wevther

We have been having some crazy weather this summer. It was over 100 degrees on Thursday, but had become cold, rainy and closer to 60 by Friday. So is it any wonder that I woke up on Saturday with no idea what to expect outside?

Luckily for me, I recently discovered the handy website, Wevther. Rather than simply forecasting the weather, it also provides a wardrobe suggestions for women, men or all, with the results linked to Svpply. Quite clever.

(Via swissmiss)

sunday suppers

As of this morning I am now 27 years old! And a giant yikes to that! Does this mean that I'm now officially in my late 20s, or does that not start until 28? I think I might just stick with mid-20s for a little while longer regardless. Anyway, I wanted to share with all of you the amazing event that Patrick and I attended yesterday. Since having a birthday on a Monday is no fun, Sunday was my deemed my official unofficial birthday day, and Sunday Suppers helped to make it especially wonderful.

For those of you who haven't heard of it, Sunday Suppers is run by the food stylist, photographer and fantastic hostess Karen Mordechai. As the Sunday Suppers blog explains, it's a monthly "class-cooking-dining experience, pairing friends and food. The food is market fresh, local and organic and the approach is to create seasonal and fresh meals together. The classes are held in a waterfront loft in Brooklyn, NY and are taught by Local Chefs."

For our Winter Dinner, Diana Yen and Lisel Arroyo, also known as The Jewels of New York, were the chefs, and we all helped to prepare a delicious meal of shaved fennel and orange salad with warm prosciutto vinaigrette to start, spice rubbed lamb chops with grape-almond port sauce and harvest vegetables for the main course, and vanilla pudding with candied kumquats for dessert. There was mulled wine and cheese for everyone to sample, and we all got to take home a list of recipes and jars of kumquat marmalade at the end of the evening. Neither Patrick nor I had had ever been to one of these types of events before, and so we weren't entirely sure what to expect, but we got to enjoy Karen's hospitality and lovely styling, helped to create and eat a great meal, thanks to The Jewels of New York, and had a very nice time with a group of people who all appreciate good food just as much as we do.

Since the Winter Dinner just happened and there aren't any pictures posted yet, all of the images above and below are taken from the last Sunday Supper, the Fall Harvest dinner, that happened in November. I wanted to give you all an idea about the beautiful food and decor that this event entailed, and I will definitely post pictures of our dinner once Karen has put them up on her own blog.

All photographs are copyright Karen Mordechai and Sunday Suppers. Thanks Karen!

storm king

When my parents came to town last weekend for my grandfather's 80th birthday surprise party, we took the opportunity to visit the incredible Storm King Art Center. While my parents had never been, this was my third visit, and it's definitely safe to say that Storm King is one of my favorite places to spend the day. I usually try to go in early November, when all of the leaves are right in the middle of changing and the weather is perfect for strolling around and viewing the 500 acres worth of landscape and outdoor sculptures. This year, while we missed the leaves turning, it was still a perfect sunny day, and we got a chance to see the newest installation, Maya Lin's Storm King Wavefield. The park is closed now for the winter (they're open from April 1-November 15), but if you're ever in the New York area, Storm King is one of those incredible places that are totally worth the trip in order to visit.

And a special thanks to my dad, who took these pictures!

Flushing Meadows Corona Park

Flushing Meadows Corona Park has been one of those New York places that I'd always meant to visit but never got around to until recently. The site of the 1964 New York World's Fair, I knew the basic history of the place, and we drive pass the recognizable Unisphere and New York State Pavilion every weekend on the way out to the glass studio. But like the Staten Island ferry, which has been on my to-do list for years now, I never got around to seeing it for myself. Sunday, however, was an incredibly beautiful day. Wanting to be outside anyway, we decided that a park visit was exactly what we needed.

Behold, the Unisphere! According to the handy informational plaque at the site, it was presented to the 1964 World's Fair by the United States Steel Corporation. Made out of stainless steel, this baby stands 140 feet high and weighs 700,000 pounds. The Unisphere is quite impressive up close, but my favorite structure at the park is definitely the New York State Pavilion. And who build this crazy futuristic pavilion? Why, it was our illustrious Designer of the Month himself, Philip Johnson!

Here's what the place looks like today:


And here's what it looked like back in 1964:

New York State Pavilion. Courtesy of Tom Fletcher's New York Architecture website.

