Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- This is the first time in the past 150 years that the bells won’t ring in London. Today Big Ben has stopped ticking. The bells won’t chime for the next six weeks as workers repair the cogs. To this end, I started to think of the past and one person who taught me quite a bit.

When I was in the sixth grade, I had an extra-ordinary teacher who left me with a lot of memories. One of them was his reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Casque of Amontillado, which chilled us all to the bone as we sat in those little student desks absorbed and thrilled and forevermore fans of Poe.

Another memory was his asking us all if we knew why manhole covers were round. After a number of stupid guesses, we were told the reason – any other shape would allow the covers to fall into the hole. If they were squared or triangular, they could be maneuvered onto their side until they fell in. Round objects wouldn’t fall.

He also told us that manhole covers in NYC were like snowflakes – no two were alike. This I found hard to believe until I started looking. He was right; they were all different in design. Markedly different in design. I looked for years and thumbed my way through many books admiring the designs I found.

Times have changed. Now they come in only a couple of designs.

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Con Edison is now the primary user for manhole covers, and they seem, these days, to have boiled down to four basic designs. See the two above and the two below.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

The Department of Public Works features this handy little design. I like its simplicity very much. the color also makes it unique.

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Above left you can see an older model that is wearing down. Parts of the design are blending into other parts almost making a new shape. Above right you see an interesting model. There’s a cover within a cover. The smaller model seems to fit within the larger model, and both can be pulled out. Very interesting. There were three or four of these in the same area around 23rd Street.

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These manhole covers have been fitted into what were obviously larger spaces.
The concrete circle, above left, fills in for an earlier, larger model manhole cover.
Above right, you see a round cover in what was once a square hole.

The busy minimalism of this design works very well with the cracked asphalt around it.

Here we have an interesting model. No design. I guess some would say that that’s
a design in its own right.

If you look on line, you’ll find a lot of information and photos of manhole covers. It’s amazing how big an industry is manhole cover watching. There are many books on the subject, many websites and lots of photographers who specialize in it. I have to direct you to one Roland Muhler. His work is stunning. I’ve posted three of his NYC photos just below. He has many international manhole covers on his site.

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Another site which gives a lot of attention to manhole covers is Manhole Covers etc. The site is subtitled: “I’ve been looking down so long, I don’t know which way looks up.” Here you’ll find some history, links and photos from across the US as well as around the world.

Through this site I found a Russian site called Sewers of the World, Unite. There’s plenty of information and links here as well as some excellent photos. The images below are Russian designs from this site.

On the site, the history of sanitary sewers, I found this document (pictured to the right) which gives a good view of a plan for some manhole covers. One cover is designed for Syracuse and another for Brooklyn.

I also learned in my small amount of research that most of the covers done for NY’s manholes are made in India. I imagine the shipping charges would be enormous.

I presume that the manhole covers are now made of steel whereas they originally must have been molded of iron (and which would have broken when dropped.) I also learned that the sewers once had a hard glass built into the sidewalk openings so that light could enter. Pre electricity must have made working below ground difficult.
I should say more difficult. It’s not a job I’d like.

– Back around July 4th, I posted a lot of American flags that could be seen all around town. At that time, I pointed out that there was a bit of a change floating all about us. Back in the 70′s-80′s, a lot of the bronze signs that posted the names of stores and building inhabitants were being stolen right off the buildings and sold for the value of the bronze.

Instead of replacing these heavy metal signs, the storekeepers found cloth banners which could easily and more cheaply advertise their names while at the same time offer brighter colors and bigger lettering. In short, they made for perfect floating ads.

We’ve grown accustomed to these many flags floating all over our landscape, and in NYC they’ve become almost invisible to us. Blocks of color and writing floating everywhere over our heads but just within our lines of sight.

So, just to make my point, here we have some obvious banners that I tread past daily. I hope some of the pictures are, at least, interesting.

You can see that these banners have just about taken over advertising and display for many store outlets. They’re flying everywhere about Manhattan.”

