Tag: street photography

The Barbizon [Hotel for Women]

The Humble FabulistLeave a comment

A hotel dedicated entirely to the well-being and protection of women? I knew there was something special about the building just by looking up to its tree-lined roof matching the colours of the street below. Perfection!… I thought.

Even more so, after reading about its role as a sanctuary for women moving to New York for work in the ’20s. Smart girls who knew how to stay out of trouble – or so their parents hoped – came to live in its rooms, minuscule to accommodate as many as possible. The hotel also offered a swimming pool (still in use today), a library, recital rooms, a sundeck, a solarium, squash and badminton courts, and a formal dining room.

Then came the ’60s and smart girls sought different kinds of adventures; the kind that didn’t include chaperoning and living in a sanctuary where no men were allowed beyond the first floor. The Barbizon changed hands many times until 2002, when it was renovated and became The Melrose Hotel; only to be purchased by developers three years later and converted into a luxury condominium building.

Interestingly, a few women, long-term tenants from the old Barbizon era still live in the building, protected by the rental laws of New York. wp20160924_134903 wp20160924_135008 wp20160924_135030

You can read more about it here & here.

Barbizon 63
140 E 63rd St.

September 24th, 2016

Firetruck Sirens

The Humble Fabulist2 Comments

Manhattan is one noisy island, that much is true. With traffic and horns, helicopters above and subway trains below, some of the most expressive people in the world discussing announcing their life’s issues in a matter-of-fact stentorian voice commanding attention wherever they may happen to be, lousy wall soundproofing and crazy neighbours, clubs and private parties going on into or – worse – starting in the wee hours, New York is the very definition of the city that doesn’t sleep. But the noise that stands out above all to my untrained ear is the loud, penetrating sound of the Sirens. And the most penetrating one of all, the FDNY truck Blazing Siren.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a fervent admirer of the oftentimes heroic efforts of New York’s Bravest and Best rushing to the rescue, fighting not only with fire but all kinds of hazards relative to such incidents. What strikes me as odd is the frequency and number of these sizable trucks speeding around, all blazing sirens and air horns, for calls that may be of inversely proportional gravity.

I took these pictures as an example: on an otherwise ”quiet” afternoon the – by now familiar – deafening sound coming from at least four fire trucks; they rush past, stop around the corner, one firefighter gets out of the truck and into a building; the other trucks wait for a while, then drive off and disappear.

How do they respond to calls? I wonder. How is the level of alarm determined and the dispatch coordinated? Is it necessary to dispatch so many trucks when there is no fire or major gas leak? Whatever the answer, one thing is sure: our world is safer with them around, they are an integral part of our daily lives, a part for which we are grateful.

If only their sirens weren’t so loud…
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September 17th, 2016

A strange looking Moonbird

The Humble FabulistLeave a comment

I (mis)took it for a Pokémon Go-ers meeting point until I discovered that it is actually Joan Miró’s Oiseau lunaire (Moonbird), or rather an enlarged version of the sculpture the artist created in 1966. I still think it is the perfect meeting spot for Pokémon Go-ers, although I haven’t seen any crowds appear from nowhere around it yet. It mostly gets ignored in favour of the nearby actual Pokémon hunters’ spot at the Grand Army Plaza or – for the rest of the world – the dazzling 5th Avenue shop windows.What

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Midtown Manhattan, Solow Building on 58th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues.

September 11th, 2016