005 11:43:23 -0400

The alleged subway wanker makes the cover of the Daily News. And when the blogsphere meets the front page, Boing Boing is there to chronicle it. First the alleged victim posted the photo to Flickr, now it's front-page news. Must be a slow news weekend in August....

Sixth Ave Sex Shops

Thu, 04 Aug 2005 11:54:24 -0400

Is it a tongue-twister leaving you tongue-tied? Anyhow these window displays are getting more creative, risque and increasingly lascivious. Here is one recent display from near the tattoo joints and new IFC Film Center.

Demolition Man

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 13:45:45 -0400

100 years ago these small brick buildings were built along Eighth Avenue, and few remain today in the historic areas of lower Eighth through Tenth Avenues. It takes only two days to knock them down, and surely the bank that will replace them will have zero historic character or lasting value. New York of yesteryear is rapidly fading as rampant construction and high property values make underused lots highly valuable.

faded wall murals are vanishing

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 12:09:02 -0400

With the huge spate of construction in Manhattan, fewer of these decades-old wall murals are visible. Everything is impermanent in this world, yet these remnants of a bygone era remind us that Manhattan was once a powerful manufacturing hub for this country.

U.S. Mail - average day

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 11:46:51 -0400

Mailboxes are a particular target of graffiti artists and taggers, and this relay mail box seems to be having a really average day.