{"id":141,"date":"2007-05-22T14:41:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-22T14:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/?p=141"},"modified":"2007-05-22T14:41:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-22T14:41:00","slug":"new-yorklong-island-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/new-yorklong-island-city\/","title":{"rendered":"New York\/Long Island City"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
Long Island City<\/span><\/p>\n

I wasn’t familiar with the French designer\/architect Jean Prouv\u00e9 until several years ago when I photographed an auction house in New York that was selling some of his furniture. He is well-known in France, less so over here. When I read that his Maison Tropicale, a metal kit house, was on display in Queens, I organized a family outing, and off we went through the wilds of Long Island City.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>Con Ed and Midtown skyline<\/span><\/p>\n

LIC is the neighborhood just across the East River from the United Nations. It’s a hodgepodge of factories, lofts, single family houses, and a new high rise enclave known as Queens West. PS 1, the former school turned modern museum is in LIC as is the Citigroup tower that pokes skyward above everything.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Con Ed and 59th Street Bridge<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>Bridge and hotel under construction<\/span><\/p>\n

We took the 7 train over and began walking north toward the 59th Street Bridge. I took lots of pictures of the crazy quilt landscape along the way. Chain link, slabs of concrete, poles, trucks, auto body shops. On the left was a Con Ed power plant with the Midtown skyline as backdrop. Some sort of electrical shed was disguised as a clapboard house complete with slanted roof and window. Just at the bridge, a hotel–looking like a ruin–was, apparently, nearing completion.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Silvercup poster<\/span><\/p>\n

As we entered the fenced in area where the Prouv\u00e9 house was displayed, we passed a poster advertising the upcoming Silvercup development, designed by Richard Rodgers, soon to go up on the site. Just over a rise, toward the river, the little metal house stood beneath the towering stone and steel bridge.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Maison Tropicale<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Maison Tropicale<\/span><\/p>\n

A steady stream of visitors found their way to the site by foot, car, and bicycle. It was a sophisticated looking bunch. Foreign languages. Everyone taking pictures. Inside the house, book were on sale, and the porthole windows in the sliding doors cast a blue glow. Christies is expecting 4 to 6 million for the house, but it could go higher. So says someone quoted in the paper. The house will undoubtedly be fabulous on someone’s estate, or in a museum courtyard, but it will never be seen better than here in Long Island City.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Maison Tropicale<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long Island City I wasn’t familiar with the French designer\/architect Jean Prouv\u00e9 until several years ago when I photographed an auction house in New York that was selling some of his furniture. He is well-known in France, less so over here. When I read that his Maison Tropicale, a metal kit house, was on display […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}