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Everything from Bombay Stores to Forbes Magazine use these banners. Forbes, I might add, also has bronze lettering on their door.

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There are times when electric lights sit right alongside these banners, lighting them up at night.

Parsons (above) and the New School (below left) use similar multiple banners across the street from each other.

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The Yoga banner (on the right) is just about worn out and can barely be read from the other side of the street.

The NY Film Academy just about overdoes it with their multiple banners. This fine old building almost loses all of its dignity in being overdraped like this.

The banners of the Metropolitan Museum of Art have almost become famous; they’ve appeared in so many movies.

However, I like the way Patsy’s uses the awning and the banner (almost hidden behind the bush) to call some quiet attention to itself.

- At 14th Street off Park Ave. Union Square Park sits. There’s a wide area off the North and West sides of this park, and in that area a Farmer’s Market rests on a full time basis. Originally, I believe it was only a weekend and Summer thing, but now the market is ever present. So much the better for Manhattanites.

This is is an easy walk from my apartment, and it’s on the way in my walk to my studio. Consequently, I pass it often and have seen it in many of its incarnations.

The market has an overabundance of flowers on display and for sale. This is delightful to see and bypass. The prices aren’t exorbitant, and oftentimes you can find a good sale price.

Trucks arrive early morning (they were already up and going at 6am this week) to
deliver the goods. They all park on the North end and create their own wall.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

In the early morning, while vendors set up, pedestrians use the area
to bypass the park and continue downtown.

Flower vendors are everywhere in the market.

On shelves and racks.

Fresh vegetables also abound, and they seem
to locate in the same section of the market.

Naturally, vegetables are sold seasonally. Corn’s in just now.

Tomatoes

More and varied radishes than you might find in any one place.

The bread looks almost too good.

Herbs and fresh milk is also available.

The weekend crowds often get overwhelming making it a bit harder to shop.

Time to go home.

- As I mentioned earlier this week, I whisked through London to record Hugh Dancy for my film, POE. The recording took only a couple of hours on Tuesday. That meant I had Monday, half of Tuesday, and most of Wednesday to waste time – anxious to get back.

It also meant I did an enormous amount of walking and riding the Underground. I wasn’t really in the mood for touristy things, but I got caught up in it on the last day. I had to check out of my hotel at 10am, and wasn’t taking off until 6pm. So I wandered.

I went to the National Gallery of Art, searching for something to excite me.

Daumier‘s DON QUIXOTE, of course, did the job.

Leaving the museum, I stepped into Trafalgar Square, and decided to go to the Tate. Hugh Dancy had told me there was an excellent exhibition of photos there, so I aimed for it.

This meant I got to see the changing of the guard as I went pass at noon..

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Big Ben sat in the distance so I headed for Westminster, figuring if I walked past it, I could easily aim for the Tate.

As with every other trip I’d made to London, it was all about the weather. You start out on a beautiful day, and the clouds move up around you as the sky darkens. It begins to rain, and then the sun is beating down on you. The only more changeable environment I’ve exper- ienced was in Adak, Alaska. Actually, I’m not sure the weather was much different at all.

I finally did get past all of these crowded tourist sites as I got to the Tate Museum. (Not the Tate Modern.) I never did see the show of photos that Mr. Dancy had recommended. There was a show of Turner watercolors as presented by David Hockney. It was a stunning show, and it was all I needed for the day. I didn’t love the book/catalogue they had for sale, so left with only memories. Turner is enough of an inspiration for anyone. Certainly, enough for my trip.

A fruitful trip, indeed.______

- Like most cities, New York is rich in statues. There are plenty of them in the parks, but there are others on the streets and outside buildings.

On my daily excursion from home to studio I see a lot of the same statues, and I thought today I’d feature some of these. For the most part they all fall into the same school, what I’ll call early twentieth century representational. They all honor some hero or other.