The New York State Pavilion featured three tall observation towers, accessible by "Sky Streak" capsule elevators, and a colorful translucent "Tent of Tomorrow," over the world's biggest suspension roof.

Even though the pavilion is now falling apart, you still get a sense of the grandeur of the place when you visit.

Sky Streak capsule elevators. Courtesy of Tom Fletcher's New York Architecture website.

The tops of the observation towers, which were the tallest structures at the Fair, would have had an amazing view of the entire park.

Inside the New York State Pavilion. From the 1965 World's Fair Publicity Pamphlet, "What's Free at the Fair". Courtesy of Tom Fletcher's New York Architecture website.

The main floor of the Pavilion featured a large map of New York that were surrounded by attractions, including the ride shown above. There was also a gallery with portraits of early New York colonists and Hudson River school paintings on display, as well as a power exhibit with a replica of the St. Lawrence hydroelectric plant, complete with spinning turbines.

Pretty cool, right? I know I don't usually do a Designer of the Month segment twice in one week, but I thought that this park visit, and the Pavilion's history, deserved a mention after our visit. More about Johnson on Friday!

Who Lives in Greenwich Village?

The Greenwich House Pottery Centennial celebration is officially underway, and with it comes the incredible looking "Who Lives in Greenwich Village?", a ceramic tile installation by Ayumi Horie (who is one of my favorite potters!) and Andy Brayman.

The installation, which draws inspiration from the Manhatta Project, is comprised of 86 unique tiles, each 3/4" thick, representing both city blocks and Washington Square park. Each tile depicts three overlaying maps: an ecological map from 1609 (Manhattan as it was when Henry Hudson made his historic voyage), a street map of Greenwich Village from 1909 (when the studio was founded), and a sampling of fauna that roamed the area in 1609, with a total of twelve ecosystems and twenty-six animals represented. An amazing project from one of the city's great community institutions, you can help keep this installation permanently intact within Greenwich House's main building by sponsoring a tile.

Saipua

Image via Design*Sponge

Isn't the above image beautiful? It's from the soap and flower shop Saipua, in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Besides the georgeous interior, I was also really drawn to the great packaging of their soap, which features really nice looking paper and fun prints.




I definitely plan on visiting the next time I'm in the neighborhood. You can view more images of the store on the saipua blog, here.

watermelon

Have you ever seen yellow watermelon before?

We got this beauty from the CSA this week, and it was just what we needed to help with the ridiculously humid summer weather. It was a weekend of watermelon, the glass studio feeling like a sauna, gazpacho, waiting way too long to be seated for brunch, and finally getting around to buying myself a bike, which we celebrated with a bike ride in the rain. In all, a nice relaxing summer weekend.

Designer of the Month: Frederick Law Olmsted

Week 2: Central Park and Prospect Park

As I was saying last week, Frederick Law Olmsted created landscapes that were meant to last, and to evolve, as time passed. Central Park in Manhattan is a great place to start a discussion about Olmsted's work because it began his partnership with British architect Calvert Vaux, whom Olmsted also designed Prospect Park with, and was Olmsted's first real commission as a landscape architect. Let's take a look, shall we?

Central Park. Courtesy of New York Architecture Images.

Ah Central Park. The Reservoir, the Great Lawn, the Mall, Sheep Meadow, Belvedere Castle, and the list goes on and on. One of the best things about the park is that, while it's right in the middle of the city, you'd hardly know it once you're inside. Considering that the Park is only a half-mile wide, this is a pretty amazing feat, accomplished through some key features that Olmsted built into the design of the park. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. First, a little background on the need for this Park and how Olmsted ended up winning this commission.

Originally named Greensward, Central Park was the design of Frederick Law Olmsted, who at the time had the job of superintendent of the Park work crews, and Calvert Vaux, who helped convince the Park's board of commissioners to hold a design competition in the first place.[1] The need for a green space in Manhattan was an idea that was embraced by both of the political parties of the time as well as the key figures of Evening Post editor William Cullen Bryant and noted landscape gardener Andrew Jackson Downing.[2] New York City in 1844 was growing at a tremendous pace, and the fear that the city would lose its chance to set aside a large area for a city park was a very real one. So between 1853 and 1856, the Park's commissioners paid more than $5 million for land from 59th Street to 106th Street, between Fifth and Eighth Avenues (the park was extended up to 110th street, which is the currently boundary, in 1863), holding a public contest to choose the Park's design. [3]

