Central Park: The Early Years

Central Park: The Early Years is now available in print and as a Kindle ebook from Amazon, in print from Barnes & Noble, and via Ingram with standard discounts for booksellers…

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Kosciuszko Bridge Progress, 4

For earlier photos, see the Bridges tag in the Obsessions cloud at right. For a short time in the summer of 2017, the old and new Kosciuszko Bridges (1939 and…

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Art Deco Evolution

To illustrate this post, I went yesterday to take photos of the reliefs in the lobby of the Chanin Building. From the full length of the lobby (a city block…

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Bridge + Braley

Three major bridge replacements have been in progress in the Tristate area during the past few years. The Goethals Bridge, dating to the 1920s, connects Elizabeth, New Jersey, with the…

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Recuerdo Staten Island

The (relatively) new Staten Island Ferry Terminal is decorated with excerpts from Edna St. Vincent Millay's 1922 poem "Recuerdo" ("I remember" or "souvenir"). The views from the terminal and the…

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Naming the Gates of Central Park, 3

Third in a series of three posts giving the full text of the  “Report on Nomenclature of the Gates of the Park,” 1862. The first post in the series includes background…

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Naming the Gates of Central Park, 2

Second in a series of several posts giving the full text of the  “Report on Nomenclature of the Gates of the Park,” 1862. The first post in the series, which includes…

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Raymond Kaskey’s Portlandia

The facade of Robert Graves's Portland Building is graced by Raymond Kaskey's Portlandia. It's a huge sculpture in proportion to it site: just over three stories on a 15-story building. The…

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Naming the Gates of Central Park, 1

First in a series; second is here, third is here. In 1898, Andrew Haswell Green was proclaimed "Father of Greater New York" for his efforts to see Manhattan consolidated with…

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Old & New Kosciuszko Bridges, 3

The Kosciuszko Bridge, opened in 1939, carries I-278 (the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, or BQE) over Newtown Creek, which divides Brooklyn and Queens. The old bridge is being replaced with side-by-side cable-stay…

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