Photo of the day: LOOSING NEW YORK
As a tour guide I am supposed to tell people how wonderful New York City is...I do. But they don’t see that Harlem is now only 40% black, overrun by self-righteous white yuppies renovating Harlem’s brownstones pushing the original residents out. Greenwich Village once an epicenter of gay culture, dance clubs, cool quirky shops, cutting edge boutiques is now devoid of anything gay, buried in GAP, Polo, Starbucks, Sephora, Michael Kors, more GAP, more Polo, more Michael Kors. (Btw, Michael Kors being a screaming queen doesn’t count.)
The mushroom rate of the ‘space needle’ über high, über rich residential high rises on 57th and 58th Streets will put parts of Central Park’s south end into permanent shadow at certain times of the year. Jackie Onassis is turning in her grave.
Jackie O. would also be horrified to discover that grand Central Terminal is to be encased in super tall, super glassy high rises, therefore dwarfing the spectacular station, reducing it to a needle in a haystack.
Tribeca and Soho once filled with artists and art spaces are now filled with tourists artfully shopping. Times Square has become a 2nd rate shopping mall filled with Elmos badgering your for $5 photos. The lower east side aka ‘the Bowery’ is rapidly loosing any trace of our large immigrant history. It IS filled with our ‘new immigrants’ the young rich, spacey Millennials, trust fund babies and tech company millionaires. Apartments costing $1 million in the Bowery are cheap.
Little Italy is nothing but 6 or so blocks of Italian restaurants trying to hang on while the Chinese and the stores of Soho eat up their once large thriving Italian neighborhood. Fuggedaboudit.
New York’s harbor was once the busiest harbor in the world. Today, with a combination of damage from hurricane Sandy and the sheer greed of the Bloomberg/DeBlasio real estate ‘developers’, in South Street Seaport nothing will be left but a few gratuitous red brick buildings and only one old sailing ship to be now surrounded by a mirror glass ersatz ‘Pier 17’ and two gigantically tall mirror glass ‘luxury towers’ encroaching on America’s historical land mark the Brooklyn Bridge.
Go to Brooklyn then you say? Oh no, that is being gentrified at a hyper speed such has been never witnessed before in America. The foot of the Brooklyn Bridge is now being encased in a towering glass apartment building in DUMBO and the once spectacular view of the bridge from the Brooklyn Heights promenade is now obliterated by a gigantic apartment complex. If anyone would have told me that one day the views of the Brooklyn Bridge will be gone, I’da said you’re nuts.
Further in Brooklyn, whites buying $1+ million town homes in Bedford–Stuyvesant is now the norm. What was once our largest African American neighborhood, now has it’s residents being forced to go back to their Southern roots where they might be able to afford the rent. Meanwhile ultra hipster Williamsburg battles it out with ultra orthodox Satmar Jewish Williamsburg for real estate, who will win is anybody’s guess.
Hey, but Hans you’re safe in Queens. Not so, as my neighborhood fights off the flood of ‘poor upper middle class’ who can’t quite afford the $500,000 to $1 million dollar glass towers of the East River’s Long Island City. One by one we are seeing the affordable shops disappear, street vendors forbidden and a slimey corrupt councilman like Jimmy Van Bramer sign off on real estate deals wiping places like the spectacular 5 Pointz Graffiti Museum and the immigrant’s car-repair shops of Willet’s Point off the map while he brown noses his way up in the mayor’s administration.
If anyone has noticed, I haven’t posted daily “Photos of the Day” since mid June, I needed time to reflect. I will continue to tell people how ‘wonderful’ New York is, but I will also tell them that the city is an illusion, a big grand, sparkling, smoke & mirrors illusion. With my camera I will try to find something worth capturing that someone’s cell phone camera has not. My main concentration will be on researching and writing a book about my Von Rittern land baron roots in Bremen, Germany, and a second book on my Broadway stage door memories.
In the meanwhile, my German guests, while taking my tours say to me, “Sadly, it’s happening in Germany too, capture it while you can.”
I’ll try.
