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I have a problem with this month's theme. We don't dine al fresco much, generally preferring the comfort and, in the city, quiet of an indoor dining room. A search of my archives turned up nothing appropriate from the local scene. We regularly dine outdoors, however, during our frequent trips to Costa Rica. In fact, there are few opportunities to eat indoors in the beach town of Tamarindo that we usually visit. This will have to do. BTW, I wouldn't be caught dead in that shirt.
Midtown St. Louis is having a rebound. The anchors are St. Louis University’s main campus and medical center (about a mile apart), the Washington University medical center, the Grand Centre arts district and the Cortex research and innovation area, where the human genome was finally sequenced. An other feature is City Foundry, centered on an old ironworks that now holds a very diverse food hall, a brewery-cinema, retail and many new apartments. One popular space is City Winery, both a wine bar and entertainment venue. I agree with its mission statement.
The reason I went is a new kid entertainment space that Ellie loved. We will return to that after City Daily Photo theme day.
That’s the name (not including the question mark) of one of the new sculptures in Citygarden. It was made by the Swiss sculptor Ugo Rondinone. It strikes me as strange and disconcerting, a happy child’s face emerging from a monster’s mouth. You may see something different.
Downtown St. Louis' Citygarden, https://citygardenstl.org/, has been seen often in these pages. It is two square blocks of sculpture and plantings that reflect the ecosystems of the region. Although it opened in 2009, the city street between the two blocks remained, although it was blocked to traffic. With additional funding, the park space is now continuous and new artwork has been added.
This is one of the new additions, White Ghost, by Yoshitomo Nara. It has an anime feeling in the style of Spirited Away, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/.
There were lots of other children playing in Citygarden's splash fountains while Ellie was there. The water jets go some distance back from the focal distance of this photo. They dance, they are choreographed, their rise and fall follow unpredictable patterns. Mrs. C and I wondered how someone gets the job of water choreographer or fluid engineer. If you have ever been to Las Vegas and seen the fountains in front of The Bellagio, you know what I mean.
Travel over for a while, we're back to local themes. Citygarden, our two-block downtown sculpture park, had a "reopening" on Saturday, featuring new sculptures and street arrangements. There are fountains and splash pools for kids, and Ellie couldn't get enough. With our Memorial Day weekend, summer season is officially here.
It's not to everyone's taste, but last night was a big deal to me and Mrs. C, and one of the jewels of this town - opening night of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. It runs in May and June with four productions in repertory, always getting national attention. We started with an old chestnut, Rossini's The Barber of Seville. I've been going to operas for a long time, seen a lot of Figaros, but I've never been to a production as good as this. Just sparkling, surrealistic, brilliantly sung and staged. It was like Rossini set sail on the Yellow Submarine.
Okay, last post from New York. I have an interesting event in STL to shoot today. This picture was taken by another member of the group (thanks, Martin) before we descended into a basement restaurant in Chinatown. I look pretty cheerful for someone whose spine felt like it was going to crumble, but I don't give up easily.
Time to look around the home town. But I'll be back in New York in just over a month with Ellie and Mrs. C.
A few more pictures from New York before I come back home. This is another shot from the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine. A member of my group gives a sense of scale while photographing Anne Patterson's installation, Divine Pathways. It's only there through June if you are interested in seeing it.
I need to find some new material back here in The Lou. My mobility is somewhat limited by my back issues (new medical consultation soon) but I should be able to find something.
Some people don't want to have their picture taken. Some just love is. When a group of photographers peeked into this Washington Heights barber shop, the crew just loved to show off. Look at the scissor action! You gotta look good in this city.
New York's catacombs are, of course, the subway system. The public knows little about its secrets. This station is 181st Street and Broadway in Washington Heights. You might want to enlarge the image, noting the three semi-hidden men with their backs to the camera and the one lounging on the bench.
