Upper West Side brick

50 West 77th Street, constructed in 1903 as the Manhattan Square Hotel. Brick manufactured by "W&F" or Uriah Washburn & Denton Fowler

Gramercy brick

East 19th Street and Second Avenue, constructed in 1928.  Parapet brickwork manufactured by Staples -- from Kingston, NY.

Wednesday

More change on Brighton Beach Avenue

I'm back in Manhattan Beach for a short stay and noticed a few changes:
1) there appears to be no construction developments at Odessa or the adjacent buildings
2) The western neighbor to Ouri's Fruit Market which was being used as a temporary liquidation store is now a hair salon. That completes the apparent unknown goal of having one hair salon per block between Brighton 15th and Coney Island Avenue. It seems a tad bit ridiculous.
3) Two stores west of the Oceana where a 24 hr corner deli has stood for years is now a fruit store. The airiness of the layout is interesting and is better given the odd triangular shape of the building.
4) Citibank is now open at Berta's.

Another hair salon on Brighton Beach Avenue, next to Ouri's Fruit Store

New fruit store at former corner deli.

Brighton in bloom

Sunset Park

Pictures of the day

8:00 AM: The new MTA switch station at Avenue C and McDonald Avenue.We'll know what the insides look like once they're concealed.

8:30 AM: Daffodils are blooming at Kings Bay Housing in Sheepshead Bay.

7:30 PM: Menu holder at Tipplers near Chelsea Market, celebrating a coworker's engagement.

8:30 PM: Site-specific ad in Chelsea. The advertisers thought outside of the box of one billboard.

Bird Friendly Glass Design

My office just finished a balcony repair project at a modern glass building along the West Side of Manhattan.

The contractor had to install sidewalk bridging around the entire building to protect pedestrians from the work occuring above. What I noticed while walking on the bridge was a prevalence of beautiful and small dead birds lying all around -- victims to the confusion created with certain types of reflective glass. Among them were small downy wood peckers.

Downy wood pecker

Rand's president is an avid bird aficionado. He recently pointed me to the Audobon Society's recommendations on better glass design, which are fairly simple to incorporate into new design projects, such as fritted glass, glass divisions, like sunscreens at the New York Times Building, or angling the glass panels to reduce the amount of glare. Here is a short article about bird-friendly glass, recalling Louis Sullivan's coined phrase: Form Follows Feathers. We're hoping to recommend these design elements to our clients if give the opportunity.


Sunscreen louvers at the New York Times Building





Interior view of New York Times Building



Sunset Park

In my new neighborhood, dumpsters drive themselves around.





I kid.

The rogue dumpster was retrieved eventually.

More change on Brighton Beach Avenue

I'm not sure how I missed it, but Radin Pharmacy at 1077 Brighton Beach Avenue closed.  Prescriptions were moved to Walgreens. Sad. That pharmacy has looked exactly the same for the past 25 years.

Radin, captured by google streetcar

Anyone know why it closed?

Radin today