Author: admin

Park Place — © Brian Rose

Friday evening I walked down to the World Trade Center with an invitation to the 48th floor of 7 WTC, the first completed structure in the rebuilding post 9/11. Silverstein Properties, the owner, has made the 48th floor available as an artists’ studio, though soon the occupants will have to make way for a paying tenant.

7 WTC, 48th Floor, painting by Marcus Robinson — © Brian Rose

The entire floor was unpartitioned and open with raw concrete floor, exposed fire proofed steel beams, and wrap around floor to ceiling windows with stunning views. At least four artists were on display including Marcus Robinson who is a painter and videographer. His time lapse images of the rebuilding of the World Trade Center were shown on a large video screen.

Paintings by Todd Stone — © Brian Rose

Another artist, Todd Stone, had a gallery-like exhibition of his paintings on one side of the floor documenting 9/11 as seen from his Tribeca studio. I usually don’t like to see images of the horror of 9/11 itself, but these were done as a spontaneous reaction to what was happening a short distance away, the paint somehow distancing the event while at the same time heightening the attention to it in a way that photographs do not.

View of 9/11 memorial — © Brian Rose

I took a few photographs through the windows, one looking down on the memorial–glass reflections unavoidable.  Stone has been doing paintings of the rebuilding, and he was working on one of the 1 WTC while I was there. I spoke with him for several minutes, and I traded one of my WTC books for one of his exhibition catalogues.

Painting by Todd Stone

Snow scene from the 48th floor with Diebenkorn-ish colors.

1 WTC model — © Brian Rose

A model of 1 WTC stood on the south end of the 48th floor adjacent to the real thing going up outside the window. The late afternoon sun just caught the translucent plastic of the model giving it a golden glow. The actual tower will never appear so crystalline I am afraid, despite its faceted exterior. But we shall see…

Barclay Street — © Brian Rose
4pm–a block away from the World Trade Center.

The Bowery — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Allen Street — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Final cover design of Time and Space on the Lower East Side

Time and Space on the Lower East Side is now complete and on its way to the printer in Germany. My publisher tried to get a printer in New York, but none offered the price/quality proportion desired. It’s a sad testimony to American competitiveness that we have to go abroad for something that is ultimately done on widely available machines operated by  a small group of skilled technicians. Somewhat cheaper prices were available from Asia, but dealing with the distance and communication difficulties did not seem worth the trouble.

The design of the book is loosely based on the prototype I did with Blurb–the same image using the shadowed area for type. But Warren Mason of Measure Design made it much more elegant. We dropped the magenta type in favor of a yellow accented “Lower East Side.” However, the magenta has reappeared with a vengeance on the slipcover of the limited edition book. The message being this is not your father’s or grandfather’s Lower East Side in somber black and white.

Slipcase for the limited edition of Time and Space on the Lower East Side

The slipcase will be cloth covered with the type stamped into the material. The hardcover book, which will contain an 8×10 print will slide into the slipcase. These will be numbered and signed 1-100. I am hoping to make these available for sale on the website photo-eye and a few selected bookshops. The starting price will be $250. Due to the overall cost of production, the trade edition will be priced somewhat higher than $50–so those of you who donated to Kickstarter will be getting a nice discount.

I expect to get a production schedule soon and can then project a likely date for release of the book–both the regular trade edition and limited edition. I am guessing that I will have a small number of books sent by air in early January, and the rest of the press run will arrive  in late February shipped by boat. Hopefully, I will be looking at, and approving, proofs this month. As soon as I have the production schedule together, I will begin planning for the a book launch and other PR related activities.

Stay tuned for periodic updates.

Van Cortlandt Park — © Brian Rose

Quotes from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation website:

The Wiechquaskeck Lenapes occupied this site when, in 1639, the Dutch East India Company brought the first Europeans to settle in the Bronx. In 1646, Dutchman Adriaen Van Der Donck (1620-1655) became the first single owner of what is now Van Cortlandt Park. His vast estate “de Jonkeerslandt” gave Yonkers its name. The land passed through several families, each gradually developing it into viable farmland and a working plantation. During the 1690s, the 16-acre lake was created when Tibbetts Brook was dammed to power a gristmill.

Van Cortlandt Park — © Brian Rose

The Van Cortlandt name was first associated with the tract of land bounded by modern Yonkers City Line between Broadway, Jerome Avenue, and Van Cortlandt Park East in 1694, when Jacobus Van Cortlandt bought the property. The Van Cortlandt Mansion was built in 1748 by his son, Frederick Van Cortlandt, whose family occupied the land until the 1880s. Frederick also established the family burial plot on Vault Hill where, at the onset of the American Revolution, City Clerk Augustus Van Cortlandt hid the city records from the British Army.