October 31, 2014 | Categories: DAILY PHOTOS WITH STORIES OF NEW YORK CITY | Tags: "WHITEWASH", 5 Pointz, 5 Pointz destroyed, 5 Pointz Graffiti Museum, 5 Pointz white washed, 7 train, architecture, arts, Bedford-Stuyvestant, Bill DeBlasio, Broadway, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Heights promenade, Chinatown, destruction of South Street Seaport, DUMBO, Experiencing the destruction of 5 Pointz, gentrification, German tourists, Germany, Grand Central Terminal, Greenwich Village, Hans Von Rittern, Harlem, Hypergentrification, Jackie O., Jimmy Van Bramer, Little Italy, loosing New York's history, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michael Kors, SoHo, Times Square, TRIBECA, Willets Point, Williamsburg Brooklyn | Leave a comment
Photo of the day: Far away . . .
Photo of the day: Gone far away . . .
July 8, 2014 | Categories: DAILY PHOTOS WITH STORIES OF NEW YORK CITY | Tags: architecture, Brooklyn, Brooklyn view of Manhattan, East River beach front view of Brooklyn Bridge, East river New York, girl on a rock, Hans Von Rittern, low tide east river, Manhattan, New York City, New York is dead, New York photo, Photo of the day, photography | Leave a comment
Photo of the day: FLORAL TRIBUTE FOR DEATH OF A PIANO
Waves rush in to caress the sand
Only to roll out again
June 14, 2014 | Categories: DAILY PHOTOS WITH STORIES OF NEW YORK CITY | Tags: architecture, arts, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge, destruction of piano in East River, Diana Amirova, driftwood, East River, floral tribute to piano, graffiti and piano, Hans Von Rittern, HEK TAD, Henry Mason, Lillian B. Rose, Manhattan, Manhattan Bridge, Manhattan tides, Mason & Hamlin, Mason and Hamlin piano, memorial for piano, model with piano, New York City, New York photo, Photo of the day, photography, piano burried in sand, piano in Atlantic Ocean, piano in East River, piano under Brooklyn Bridge, poet Lillian B. Rose, the Mayflower, West Side Highway | Leave a comment
Photo of the day: TWO LITTLE CHOIR BOYZ ARE WE
Pert as a choir boy can be
Filled to the brim with boyish glee
Two little choir boyz from school are weEverything is a source of fun
Nobody’s safe for we care for none
Life is a joke that’s just begun
Two little choir boyz from the Factory Phun
Two Little choir boyz who all unwary
Come from a boy’s seminary
Free from his genius tutelary
Two little choir boyz from school
Two little boyz in attendance to the art show come
Two little choir boyz from 5 Pointz come
June 12, 2014 | Categories: DAILY PHOTOS WITH STORIES OF NEW YORK CITY | Tags: "Three little maids are we", "WHITEWASH", 5 Pointz, 5 Pointz destroyed, 5 Pointz Graffiti Museum, 7 train, arts, Auks, AUKS One, AUKS Thomas Lucero, Brooklyn, celebrities, choir bench, choir boyz, Christian Cortes, Cortes, Experiencing the destruction of 5 Pointz, graffiti, graffiti art, Hans Von Rittern, Hunt Rodriguez, Jeffrey Leder, Jeffrey Leder Gallery, Jerms, Jerry Wolkoff, Jimmy Van Bramer, Jonathan Meres Cohen, Just One, Long Island City, Long Island City Queens, Manhattan, Marie Cecile Flageul, Marie Flageul, Meres, Meres One, Meres One Cohen, New York City, New York photo, Photo of the day, photography, public art, Queens, See TF, SHIRO, Shiro of Japan, Shoko Mikami, street art museum, the importance of public art discussion, the importance of street art discussion, The Mikado, Thomas Lucero, Topaz, Wolkoff, Zimad | Leave a comment
Photo of the day: MUSIC MAKES ME HIGH
June 11, 2014 | Categories: DAILY PHOTOS WITH STORIES OF NEW YORK CITY | Tags: architecture, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge, dancer and Mason Hamlin piano, dancer leaping on piano, East River, East River beach front view of Brooklyn Bridge, East River view of Brooklyn Bridge, Emmons Hamlin, floating on air, Hans Von Rittern, Henry Mason, low tide east river, Manhattan, Manhattan Bridge, Mason & Hamlin, Mason and Hamlin, Mason and Hamlin piano, Mozart, music makes me high, music makes you float, New York City, New York photo, Photo of the day, photography, piano at low tide, piano in Atlantic Ocean, piano in East River, piano in water, piano on Manhattan beach, piano under Brooklyn Bridge, pilgrims of Mayflower, Sequoia Restaurant, sounds of the sea, South Street Seaport's Pier 17 | Leave a comment
Photo of the day: THE CYCLE OF ART AT 5 POINTZ, “Whitewash” closing party today 5pm
The Jeffrey Leder Gallery: 2137 45th Road, L.I.C.