The entrance to Madison Square Park, at 23rd Street and Broadway, has a
large statue celebrating William Steward. He was Lincoln’s Secretary of
State, a former Senator and anti-slavery advocate. He was part of Booth’s
conspiracy to kill off Lincoln and other members of his cabinet and was___
stabbed in the throat that same night. ______________________________
He eventually recovered to serve under Andrew Johnson._______________
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left: William Seward ___ right: David Glasgow Farragut

David G. Farragut was one of the most colorful naval commanders of the
Civil War. Though he was unsuccessful in early naval operations against
Vicksburg, Farragut’s success at New Orleans and Mobile Bay secured his
place in history as one of America’s most celebrated heroes.

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Chester K. Arthur, the twenty-first President of the United States (1881-1885)
He stands at the Madison Avenue, 26th Street entrance to the park.

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The east side of Union Square Park at 16th Street features this large and beautiful statue which is surrounded by tables where people can carry treats from the open market and rest. I haven’t yet found a plaque telling what the statue represents, but it looks to be
derivative of Daumier’s beautiful painting of a mother with her children. __________

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Gandhi stands, almost hidden, at a side entrance to
Union Square Park at 15th Street and University Place.
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You can see that he stands almost hidden among the grass, flowers and weeds.

- This week we celebrated July 4th, and naturally displayed our patriotic fervor by displaying our flags. Well, I’ve noticed that New York (a Blue state if ever there was a Blue state) has many American Flags on display all of the time.

As a matter of fact, all of the flag photos posted here were taken over a month ago with no holidays in sight. These flags are just always there and don’t try to call attention to themselves, but they certainly decorate the landscape.
(Click any image you’d like to enlarge.)

One walks down the street completely oblivious to the large number of flags all around us. In the recent past, bronze plaques outside of stores have been replaced by draped signs everywhere announcing the names of stores. Mixed in with these fabric signs are many American flags announcing some bit of patriotism.

Here are some of those I’ve noticed:

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1. There are those flags that are positioned outside banks such as this Chase Bank
2. and there are those outside office buildings.

3. Hotels display many flags of many nations trying to induce everyone to check in.

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4. There are flags atop poles in public parks
5. and there are flags outside private buildings where tenants reside.

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6. There are the typically average flags outside office buildings,
7. and there are many flags sitting high up there on the top of many buildings.

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8. They sit quietly unnoticed
9. even outside construction sites.

Even our public transportation displays decals on buses and in subways.

– Last week, Heidi and I went out to Keystone Park to watch the Mets’ AAA ball team, the Cyclones. This ball park is right next door to Coney Island. We went because Heidi’s group at the New Victory Theater planned the outing, and we had a great time with them. Since the amusement park is about to undergo reconstruction, it seemed like a good time to visit that as well.

I found some difficulty watching the game – we ended up in right field in the bleachers.
It was impossible to figure out who the players were for the Cyclones, never mind the opposing team, the Renegades. It’s hard to care who wins unless you’re a diehard Met fan, and I’m not. I don’t even like the Mets. As a matter of fact I kept checking into the Yankee loss on the radio during this AAA game.

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The field was attractive, and the park seemed small, despite the regulation sized field.
The team played well, winning the game after having to come back from a deficit.

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4. The scoreboard was impossible to read during daylight hours, but it was fun with the drawn, cut-out “Cyclone” (a roller coaster in coney island park) at the top.
5. It’s hard to avoid the real “Cyclone” behind the scoreboard toward left field. The siren call of the Wonder Wheel sang to us throughout the game.

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6 & 7. Nathans, of course, is the gateway to the Coney Island theme park. The place is always crowded, and I assume the food is great.

A little trip down a boardwalk, passing the gaming areas, brings you to Astroland.
This is the part of the park that’s undergoing reconstruction and closings..

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9. Walking down that boardwalk, the Wonder Wheel keeps beckoning. This ride is sort of a Ferris Wheel mixed with a Roller Coaster. It’s frightening. As you revolve, the carriages race forward or back as gravity dictates. It looks calm and takes you by surprise.
10. Finally you enter Astroland. It looks like a kiddie park; the ones that Walt Disney was trying to make obsolete. He wanted parents to be able to participate.

