a night at the met opera house

i love the curves and chandeliers of wallace k. harrison's metropolitan opera house, lincoln center...

quickie (2,3)

and then came the sun

tourist vista: "following the sun"

(with apologies to mfw, for stealing his post title)

one early evening last week, i left the office and followed the sun.

it took me downtown.

and then we drifted west, and i walked--for the very first time--though the washington square village apartment complex.

this massive, "tower in the park" superstructure is generally not esteemed (certainly not by anyone i know) so i was surprised at just how lovely the interior courtyard-slash-parking lot looked that day. the yellow fooled me for a moment--i forgot i was in new york city. until a guy started screaming at me--a security guard, admonishing me for trying to take a photo.

is the rest of the world as paranoid as we are?

here's all i got from "the inside":

ok. i snuck in one more, closer to i.m. pei's "university village" (far less charming than the colorful glazed brick of the washington square apartments) :

this 60-ton, 36-foot high sculpture, by carl nesjar --also new to these eyes--is based on picasso's "sylvette." it was rendered by sandblasting norwegian basalt and cement...

the spirit of 76?

"the silver beekman"

beekman towers, frank gehry's ready-to-rent residential design in lower manhattan, is 76 stories tall. i had mistakenly suggested to mfw that it is something like 106 stories. i am mostly indifferent to numbers, but i should have paid closer attention to such an important fact. the truth is though, when you stand at the base of the towers as i did last week, 76 and 106 stories look pretty much the same. too high.

and from that ground level vantage point, i wasn't convinced the beekman suits new york. it's impressive--for its scale and uncommon shape. and it can be mesmerizing-- the sky was bright and blue when i arrived at around 2pm, and the beekman captured the color perfectly, nearly blending into the sky. i imagined for a moment i was in south beach. when i left my appointment several hours later, grey sky had moved in, intensifying the steeliness. the bernini -inspired folds became reptilian and futuristic, like we were living in some michael bay 3D universe--the dark side of the moon. this was, for obvious reasons, the scary beekman. the sky changed yet another time and it shone silver--it could have been a landmark in any flashy town: vegas, atlantic city, dubai. it bothered me a little at first, that it could be so "anywhere." but it's rather a great trick. i'm no architectural scholar, but isn't it often the case the character of a building (if you think it has one at all) is evidenced by its shape and its architectural flourishes? but this one seems to have been given a personality that can change.

eb white wrote, "new york is peculiarly constructed to absorb almost anything that comes along." so perhaps the beekman, with its ability to absorb and exude light, is quintessentially "new york" after all?

the "sobe" beekman

the "michael bay" beekman

the reptilian view

***

and this is what makes me think frank gehry must be an incredibly charming fellow. when i was at the site, i wasn't exactly sure if the beekman was set behind and separate from the orange brick structure in the foreground, or if it formed the base of the actual skyscraper (i'd forgotten that the nytimes mentioned it). paul goldberger reviewed 8 spruce in this week's new yorker and reminded that it was a single structure, with the contrasting base intended to tie the tower to the rest of the neighborhood. who else could win with this visually ridiculous solution? not too many.

same with having a 4th side of the building, the south side, flat (let's make one side of this "plain"...).

but i'm open to the idea that it might give a great effect.

i'll have to take it all in this summer, in the twilight, perhaps from somewhere across the river. i'll try to make a few good pictures then, too.

lovely day, lovely night sky

fifth avenue/21st

feb 18, 2011

photos © anita aguilar

the high line (color, this time)

14th street, nyc

the standard hotel

november 13, 2010

all photos © anita aguilar

monochrome class: the high line

jen and sheena

my turn (thank you, sister)

november 13, 2010

all photos © anita aguilar

pretty city: oh, happy night

this photo is probably not going to be as exciting to you, as it is to me (it's sort of a mundane subject, especially if you live in nyc) but...here is my first decently rendered shot of a night sky (with the g10)! hooray! it was so clear tonight, and the lights around the chrysler building gave the sky a beautiful, slate-y cast.


the shot is still not perfect, but the settings (ISO 200, .4 sec at F4.0) seem good place to start playing from...
here it is with a curves adjustment...everything's a touch sharper, especially the skyscraper, and the sky a bit darker. it's nicer, and still pretty close to the true color...

anyway...hope you have a happy night, too.