#7/G subway stop. One block away from 5 Pointz and PS1 Moma. Admission is free, open Saturday: 12-8pm. Artists will be present from 5-7 today!
June 7, 2014 | Categories: DAILY PHOTOS WITH STORIES OF NEW YORK CITY | Tags: "WHITEWASH", 5 Pointz, 5 Pointz destroyed, 5 Pointz documentary, 5 Pointz Graffiti Museum, 7 train, arts, Auks, AUKS One, AUKS Thomas Lucero, Brooklyn, celebrities, Christian Cortes, Cortes, Court Street subway stop #7 G, Court Street subway stop 7 G train, Experiencing the destruction of 5 Pointz, graffiti, graffiti art, Hans Von Rittern, Hunt Rodriguez, Jeffrey Leder, Jeffrey Leder Gallery, Jeffrey Leder Gallery 2137 45th Rd. Long Island City, Jerms, Jonathan Meres Cohen, Just One, Long Island City, Long Island City Queens, Manhattan, Marie Cecile Flageul, Marie Flageul, Meres, Meres One, Meres One Cohen, New York City, New York photo, Photo of the day, photography, public art, Queens, See TF, SHIRO, Shiro of Japan, Shoko Mikami, street art museum, the importance of public art discussion, the importance of street art discussion, Thomas Lucero, Topaz, Wolkoff, Zimad | Leave a comment
Photo of the day: ART IS TRA$H, Francisco de Pájaro and 5 Pointz
#7/G subway stop. One block away from 5 Pointz and PS1 Moma. Admission is free
Art is Tra$h: Nobody can put me down.
How true that is…..
June 6, 2014 | Categories: DAILY PHOTOS WITH STORIES OF NEW YORK CITY | Tags: "WHITEWASH", 'Street Art Mecca' blog, 5 Pointz, 5 Pointz destroyed, 5 Pointz Graffiti Museum, 7 train, ART IS TRA$H, ART IS TRASH, arts, Auks, AUKS One, AUKS Thomas Lucero, Barcelona Spain art scene, Brooklyn, celebrities, Christian Cortes, Cortes, Court Street subway stop #7 G, Court Street subway stop 7 G train, depajaro blogspot, Experiencing the destruction of 5 Pointz, Francisco de Pájaro, garbage made in to art, graffiti, graffiti art, Hans Von Rittern, Hunt Rodriguez, Jeffrey Leder, Jeffrey Leder Gallery, Jeffrey Leder Gallery 2137 45th Rd. Long Island City, Jerms, Jonathan Meres Cohen, Just One, Long Island City, Long Island City Queens, Manhattan, Marie Cecile Flageul, Marie Flageul, mattress as art, Meres, Meres One, Meres One Cohen, New York City, New York photo, Photo of the day, photography, public art, Queens, See TF, SHIRO, Shiro of Japan, Shoko Mikami, street art museum, the importance of public art discussion, the importance of street art discussion, Thomas Lucero, Topaz, Wolkoff, Zimad | Leave a comment
Photo of the day: COME SEE THE LIGHT of the 5 POINTZ “WHITEWASH” Exhibit
The Jeffrey Leder Gallery: 2137 45th Road, L.I.C.
#7/G subway stop. One block away from 5 Pointz and PS1 Moma. Admission is free, open 12-6.
