In January 1944, Wright described his choice of color and material as “Exterior: Red-marble and long-slim pottery red bricks.”

If Wright had had his way with his wealthy client, Solomon R. Guggenheim, the mining entrepreneur, the Guggenheim Museum would not have been near white. The architect made designs not only in red, but in pink, peach, and a sort of ivory. He also proposed black marble.

In the end, Wright finally specified a paint color identified as “PV020 Buff.” By the time of the opening in October 1959, Wright was dead and the color had been changed on the job to a tint of cream and very soft yellow.

{ NY Times | full story | slide show }

Tell me how you got involved with The Standard and this project.
I work as a video artist—the owner of the Standard was familiar with my work from a show in New York. He commissioned a video piece to be featured as a permanent installation at the new Standard hotel in New York.

Was there any type of creative brief given to you?
They were interested in a work which could be installed in the elevators. Other than that there was no brief—the understanding was that I would propose a work and they would either approve it or I would come up with another approach.

How did you come up with the concept for this art installation?
The idea of doing a “video mural” had interested me for quite some time and the journey from hell to heaven depicted in this way seemed to be a good fit. (…)

Tell me how it will be used in The Standard, NY
It will playback on a high-definition monitor which will be seen through a viewing port in each of the elevators at the hotel and move according to the direction of the elevator.

{ Q&A with Marco Brambilla | MotionGrapher | Continue reading | watch the video }

{ Lara Schnitger, Untitled (Butt), 2009 | Anton Kern Gallery, New York | May 7 – June 20, 2009 }

related { The economic difficulties facing galleries in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. }

The other day on Fifth Avenue in the 50s, I was confronted with one of those ubiquitous red warning signs with a snowflake: “Snow Route / No Standing During Emergency / Vehicles Towed.” Underneath it, another red sign said: “No Standing Anytime.”

So there was no standing when there was a snow emergency and there was no standing when there was not a snow emergency. (…) If there was no standing anytime, why did I need to know there was also no standing during a snow emergency? (…)

On East 47th Street near the United Nations, twin signs announce: “No Standing Anytime” and “No Standing / 6 AM-6 PM / Wednesday / Except Farmers Market.” Definitely too much information.

In the West 40s, another pair presented an intriguing puzzle: “No Standing / 3 AM-5 AM / Except Sunday,” and just below, “Other Times/No Standing Anytime/Taxi Stand.”

So you could stand there weekdays and Saturdays before 3 a.m. and after 5 a.m., and all day Sunday. Except when you couldn’t. Which was all the time — unless you were a taxi.

{ NY Times | Continue reading | more }

The next time you purchase a monthly Metrocard, which is slated to increase to $89 at the end of June, think about this: Almost one-third of the money you spend — about $29 — will go to service the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s massive $26.8 billion debt.

This simple fact indicates why the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is in perpetual crisis. The MTA will spend nearly $1.5 billion to service debt in 2009, and it projects debt servicing will swallow up an average of more than $2 billion a year from 2010 to 2012. (…)

The MTA breaks down expenditures into operating and capital. The capital budget pays for expanding and building subway lines and stations, purchasing new subway cars and buses, maintaining signals and communications and related activities. The operating budget includes salaries, health and pension benefits, fuel and electricity and cleaning trains and stations.

John Petro, urban policy analyst at the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, wrote in a recent report that while New York City and State funded 30 percent of the MTA’s capital budget in the mid-1980s, by 2004 that support had declined to just 3 percent.

Petro argues that for more than 20 years, “the city and state abdicated responsibility to fund capital programs, forcing the MTA to borrow huge sums to maintain mass transit service. … as huge debt payments eat up larger portions of the authority’s operating budget, the MTA is facing ever-larger budget deficits.”

{ The Indypendant | Continue reading }

{ For several years, a three-story, wrap-around billboard has blanketed the lower floors of the 19th-century Cushman Building, 174 Broadway, at Maiden Lane. 10 days ago, the Department of Buildings took the sign down. “These signs were installed without a permit, and we removed them to protect pedestrians and the building’s tenants,” said Ed Fortier, the agency’s executive director of special enforcement. The department said that 517 violation notices had been issued to OTR Media Group-controlled locations citywide. | NY Times | Continue reading }

related { This site intends to survey all of the signs in New York City from 14th Street to 42nd Street. }

{ Tourists and New Yorkers alike lounged in the middle of Broadway on Monday, a day after the city opened the five-block-long Times Square pedestrian mall. | NY Times | full story }

{ Jenny Holzer at the Whitney Museum of American Art | March 12-May 31, 2009 }

{ Maps of Manhattan look uptown from 3rd and 7th, and downtown from 3rd and 35th }

related { What lies beneath the surface of New York Harbor? Alligators, a piano and a dead giraffe, stripped cars, dead bodies, toilet paper and all that goes with it… | NY mag }

{ The architect Santiago Calatrava with his current model for a transportation hub at ground zero in downtown Manhattan. | Full story }

{ Peter Funch | Interview }

These days, anyone who goes out to eat — and certainly anyone who orders wine at a restaurant — is looking for value. Here are 10 tips that will help you find value in wine at restaurants.

1. Skip wine by the glass. Restaurateurs like to make enough on a single glass to pay for a whole bottle, which is great for them but not so great for you. And it wouldn’t be so bad except that so many wines by the glass are poured from bottles that have been open for too long and mistreated after opening. (…)

3. Bypass the second-cheapest wine on the list. Restaurateurs know that diners don’t want to appear cheap by ordering the least expensive wine on the list, so they’ll hose you for ordering the second-cheapest. The least expensive is actually a pretty good deal at many places. (…)

6. Never order Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio.

{ Wall Street Journal | Continue reading }

Okay, things have improved in New York State. Since September 9, 2004, you can take home a partially consumed bottle of wine from a restaurant.

A few days ago we went to the Village Vanguard, a jazz club in Manhattan. We ordered a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, drank half of it and wanted to take the rest home. The waitress said “no, that is illegal.” Didn’t she know that the law has changed? But she insisted, it is illegal, period. Back at home, I looked up the infamous ABC law. And sure enough, the waitress was right. You can take home a partially consumed bottle of wine only if each of these conditions are met:

(1) Restaurant License Required
A partially consumed bottle of wine may be removed only from an establishment which has received from the New York State Liquor Authority a restaurant wine license or a restaurant liquor license. (…)

(2) Full course meal required
A partially consumed bottle of wine may be removed from a licensed restaurant establishment only if the bottle of wine was actually purchased in connection with a full course meal, and only if a portion of the wine contained in the bottle was actually consumed with the meal. (…)

(5) Only one partially consumed bottle of wine may be removed from the restaurant
The purchaser of the full course meal and the wine may remove only one partially consumed bottle of wine.

(…)

Clearly, the Village Vanguard is not a restaurant. That alone makes it illegal to take your wine back home.

{ Wine Economics | Continue reading }