It may seem a bit unfair that Olmsted and Vaux's design would be chosen, as they were already both a part of the Park's commission in some way, but many of the entrants to the competition were Park workers, and even Olmsted's boss at the time, Colonel Egbert Ludovicus Viele (that he insisted on his military title should give you an idea of the type of guy he was), along with 11 other Park's employees, submitted a design.[4] Out of the 33 competing entries, other than the few that were a bit over the top, such as one that wanted to treat the park as an allegorical map of the continents, most were designed either in the "picturesque English" or "formal European" style.[5] Olmsted and Veux's design, however, took a more naturalistic view, and they won the competition by unanimous vote.

The Mall. Courtesy of CentralPark.com.

So what won the committee over? Well, the focus on creating a naturalistic setting was definitely part of it. The other part was the combination of quiet, secluded walks along with a "broad alley," first called the Promenade and latter became the Mall, which was a nod to the European tradition of formal landscape gardening, where large numbers of people could socialize.[6] As I was saying before, even though the Park is right in the middle of the city, you'd hardly know it from inside, and this is not only because of all the trees that act as noise dampeners, but because of the way the requirement that four or more public streets must traverse the park was dealt with; the street were placed in large excavated trenches 8 feet below ground.[7] This allowed for the visual continuity of the landscape to remain undisturbed and for the park to be closed at night without interrupting traffic.[8]

Such a massive undertaking was bound to face some challenges, but it was especially difficult to turn the rocky, swampy, and muddy location into the lush park that Olmsted and Vaux designed. According to the Central Park Conservancy's website history of the park:

The soil was inadequate to sustain the trees and shrubs Olmsted and Vaux planned, so 500,000 cubic feet of topsoil was carted in from New Jersey. Lacking modern machinery, workers manually dug up earth, and blasted out huge boulders with gunpowder. More than 10 million cartloads of materials and debris were carted in and out on horse-drawn carts. Thirty-six bridges and arches were built and six man-made water bodies, fed from the City's water supply, were created. Andrew Haswell Green served as comptroller and treasurer of the board of commissioners from 1857 to 1871, when the Park was under construction. Green recognized the brilliance of Olmsted and Vaux ’s plan when other commissioners were ready to dismiss it. It is because of Green’s support and protection of the Greensward plan that so much of Central Park is true to its original design.[9]

It wasn't until 20 years after the design competition that most of the landscapes in the park were fully built, with construction hampered by political battles, causing both Olmsted and Vaux to resign many times throughout the process for either aesthetic or political reasons (Olmsted left for good in 1877 while Vaux stayed on and off until his death in 1895).[10] Despite the challenges of building Central Park, it was hugely popular and was considered an immediate success, helping to launch the urban parks movement of the 19th century and making both Olmsted and Vaux hugely in demand.[11]

Now hang in there everyone! I know that this is already a super long post with lots of information, but we've still got Prospect Park to discuss. I won't go in to as much detail as I did for Central Park, but there are some cool old photographs that accompany the information, so that's a fun added bonus. Onward!

Grand Army Plaza c. 1908. From the Bob Levine Collection, courtesy of the Prospect Park Alliance.

You see, cool old photographs. Prospect Park was created for similar reasons as Central Park; Brooklyn was growing rapidly, but other than Greenwood Cemetery, there wasn't really any large park space for people to visit. Like Central Park, a Park's commission was formed to choose a design for the park, a competition was held, and once again, Olmsted and Vaux, now as Olmsted, Vaux & Company, Landscape Architects, were the winners.[12] As the Prospect Park Alliance explains in their timeline of the park:

To Olmsted, a great park should be a tranquil, rural landscape where people could recuperate from the incessant pace of city life. Olmsted believed these pleasures belonged to people of every social class, not just the wealthy who could afford to travel outside the city. Prospect Park would be for everyone, but especially Brooklyn’s poor, who could find a bit of the country right in their own backyards. Olmsted and Vaux designed an elaborate infrastructure for Prospect Park, and construction began on July 1, 1866 under their supervision.[13]

Courtesy of Time Out New York.