Leder Gallery: http://www.jeffreyledergallery.com/whitewash.php
June 5, 2014 | Categories: DAILY PHOTOS WITH STORIES OF NEW YORK CITY | Tags: "WHITEWASH", 5 Pointz, 5 Pointz destroyed, 5 Pointz Graffiti Museum, 7 train, arts, Auks, AUKS One, AUKS Thomas Lucero, Brooklyn, celebrities, Christian Cortes, Cortes, Court Street subway stop #7 G, Court Street subway stop 7 G train, Experiencing the destruction of 5 Pointz, graffiti, graffiti art, Hans Von Rittern, Hunt Rodriguez, Jeffrey Leder, Jeffrey Leder Gallery, Jeffrey Leder Gallery 2137 45th Rd. Long Island City, Jerms, Jonathan Meres Cohen, Just One, Long Island City, Long Island City Queens, Manhattan, Marie Cecile Flageul, Marie Flageul, Meres, Meres One, Meres One Cohen, New York City, New York photo, Photo of the day, photography, public art, Queens, See TF, SHIRO, Shiro of Japan, Shoko Mikami, street art museum, the importance of public art discussion, the importance of street art discussion, Thomas Lucero, Topaz, Wolkoff, Zimad | Leave a comment
Photo of the day: “LEFT OUT TO DRY”
June 3, 2014 | Categories: DAILY PHOTOS WITH STORIES OF NEW YORK CITY | Tags: Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge, driftwood, East River, ebbtide, Hans Von Rittern, low tide east river, Manhattan, Manhattan Bridge, New York City, New York photo, Photo of the day, photography, ruins in East River, seaweed | Leave a comment
Photo of the day: EBB TIDE CONCERTO, piano mystriously appears in East River under Brooklyn Bridge
Plants a kiss on the shore
Then rolls out to sea
And the sea is very still once more
Like the oncoming tide
With one burning thought
Will your arms open wide
And as we kiss through an embrace
I can tell, I can feel
You are love, you are real
Really mine
I’m at peace in the web
Of your arms
In 1854, two brilliant idealists, Henry Mason and Emmons Hamlin, founded the Mason & Hamlin Company in Boston, Massachusetts, the birthplace of American piano design and manufacturing. Although their backgrounds and interests were very different, the two men shared a common goal: to make the world’s finest musical instruments.
Henry Mason was a member of one of America’s oldest families—they were actually descendents of pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower. The Masons were renowned for their involvement in the arts. Henry Mason was a pianist and his brother, William, was one of America’s foremost classical pianists and composers.
Their father was the famous composer and educator Lowell Mason, a visionary who was the first to bring music into the public schools of America. He was also known throughout the world as a composer and publisher of hymns, and is often called the “father of American church music.” Henry Mason shared his father’s lifelong dedication to music.
Emmons Hamlin was not a musician, but instead a brilliant mechanic and inventor. While working at the melodeon factory of George A. Price and Company of Buffalo, Hamlin invented a way to voice organ reeds, so that they could imitate the sound of a clarinet, violin or other musical instruments.
Hamlin developed his discovery to perfection, and in 1854, he and Henry Mason formed their company for the purpose of manufacturing a new musical instrument that they called the “organ harmonium.”
June 2, 2014 | Categories: DAILY PHOTOS WITH STORIES OF NEW YORK CITY | Tags: architecture, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge, Coors beer, East River, East River beach front view of Brooklyn Bridge, East River view of Brooklyn Bridge, Ebb Tide lyrics, Emmons Hamlin, Frank Chacksfield "Ebb Tide", Hans Von Rittern, Henry Mason, low tide east river, Manhattan, Manhattan Bridge, Marie Flageul, Mason & Hamlin, Mason and Hamlin, Mason and Hamlin piano, New York City, New York photo, Photo of the day, photography, piano at low tide, piano in Atlantic Ocean, piano in East River, piano in water, piano on Manhattan beach, piano under Brooklyn Bridge, pilgrims of Mayflower, Sequoia Restaurant, South Street Seaport's Pier 17 | 3 Comments