At least for me, one of the most gut-wrenching features of the current World Trade Center is the pair of memorial pools in the precise shape and location of the Twin Towers. They fall down from sidewalk level with waterfalls on all sides into a shallow basin, which then empties into a smaller and seemingly bottomless central pit. Around the edges, black marble is engraved with the names of those who died on 9/11, the recesses colored gold. Here and there, the living tucked paper flowers bound with twist ties into the spaces.
First off, I found that I have been misspelling the name of this building for the last couple of posts. One C, not two.
The view is from a balcony, symmetrical to the one in the background. It feels like you are inside of a space ship - cathedral, or possibly within Moby Dick's rib cage. It was a cloudy day and the upper reaches were a cool gray. There are two levels of shops beneath, whose interior lights send a warm glow. The far background leads to a transit hub with several subway lines and the PATH trains (Port Authority Trans Hudson) trains to New Jersey.
After returning from Ellis Island, the group went a short way north to the World Trade Center complex. After the tragedies of 9/11. the tower of 1 World Trade Center now dominates downtown. Below it is an amazing piece of architecture called the Occulus, containing a shopping center and major transit hub. I think we'll come back to more of that.
From 1855 to 1890, immigration to the United states was controlled by the individual states. About 8 million people passed through a station at the lower tip of Manhattan, likely including my grandparents, coming from Ireland and Poland. Ellis Island in New York harbor was the point of arrival for most immigrants to the United States from 1892 until 1954. 12 million people would enter the U.S. through it. https://www.statueofliberty.org/ellis-island/overview-history/
Our photography group went to Ellis Island but did not visit the main museum. You can go on a tour with a guide of the old, abandoned hospital. It is in various states of decay and restoration, mostly the former. A French artist who goes by simply JR has created haunting photo-montages on the walls and windows, drawn from images of the arriving, hopeful people. https://www.jr-art.net/projects/unframed-ellis-island-usa-2014 Back then, this country wanted immigrants to populate our vast spaces. Clearly, that is no longer the case.
One of the photo group's activities was to walk across the Manhattan Bridge from Chinatown, at least part of the way. I got separated from the group and went all the way to Brooklyn, my back on the verge of crumbling. One of my colleagues, much fitter than I, made the same mistake and got me back across safely. We considered getting an AirTag to put in my pocket so the leaders could find me if I got lost again.
This is the view to the south from the start of the path on the Manhattan side. The lettering was on the top of an old building beside the bridge. No idea what it means.
There is a park in Manhattan's Chinatown that is a social center for older people. Most of what's going on is games involving gambling. The tables are strictly segregated by sex. The women were mostly playing cards. The men were playing a game in which counters with Chinese characters were placed on a grid. None of our group understood what was going on but money was clearly changing hands.
The man in the shiny pink hat, chain smoking and gesturing with his right hand, was the center of attention. Like a good poker player, his face never showed expression. I don't know if he was winning or losing but he was the center of attention.
As mentioned earlier, Jackson Heights, Queens, has more ethnic diversity than any zip code in the United States. This is a traditional Indian clothing store, displaying very creepy manequins of children. Note the girl's right forearm.
After leaving Brighton Beach, the group walked a mile down the oceanfront boardwalk to Coney Island. My back and I took the subway. The area is lined with amusement rides and arcades and, of course, Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs. (Ever watch the Fourth of July hot dog eating contest?) None of the attractions were open, probably waiting for our Memorial Day weekend later this month. I used to love to go there when I was a kid. This refreshment stand didn't have a lot of business yet but the attendant was a great subject.
Everybody has heard of the New York subway. Not everyone knows that 40% of the system is at or above ground level, although locals call all of it the subway. It has 472 stations, 36 lines and 248 miles / 399 km of routes. I commuted to high school on the subway from 1963 to 1967. Still ride it every time I'm in town. This is a station in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, but I've never set foot in the vast majority of them.
Much of the signage in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, is written, all or in part, in Cyrillic. The population is Russian and Ukrainian, both Christian Orthodox and Jewish. You don't have to deal with English to get through day-to-day life.