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12. The carousel gets more and more attractive to me as I get older.
13. The goofy looking haunted house was called Ghost Hole. We were starting to get into their versions of characters.

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14 & 15. The famous bumble bee is the first of the characters you come upon. I kept looking for someone walking around dressed like a bee.

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16 & 17. You know that’s not Mickey or Donald. They’d have to pay a licensing fee.

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18 & 19. And that flying elephant is no relation to Dumbo.

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20. As the sign says, it was also the day of the Mermaid Parade. Lots of people dress as mermaids and parade down the boardwalk. I usually watch a public access TV show in Manhattan that annually broadcasts the entire parade. They play musak in the background and you just watch the crazies flaunting their homemade costumes and eccentric makeup.
21. So all day long we were seeing the fallover from this parade.

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22. There were a couple of other mermaid dressed people I photographed but seem to have deleted the pictures. Sorry.
23. Finally, I grabbed my own mermaid, and we went home. I was tired; I’m getting too old for this.

- As you may have guessed, if you’ve followed this site, I’m in love with New York. I enjoy just looking at its busy-ness. The street scenes are always interesting to me, and the activity keeps my eyes excited.

I’ve enjoyed snapping pictures of the perspectives of these streets that I see on my daily hikes. Here are a few of these photos, which I’m sure will bore the heck out of most of you.

Looking uptown from West 4th Street and Sixth Avenue in the village, you can almost pretend it’s a small town scene. However, if you walk another block in any direction the view is completely different.

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A. At 9th Street and Sixth Ave. the scene is completely different. There’s a large number (mayber twelve) of police cars in a single row racing uptown with their lights and sirens blaring. You never know who they’re escorting. I once saw Bill Clinton in a black SUV heading downtown to the site of the 9/11 attack.
B. Moving Eastward on 9th Ave. things change again. More trees are on the side streets here in Greenwich Village.

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D. Looking downtown from 12th St. & Fifth Ave. you can just about make out the arches at the entrance to Washington Square Park. It’s only five blocks downtown.
E. Looking uptown on Fifth Ave & 17th St gives you a completely different perspective as the Empire State Building starts to center everything.

What seems like only half a block Eastward, standing on Broadway at 22nd street, looking downtown, the view is wholly different. Union Square Park, 8 blocks downtown, changes everything from this vantage point. There’s also more congestion.

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G. At 24th St & Fifth Ave the Toy district looms large. I’ve always been intrigued by the connecting tunnel up in the sky; it hinges the two buildings. This was one of the more interesting features at the World Trade Center.
H. At 28th St & Lexington Ave you can just about make out my favorite building in the City, the Chrysler Building. Its Art Deco presence seems to always be glittering in New York. This street is lined with Indian Restaurants; I’m standing in front of “Curry In A Hurry,” a NY staple.

- Maybe twice a year, Carmine Street, which is half a block from my studio, hosts a small street fair which works its way off onto Bleecker Street, another block away. Yesterday, was one of those days.

Throughout the summer, these street fairs are the norm and they move all over the city from weekend to weekend. In this local one, the merchants on both streets also join the cavalcade of professional street fair folk who travel from fair to fair.

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1. From my studio, this is the view you get looking down Carmine Street toward Bleecker and 6th Avenue.
2. What would a street fair be without a T-Shirt vendor. Just bring your photo.

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3. As you move down the center of the street, you get to see the wares a little better.
4. A local restaurant has a selection of bottled herbs for sale.

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The fair always offers interesting ethnic food. This little tent offers Thai food.

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6.Here a local vendor offers a wide variety of sunglasses. The sidewalk restaurants have their outdoor tables in full use.
7. Around the corner onto Bleecker Street more of the generic vendors take charge selling their gyros, fries and other foods (all tasty but none good for you.)

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This vendor has probably the best spot right on the corner of Carmine & Bleecker.
This very stand seems to be the anchor for every street fair you can get to over
the entire summer. And that includes the San Gennaro & St. Anthony feasts.

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11. Even art (of a sort) is for sale.
12. Even better is fresh fruit packaged artfully.