Pizza place at the Van Cortland Park subway stop — © Brian Rose

My New York park photographs: New York Primeval

The Bowery — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Cherry Street and Market Slip — © Brian Rose

Rutgers Street — © Brian Rose

Rutgers Street — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Greenwich Street near the World Trade Center  (4×5 negative) — © Brian Rose

I’ve been catching up on scanning recent 4×5 negatives from the Bowery and the World Trade Center, my two current projects. The image above was made a few months ago and was taken a couple of blocks from ground zero. A fence displays the list of names of those killed on 9/11–The Heroes of September 11, 2001 it reads–and the steel containers behind hold contractor offices or equipment storage related to the nearby construction site. The names are now found at the completed 9/11 memorial, etched in stone.

Closeup from image above — © Brian Rose

It is an image that I find particularly satisfying–the multiplicity of layers, materials, colors–a telling detail, the 9/11 list, that gives larger context and raison d’etre. The emptiness of the streets seems almost unreal in such a densely built place. It’s not a photograph I’d likely take with a small camera–or at least thinking through the medium of a small camera. It is an image made with the assumption that details will read even when printed large, or especially when printed large. The computer screen gives only an impression of what would be there in a higher resolution print.

Please click through to larger images.

Three random images from the last few days.

Stanton Street — © Brian Rose

Stanton and Chrystie Street — © Brian Rose

Grace Church, Broadway and 10th Street — © Brian Rose

Houston and Bowery with Keith Haring  re-creation, 2008 — © Brian Rose

A year ago I discovered the origins of the Houston/Bowery wall, a slab of concrete that hosts a regularly changing display of graffiti and street art in various media. The wall always seemed odd to me because it was free standing and stood a couple of feet away from the party wall of the building behind it. Where did it come from?

Ray Salyer in On the Bowery, handball court behind

The answer came on a visit to Film Forum when I saw the great quasi-documentary film On the Bowery made in 1957 by Lionel Rogosin. In one of the scenes, Ray Salyer, the main character waits with a group of Bowery men looking to be picked up for day labor. Behind him a game of handball is being played against a detached wall, unmistakably the same wall that survives today, except that it is now encased in a more expansive and user-friendly surface. But underneath, the handball court wall remains.

Opening scene from Martin Scorcese’s Who’s That Knocking at My Door, 1967

Last week while putting together a slide show of Lower East Side images for a class I am teaching, I came across a video of the opening scene of Martin Scorcese’s first feature film Who’s That Knocking at My Door made in 1967. It’s a street brawl–a choreographed violent  dance–played out on the corner of Houston and Bowery in front of, you guessed it, the former handball wall, now graffiti wall.

Houston and Bowery, mural by Faile, 2011 — © Brian Rose

As you  can see in the film and in the photograph above, Houston Street was widened after 1957 and the distance from the street to the wall was reduced. So, it turns out this lowly urban artifact has quite a distinguished pedigree, not only as the canvas for the current series of murals, but as an architectural extra in two classics of American cinema.

Bryant Park, 42nd and Sixth Avenue — © Brian Rose

Bryant Park, 42nd and Sixth Avenue — © Brian Rose

Etherial and material in Midtown.

At Think Coffee on the Bowery — © Brian Rose

Thoughts over breakfast this morning–cognitive dissonance department.

Mario Batali, celebrated chef and restaurateur at a Time person of the year event:

“The way the bankers have toppled the way that money is distributed, and taken most of it into their own hands,” Mr. Batali said, “is as good as Stalin or Hitler, the evil guys” whom Time named Man of the Year long ago, Stalin in 1942, Hitler in 1938.

The internet lit up with indignation from Wall Street:  “Cancel all reservations at Batali’s eateries, including Babbo and Del Posto.” Yet another wrote, “Done with Batali restaurants.”

Article here.

—

Meanwhile at Occupy Wall Street David Crosby and Graham Nash performed a five song set at Zuccotti Park. From a mostly snarky NYT article:

When the concert ended, to protracted cheers and vigorous finger-waggling, an oft-used signal of appreciation inside the park, Ms. Mandaglio spoke of the thrill of seeing a favorite group from a bygone era. She was asked what song of theirs she liked best. “The one they were playing before,” she said, taking a long drag on a cigarette as she dangled the sunflower between her fingers.

But she was not the best person to ask, Ms. Mandaglio added. She was really more of a Bob Dylan fan.

—

And at Penn State University in response to the firing of famed football coach Joe Paterno and the forced resignation of the university president, students rioted overnight in downtown State College, Pennsylvania. Never mind that the ousters were the result of a grave mishandling of child sexual abuse.

Some blew vuvuzelas, others air horns. One young man sounded reveille on a trumpet. Four girls in heels danced on the roof of a parked sport utility vehicle and dented it when they fell after a group of men shook the vehicle. A few, like Justin Muir, 20, a junior studying hotel and restaurant management, threw rolls of toilet paper into the trees.

Article here.

