Category Archives: around town

Circular

What does your ideal home look like?

Where do you want to live?

The circular ramp at the Guggenheim is an amenity I would love to have. Just 2, maybe three floors of living space connected by this type of access. Some of my 4 or 5 rooms will have wainscoting like this museum exhibit below.

Others will have views like these:

And outdoor seating like this:

Places we live, places we work

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

1 There’s a generic quality, I was thinking, to some of these big apartment buildings. The one on this near corner is a case in point. It resembles others in the general neighborhood, like one designed by Robert A.M. Stern on East End and 80th. That one looks a lot like a Stern property just west of Central Park near Columbus Circle.

Of course, dwellings can be considered generic in the sense that they are, for the most part, boxy and rectangular.

2, 3, 4 A row of houses that have been remodeled in a way that makes them look stylized and a touch cartoonish. One set of dormers are elongated. The columns are extra long on one facade. All the fronts are crisper than the original would be. The effects of modernization are attractive if a touch odd.

5 This corner of Lexington Avenue is where to find an old-time soda fountain. The spot has been around long enough to make history.

6, 7 Looking up at tall and new buildings on our immediate horizon

Two “spas” in adjacent basement spaces have met with different fortunes. LuLu has closed while Spring Spa is still in business.

Something is being built: Cranes in the sky give an air of prosperity.

Askew

From TripAdvisor

Atop an antic 4-storey building, the added floor seems precarious. The facade is painted a jaunty yellow with white trim around the irregular windows.

Before you protest my description, let me assure you that buildings definitely have personalities. Some appear to be arrogant; others are humble.

My own abode has a lot of history, but it peers gently and wistfully out over the waters.

It’s appropriate, I would say, that the building that Comic Strip Live occupies has a sense of humor.

What’s all the excitement?

Tell us about the last thing you got excited about.

I’m prone to mood swings that affect my walk. When excited, I pace myself a little quicker.

Heading to the Ballet Hispánico at the Museum recently had me giddy and overjoyed.

Walking along the UWS for a change of scenery a few weeks ago had the same stirring effect.

Other destinations give me pleasure, too. Sometimes, it’s a treat being in the familiar. Sometimes, the excitement comes from a fresh perspective.