Rain threatened off and on all of Friday and our street photography group modified its schedule. We visited the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the seat of the Episcopal Church in New York. It is massive and yet unfinished. Doesn't get a lot of visitors as it's a bit out of the way, located on the far Upper West Side, between the northwest corner of Central Park and Columbia University.
Much of the nave is taken up by the stunning artwork Divine Pathways by Anne Patterson. No matter your religious preference, it creates a strong connection with something beyond us.
Our street photography group went to Ellis Island yesterday. It is the place where, in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, a growing nation hungry for population processed immigrants in New York harbor. We took a hard hat tour of the hospital facilities, where the physically sick and mentally ill were confined until they recovered, died, or were deported back to from whence they came.
This room is part of the tuberculosis ward, where patients were held in isolation. The image in the mirror could make them cling to hope or fall into despair.
The Chinese neighborhood in the Lower East Side of Manhattan remains vibrant. Some of the population has moved to the outer boroughs and the suburbs but immigration of people fleeing China replenishes it. There is a small city park off Mulberry Street where the community gathers. There are card games and tile games going on that we don't understand. Strictly segregated by sex and, with complicated chips, obviously heavy gambling going on. Wednesday was warm and humid, and this gamer needed ventilation while he studied his next move.
Jackson Heights, Queens, has more different ethnic groups than any other zip code in the United States. (The borough and county of Queens has more than any other county in the U.S.) Our group stepped off the train and could immediately smell the curry cooking. It's Indian, Pakistani, Nepali, Tibetan, Mexican, Ecuadorian, Colombian, Peruvian and many others. You don't have to travel out of the country to sample so many cultures in a small space.
This was taken in a pedestrianized block in the south Asian area. I'll be putting many others on Flickr.
Day 1 of the New York street photography workshop. We started in Brighton Beach, an Intense neighborhood I never had a reason to visit when I lived here. It's Russian-Ukrainian-Jewish-miscellaneous Middle Eastern. As many signs are written in Cyrillic as Latin characters. When I paid for something in a local shop, the cashier said spasibo - thank you in Russian (one of about four Russian words I know).
Not sure what these two women are about. Maybe mother and daughter, standing under the Q Line el.
Am I ever home? Well, in a sense, this is home, my place of origin. Starting a five day street photography workshop today and there couldn't be a better place. This is on West 79th Street, just down the block from the hotel where the group is staying. Today we're going to deepest Brooklyn. First stop Brighton Beach, largely Ukrainian and Russian, and then down to Coney Island. I haven't been there since I was a kid.
Spain, as westerners know, was intensely Catholic. After all, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who drove the last Muslim kingdom from Iberia and dispatched Columbus to the New World to, in the end, plunder and spread communicable disease, were known as Los Reyes Catolicos. It gave us the Spanish Inquisition. Like most of Europe, churchgoing isn't so much of a thing these days, but the monuments remain. The Toledo Cathedral is enormous and made me think about the portion of the region's resources devoted to creating it.
This hasn't been much of a St. Louis photo blog lately. It's going to get worse. I arrive in New York today for a five day street photography workshop. Home sweet home.
Toledo, Spain, has a magnificent cathedral but there are also well-preserved synagogues, as here. The city has a Jewish quarter, marked by tiles with Hebrew characters in the street. There was a time when Christian, Muslim and Jewish residents lived together in relative peace (how relative depending on who was in charge). It didn't last.
We all know about Doménikos Theotokópoulos, right? El Greco to you. Born in Crete, studied in Venice under Titian, and the primarily lived in worked in Toledo. This is one of his masterpieces, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, in the Church of Santo Tomé, Obviously, it is very complex. You can find a discussion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burial_of_the_Count_of_Orgaz .
One day last week we took a trip to the historic city of Toledo, about an hour south of Madrid. It's hilly, and was tough on a couple of 70-somethings. There was lots to see. The main buildings seen here on the horizon are the cathedral on the left and the Alcazar, an old military facility, on the right.