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At the entrance (or exit depending on which way you’ve come)
there’s a sign closing off traffic.

At exactly 5PM a thunderous storm hit the Village. Rain came down very hard and ran in buckets. Within 20 minutes, however, it was gone, and the sun was back out. The vendors at the Lil’ Fair must’ve known this, because they quickly covered their merchandise with blue plastic baggies, and waited out the short storm. By 5:30, they were open for business again albeit a little bit wet.

I’ve always had something of a fascination with the rooftops in New York. There are lots of pipes and chimneys, and other paraphernalia on tar paper covered roofs. My curiosity should have pulled me off my bum to do a bit of research and find out what those bits & pieces and unidentifiable objects are.

For this reason, I often look up while walking down the street. I decided to photograph some of these things while out and about this past week. For better or worse here they are:

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Most buildings look like these three. There are the older buildings constructed in the early 20th Century (as in “a”) with a fancy ediface. They’ve been cleaned of any gargoyles or protrusions that might’ve once leaned off the face of the building – landlords didn’t want to be sued as these objects started to come loose and fall off.

There are the sleeker, newer, less interesting buildings (as seen in “b” above) which are boring to the eye. The flat top in the foreground is not as attractive as the turreted red building in back of it.

My favorites are the smaller, more interesting buildings built (to the left) with odd pipes and chimneys peeping out.

In the not-too-distant past, rooftops were covered with TV antennae.
This has been replaced with satellite dishes. I’m not sure which is more attractive.
I know illustrators still enjoy putting an occasional antenna on a city rooftop
or even a pair of rabbit ears atop a television set.
After all, what says TV more than an antenna? A cable box?

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I only photographed the one building, but I found that many of the early 20th Century constructions had crosses on the top. These aren’t churches, either. Perhaps in an earlier time they had some connection to a Christian organization, but today they’re very commercial. However golden globes are definitely big on the tops of many of the buildings in the City.

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Many are under maintenance; many just stand out shining.

There are also those, such as the building on the left, which have a beautifully sculpted golden top that merely crowns the steeple of the building.

A lot of care went into these rooftop pieces that shone over a pre-neon city. This building, on 23rd Street and Madison Avenue, was at one time the governmental center of the city. It was a very rich area until the downtown low-lifes started encroaching, and the rich moved further uptown. The Mayor’s home, Gracie Mansion, is on 88th Street, the far East side of Manhattan.

Where does such a building keep its air conditioning equipment and water towers so prevalent on other buildings of the period? That might be asked of a lot of buildings, today, in this modern era.

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Speaking of water towers, there are plenty of them. They cover the rooftops and range in sizes and shapes. Some look more industrial than others, and I’m not sure what purpose they serve.

Years ago I took my father to a show at Lincoln Center. He was an air conditioning engineer, and as we passed the large fountain in the square, he remarked that the water of the attractive fountain also served the air conditioning of the entire center. That bit of information has stuck with me for many years.

Do the water towers of the city also serve the air conditioning? Are they the remnant of an architectural solution of the past? The newer, less attractive buildings don’t seem to have these structures. I guess I have more homework to do.

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Plants, of course, proliferate on the City’s rooftops. Any way to add green to the tans and greys of Midtown is obviously optimistic.

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However, one isn’t always prepared for the variey of plants and trees one sees in the distant sky. Many fir trees abound, but obviously a homesick Californian would plant palm trees on his roof. (see “p”)

I couldn’t help but finish with one of my favorite little buildings in town.

It’s not so much the rooftop that’s interesting, here, but the building, itself.
You see the entire structure in this photo to the left.
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It sits on 28th Street squeezed between two larger buildings. In a way it reminds me of the “Little House” in the Disney film as designed by Mary Blair. I doubt laundry would ever have hung out of a midtown Manhattan window. They used to dry it on clotheslines on the rooftops (a bit I used in my film, The Red Shoes.)

One wonders what the story of this building can be told and what interesting landlord didn’t sell out to the money grubbers to the left and right of him. There’s a lotta history in this City.