—

The Bowery and Great Jones Street — © Brian Rose

An auto repair holdout in the midst of increasing opulence on the northern end of the Bowery. A beautiful, mild, November day, I decided to go out with my view camera and just work this corner. Was there about an hour and shot four or five different views including the one above–this a digital snapshot version.

Houston and Mulberry Street — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Grace Plaza, ICP Education entrance, West 43rd and Sixth Avenue  — © Brian Rose

I snapped this picture while leaving ICP after a session of my class Photographing New York: The Lower East Side. The students are photographing the neighborhood, and we will be creating a book from their work using Blurb, the online photo book service.

As for my own book Time and Space on the Lower East Side, we have just about finished the layout, and I am finalizing the images in Photoshop as well as making prints that can be used by the printer as a color guide. Today I spent most of the day sending out emails regarding my Kickstarter fundraising campaign. I am now 85% of the way to my goal with five days to go.

The Kickstarter project page is here.

Donate $50 to pre-order Time and Space on the Lower East Side. For $250 you can get the limited edition slipcover book–only 100 to be printed.

—

UPDATE– Goal Reached!

Today, I reached 100% of my funding goal for Time and Space on the Lower East Side. I am grateful to all of you who donated–all of you who value independent photo books, who love New York and the Lower East Side, and who are making this book possible.

The reality is that few established publishers are willing to take on projects like this. Especially in these economic times. We, artists and those who support the arts, have to step up and make things happen ourselves. The $10,000 raised is only a part of the total cost of making a book of this quality. So, any further donations over the remaining five days of the campaign will be greatly appreciated.

The production of Time and Space is well underway. The sequencing of the photos and the text are complete, and the graphic designer is fine tuning the layout. Suzanne Vega has contributed the books’s forward–it’s very cool–you’ll enjoy it. The book will go to the printer in the next few weeks, and if all goes well, Time and Space will be out in the first part of 2012.

Thank you and hope to see lots of you when the book is launched!

Special thanks to the following blogs: EV Grieve, Curbed, and The Low-Down.

And thanks to Suzanne Vega and Kristin Ellington for their FB posts and spreading the word.

Time and Space is now largely done–I am still tweaking the images–and we are working on the last details of the layout. The book is based on the Blurb prototype that is still available, but with a more refined design and a tighter edit of the photographs. The new Time and Space will be larger (about 9×12 inches) and and will sell for a lower price. There will be a limited edition slipcover version of the book with an original print inside, which will be really beautiful and well worth collecting.

This is the final week of my Kickstarter campaign, and I am just over 50% of the way to my goal. This is your last chance to participate in this project by making a donation–at whatever level you are comfortable with. A donation of $50 gets you a copy of the book as soon as it is available, and $250 gets you the limited edition book. I have received several donations of $10, which makes me very happy. Some people have very tight budgets, but enjoy going on Kickstarter and sprinkling money around to projects they find worth supporting. I have donated to another project myself and plan to do more.

Please join in–your help is appreciated and needed. Thanks!

East Broadway/Catherine Street/The Bowery — © Brian Rose

As mentioned in an earlier post, I am presently photographing the Bowery, the historic street associated with New York low life from its early days as an entertainment district to its latter days as world famous skid row. The street runs only about a mile, so my intention is to photograph it in some detail. Since my studio is located just off the Bowery along the northern stretch of the street, it’s easy for me to start taking pictures and run out of film before I get very far. So, this morning I kept the camera backpack on my shoulders until I got down to Chinatown just below the Manhattan Bridge. I did a number of photographs with the 4×5 camera–these are from my pocket camera. It was a brilliantly clear morning, a little windy, but manageable.

Chatham Square and The Bowery — © Brian Rose

Looking south at Chatham Square one can see 8 Spruce Street, the Frank Gehry tower with its wavy steel curtain wall rising above the squat brick building housing NYPD headquarters. The glass building at left is typical of the new construction going up all along the Bowery. And a recent decision to de-landmark a nearby early 19th century house is likely to increase the pressure on other properties. The Bowery has always been a hodgepodge of architectural styles built at various different times, so freezing it in the present is not necessarily appropriate or practical. But if you look at the Bowery, many of the structures are relatively small–some of them built as townhouses–but most are now used for commercial purposes. The temptation to knock them down and replace them with new hotels and other multi-use buildings is ever mounting. The way things are going, much of the Bowery’s historic character will be lost.

The Bowery and Pell Street — © Brian Rose

Above is an example of  a former townhouse now used as a bank office. Anything with a pitched roof, of which there are probably a dozen on the Bowery, was built in the first part of the 19th century. A few are hiding behind false fronts, and other have had their heads lopped off. The 19th century house between 5th and 6th Streets next to the Cooper Square Hotel, which I have photographed, was torn down a few months ago.

East Broadway — © Brian Rose

After using up my film, I made a quick visit to the post office on East Broadway and took the photograph above looking through the front window to the street.