For Olmsted, this was meant to be his perfect park. The site had none of the complications of Central Park. It was a generously proportioned diamond shape, unencumbered by unsightly water reserves and with no traverse roads required.[14] By this time, 8 years after the success of Central Park, Olmsted, Vaux & Co. had enjoyed great commercial success. Olmsted was known as the visionary of the two: he combined functional organization, site planning, urban design, landscaping, gardening, and art to create picturesque landscapes, while Vaux was the draftsman and designer, making the plans a reality. [15] The problem was that, while Olmsted's designs were constantly being built and winning praise, he was often frustrated by the ways that they would get changed in the building process, with buildings added to mar the perfectly proportioned landscape or with plans changed to include mature trees rather than allowing foliage to grow over time as Olmsted preferred. Olmsted had a vision, and if his vision wasn't followed exactly, he'd become frustrated. As you can imagine, he was often frustrated.

So Prospect Park sounded like a dream. There was already the presence of a large number of mature trees, three rolling pastures, and a sizable lake, all of which were incorporated into the final design.[16] In addition to this, Olmsted enjoyed managerial freedom with Prospect Park; the management of the workforce was left up to Olmsted while the Park was being built, allowing him to pursue his vision rather than working as a municipal employee, as he was with Central Park.[17] This greater freedom allowed Olmsted to realize his vision for Prospect Park, and while subsequent years saw a reenvisioning of the Park as more of a civic space, with the addition of a boathouse, bandshell, playgrounds, and other structures, Olmsted's vision remains largely intact to this day.[18]

Long Meadow, where herds of sheep were used to keep the grass trim. Courtesy of the Prospect Park Alliance.

So there you have it. Quite a lot of information, I know, but trust me when I say that this was the condensed version. I'll see you here next week, when I discuss the 1893 Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair.

[1] The Central Park Conservancy website, “Central Park History,” http://www.centralparknyc.org/site/PageNavigator/aboutpark_history_cp_history_150yrs (accessed August 11, 2009).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999), 166.

[4] Ibid., 158.

[5] Ibid., 164.

[6] Ibid., 165.

[7] Ibid., 167.

[8] Ibid., 167.

[9] The Central Park Conservancy website, “Central Park History,” http://www.centralparknyc.org/site/PageNavigator/aboutpark_history_cp_history_150yrs (accessed August 11, 2009).

[10] Ibid.

[11] Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999), 169.

[12] Ibid., 269.

[13] The Prospect Park Alliance website, "Timeline," http://www.prospectpark.org/visit/history/timeline (accessed August 12, 2009).

[14] Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999), 269.

[15] Ibid., 262-3.

[16] Ibid., 271.

[17] Ibid., 360.

[18] The Prospect Park Alliance website, "Timeline," http://www.prospectpark.org/visit/history/timeline (accessed August 12, 2009).

baked

And on one other weekend note: I found a new favorite cupcake place. For a few years now I've been saying that the Cupcake Cafe, which is conveniently located next to the amazing children's bookstore Books of Wonder, makes the best in the city, but after trying Baked during a Sunday grocery shopping expedition to Fairway, in Red Hook, Brooklyn, I think that my mind has officially been changed. I got a sweet and salty cupcake that was super delicious: dark chocolate cake with a caramel center, topped with caramel chocolate ganache frosting and sprinkled with sea salt. The cake was perfect, the frosting was fantastic and there wasn't too much of it, the caramel center was a delicious surprise, and as sea salt always seems to improve the taste of caramel, especially when there's also chocolate involved, I don't think I could have asked for a better cupcake. I can't wait to try some of the other flavors, some of which include red velvet, lemon drop, green tea, caramel apple, coconut, different chocolate and vanilla combinations, and plenty of other seasonal varieties as well. Yes, it's definitely out of the way, but for anyone venturing down to Red Hook, it's well worth the visit.

the high line

This weekend, along with what seemed like the rest of New York, we decided to go and see what all the fuss over the High Line has been about. For those of you who aren't from New York and don't know about the High Line, it's a park that was built from an old, pre-existing elevated train track above 10th and 11th Avenues on the west side of Manhattan. The first part of the park, which runs from Gansevoort to 20th Street, is finally complete and open to visitors, and the second section, from 20th to 30th Street, is supposed to open in 2010. The High Line carried freight from the 1930s until 1980, pretty much just sitting and gathering dust (and lots of plants from seeds that found their way up there) until recently. What's so cool about the High Line is that much of the original train tracks and plants that were found up there after years of neglect were incorporated into the design of the park. According to the High Line website:

The design team, led by landscape architects James Corner Field Operations with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, has sought to capture the quiet, contemplative nature of the High Line after the trains stopped running, creating a world apart from the bustling streets of Manhattan. Concrete is cast in long, textured planks, forming a smooth, linear, virtually seamless walking surface. Tapered into surrounding naturalistic plantings, they will allow plant life to push up through the seams. Fixed and movable seating, an integrated LED lighting system, and other special features will complete the High Line's signature landscape, creating a one-of-a-kind public space 30 feet above the ground.

