12/8/07 Saturday

Spanish Harlem

Midtown (Park Avenue)

East Village

The Bowery (The New Museum of Contemporary Art)

This week, a week after I shot this, I picked up two gentlemen and brought them over to the New York Historical Society. I felt really lucky to be in the company of others who also respected New York history, but then they threw me a curve.

They Asked, "How much do you think a cab ride would be from there to the Museum of Contemporary Art? would it be 20?"

When they told me it was on the Bowery and Prince Street, I knew what building this was. There was only one monolith of evil that would claim such arrogance to be a museum when in fact it is assisting in the destruction of the Lower East Side. Remember when architects would design buildings to blend with the respective environments?

Don't get me wrong now, I told them that it would most likely be less then 20 dollars, unless they encountered a lot of traffic. 

But I couldn't let this go, "That building, oh I know that building," I said, rolling my eyes, and my vocal cords.

"Yeah, it is quite a different looking unique building," they replied.

"So you're going to the New York Historical Society now, and then you'll be traveling down to see a brand new building that doesn't fit in with the rest of the neighborhood?" 

okay, okay, so I didn't say that.. we made small talk about it being Ponce de Laffayette day. Apparently Laffayette did something really great during the revolutionary war. Coincidentally Laffayette street runs parallel to Bowery, the very neighborhood they would be visiting later, to applaud the destruction of our history.

Lower East Side

Long Island City, Queens

Left

Right

Straight ahead