Family road trip today, heading for Missouri’s other major city. Mrs. C has family there and there are plenty of things for our favorite kid to do. Friday, it's about another three hours northwest to the part of rural Kansas where my wife grew up. There is a biannual get together of these descendants of the German emigre diaspora. Just bragging, but last time this Irishman won the German language quiz.
Since we recently took Ellie to New York, we are hoping for a teaching opportunity about the very different backgrounds of her grandparents and the varieties of the American experience.
Girls just want to have fun. Ellie at one of the local branches of Urban Air, a kids’ play zone that starts with a trampoline park and goes on to lots of other adventures. Ellie loves the zip line and the bumper cars, seen here. She is having her birthday party there in a few weeks.
This building is immediately next to the one seen in yesterday’s post. I think it was originally a small firehouse. Someone turned it into a night club. The logos in the lower corners of the center door are for liquor brands, but the last owners went to the trouble of installing a wheelchair ramp. It is empty again. Another handsome building in need of an angel.
A beautiful but derelict building in midtown St. Louis. As with many buildings its age, it has lovely architectural ornaments in danger of ruin. This one, though, is going to make it back. The banner says that redevelopment is sponsored by the Kranzberg Arts Foundation. It is a wonderful organization that has restored a swath of our midtown area for the visual and performing arts, including the St. Louis Fringe Festival, with which I am very involved.
This is the kind of Arch picture I used to post on this blog when I was merely middle aged. After a while, I thought I had exhausted the approach. But time passes, the well starts to run dry, and why not take another run at the idea. The thing is 630 feet / 192 meters of stainless steel in the shape of a perfect catenary arch. It opened to the public in June 1967. I showed up here for college two months later and promptly went for a look.
Pictures from a campaign rally in downtown St. Louis in 2020. He is a decent, honest man, unlike his former opponent, and I am grateful for what he did for our country. Now we will do whatever we can to support Vice President Harris.
A couple of days ago I ran a picture of a carriage similar to this, but forlorn-looking and parked in a run-down industrial area. I remarked that it would never get Cinderella to the ball. This one will. It is parked at the bottom of the steps leading down from the Arch to the promenade along the Mississippi, waiting for business. Or a princess.
All of the elevated trestles seen here are railroad lines, a block or two closer to the Mississippi than the building in yesterday’s post. Some of them will return to ground level, some will rise onto a bridge over the river. The line that comes in from the center of the right edge has emerged from a tunnel under the Arch grounds.
South of the Arch, between the Mississippi and an elevated highway. Derelict commercial buildings that serve little purpose other than to support mobile phone antennas. A plan is being floated to turn this area and adjacent land into a multi-purpose office-commercial-residential district. I wish the developers good luck.
Under a railroad trestle, looking at what we call the Poplar Street Bridge, where Interstates 44, 55 and 70 cross the Mississippi River. Here in the Midwest, major cities are a few hours drive apart.
One of my favorite pieces of American architecture, the Art Deco crown of the Chrysler Building. It was briefly the world’s tallest building until the Empire State surpassed it. Hard to believe it is 94 years old. The Wikipedia article suggests it isn’t doing so well.
Oh, and in today’s New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/realestate/chrysler-building-manhattan.html
Back at The Summit, the all-mirrored observation areas on the 91st to 93rd floors of One Vanderbilt, the newish mega-tall structure that blocks the afternoon light on the western side of Grand Central Station. The 92nd floor is something of a mezzanine, not reaching to the broad southern windows and overlooking the full-size floor below. The eastern and western side of the 92nd have mirrored circular tubes through the floor, with mirrors above, below and beside. As if there wasn’t enough vertigo.
Another from the Butterfly Vivarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The inhabitants can have a sense of drama.
Street photography in Manhattan. Food carts like these are ubiquitous and they have quite a varied menu. There is a trailer hitch on one side to tow them in and out. No nutrition labels.
It seems like a hallucination. Maybe it is. A shipping container had been pulled into Luna Park in Coney Island. The doors were opened and workers threw a mountain of large plush dogs, wrapped in plastic bags, onto the pavement. Ellie calls them stuffies (she has her own mountain of them) and wanted one so badly. Won’t fit in the suitcases, kid.
One of Ellie’s favorite rides at Coney Island, which she went on over and over. This photo can only offer a hint at the high speed loops and curls to come after this spiral ascent. She thought it was great fun, in part because she is 64 years younger than me.
On Tuesday, we took granddaughter Ellie to Coney Island, on the Atlantic shore of Brooklyn. (There is no island in sight.) It is home to a string of amusement areas that have been around since the early 20th Century. I loved our rare family visits when I was a kid. Ellie went on the wildest rides over and over, things that would twist my stomach and spine.
Coney Island is also home to another American institution, Nathan’s hot dogs. On the Fourth of July, our Independence Day, Nathan’s has a hot dog eating contest. How many sausages and buns can you cram down your throat in 10 minutes? It’s on national TV and is a bizarre spectacle. The men’s winner put away 54, which was nowhere near the record. See https://tinyurl.com/587rxebs
One on the spaces at The Summit, I think on the 92nd floor, is full of silver mylar balloons that - quite literally - reflect the mirrored interior surfaces. Blowers around the edges push them up to the cieling. Then they slowly, randomly settle. If I was younger, I’d think it was pretty trippy.
If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York
I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps
And find I'm A Number One, top of the list
King of the hill, A Number One.
Nice to be back in my home town, particularly with granddaughter Ellie, who is having a blast. She thinks she is almost a subway riding expert because she can stand in a moving car without holding the pole (mostly). Still needs some guidance about where to go. I was riding the subway by myself at 12 or 13. It was normal.
This is the view to the south from the 91st floor observation area at The Summit, the newish super-tall building over Grand Central Station.
Sunday evening's patio party included entertainment from three members of the music ensemble Moon Valley, https://moonvalleymusic.net/ . Founder and native Scotsman Gavin Duffy plays guitar, mandolin and sings the many songs he has written. Two other members of the group joined him, whom we will soon see. I'll run with this for a bit. Back in New York Saturday with our granddaughter, so more Big Apple images but from a kid's eye view.
We might set a record high temperature for the date today. What else is new.