Here are some pictures from our visit:

a viewing platform placed directly over 10th Avenue, letting visitors sit and watch the traffic go by below

train tracks are visible in many places along the park

The River that Flows Both Ways, by Spencer Finch

This art installation is incredible. An attempt to capture the varied reflective conditions of the Hudson River, it consists of 700 laminated glass panels with a color film interlayer, and is experienced differently depending on the light levels and atmospheric conditions of the site. This picture really doesn't capture how beautiful this piece actually is, but you can see, even from this crappy image, how many different shades of color are represented in this work.

cardon copy

What a fantastic project! Cardon Copy is by Cardon Webb, who has taken it upon himself to redesign and replace handwritten fliers that he finds posted around New York City. The project "takes the vernacular of self-distributed fliers and tear-offs we have all seen in our neighborhoods. It involves hijacking these unconsidered fliers and redesigning them, over powering their message with a new visual language." Here are some of my favorite examples:

Thanks sub-studio design blog and idsgn.

Leslie Mendelson: Swan Feathers

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

I am very excited because my incredibly talented friend Leslie Mendelson released her album Swan Feathers this week! Leslie and Patrick grew up down the street from each other (and now, many years later, live down the street from each other once more), but even if she wasn't a friend of ours, I would still be talking about how great this album is and how everyone should grab themselves a copy. Leslie has gotten some wonderful press so far, including the great news that her song "Hit the Spot" is the iTunes Free Discovery Download of the week. This means that you can download it for free all week long, so there's really no excuse not to give it a listen.

As Jac Holzman, founder of the Electra and Nonesuch Labels, says, "Unless I've lost my bearings this is one of the tastiest pop albums of recent memory. And I say ‘pop’ in the Carole King sense. Great melodies with wondrous curves that take you places. No album of this genre has touched me so deeply. Most important, the songs stick to you like swan feathers caught on rubber cement." Isn't that a great endorsement? You can read more about Leslie and the album on the Rykodisc (her record label) website here.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

Bonni Benrubi gallery summer exhibitions

Damion Berger, Hula Hoops - Le Roccabella, Monaco, gelatin silver print mounted on museum board and aluminum, 27.5” x 42", Edition of 10, 2001. Courtesy of Damion Berger/ The Bonni Benrubi Gallery, NYC.

My latest review for the Gallery Crawl website is up! It's of the two exhibitions that are up at the Bonni Benrubi Gallery for the summer, "Hot Fun in the Summertime" and "Live From New York...," both of which, if you're looking for a good gallery show to visit on a hot summer day in New York, feature some amazing photography that is definitely worth a look.


“Hot Fun in the Summertime” and “Live from New York…” at the Bonni Benrubi Gallery

Entering the Bonni Benrubi Gallery for “Hot Fun in the Summertime” was a lot like walking into multiple memories of childhood summers, complete with a soundtrack of The Beach Boys that was playing for the opening reception. Summertime is about nostalgia, a feeling that is captured in this exhibition in many different ways. For some of these photographers, summer is a colorful idealization: sand, surf, seashells, and screen doors that lead forever out to the ocean. Other images focus on cooler images of muted tones and of summers past: cavernous hot springs, still lifes of fruit, portraits of people who have seen better days and circumstances, and storefronts long since fallen into disrepair. The theme of summer nostalgia is what ties this exhibition together, but it’s the remarkably disparate outlooks that make it so interesting.

To read the rest of the review, hop on over to the Gallery Crawl website here!

i love new york in june

For the first time in a long time, we finally got a few days of sun in a row. It was an absolutely beautiful weekend. My parents were visiting from Florida and so all of us, along with some other aunts and cousins who live not too far north of the city, spent a sunny Sunday at the New York Botanical Gardens.

June is rose month, and while the flowers were just past their peak, there was still plenty to see.