Of course they word it thus, “Illegal Advertising Is Replaced With Public Art“.  Interesting.

Is it more legal to do something illegal because you did it for art, not commerce?  Don’t artists eventually make dough on this kind of thing, anyway?

For NYC, my city, it does not matter; whether it’s advertising strip joints or displaying Kieth Haring, it’s all part of the legendary aesthetic of New York; the disparate yet somehow harmonious visual elements that make the city great.

And anyway, the illegal poster bill ad guys can use a little old-fashioned competition from the illegal art guys, force them to try a little harder.

And in the end it’s all good for us law abiding citizens.

Jordan Seiler

ay

I’ve read hundreds or thousands of books, I don’t know, but none have been written for me like this story.  And I’ve gone years without picking it up because I was not happy enough to handle it’s weight and relevance.

Some excerpts:

…I can remember now, with a clarity that makes the nerves in the back of my neck constrict, when New York began for me, but I cannot lay my  finger upon the moment it ended, can never cut through the ambiguities and second starts and broken resolves to the exact place on the page where the heroine is no longer as optimistic as she once was

…It would be a long while because, quite simply, I was in love with New York. I do not mean love in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again.

…and I knew that it would cost something sooner or later because I did not belong there, did not come from there but when you are twenty-two or twenty-three, you figure that later you will have a high emotional balance, and be able to pay whatever it costs.

…I still believed in possibilities then, still had the sense, so peculiar to New York, that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month.

Joan Dideon is worth every minute of your attention.

That’s encouraging.

Jenny Shimusu

SOURCE: The IMAGIST

I’d been seeing the double-decker in NYC for years, loaded with tourists.

When I got to London I had to get used to the hundreds of them I saw everyday, and remember they were not a tourist gimmick, but a serious mode of travel.

I still don’t get the circular logic in using a London bus as a tourist attraction in Manhattan.

Back in New York, those buses are always barreling around the village carrying mid westerners who stare at us like we’re in the zoo. Taking pictures.

They thought we were ‘weird’. I knew they were weird.

One time, we were sitting on Bleeker at an outdoor cafe, and one of those buses came lurking down the street.

You could hear the driver describing the neighborhood through his bullhorn, “this is the famed Greenwich Village, home to Beatnik authors and rock musicians, alike. The crossroads of counter-culture and high fashion”.

All of a sudden this dude comes running out of the cafe, stares at the people on the bus and starts screaming at the top of his lungs, “go the fuck home, go the fuck home, go the fuck home”!  Then he stopped, turned around and walked straight back into the cafe.

The tourists were stunned. The guy put down the bullhorn and drove away fast. They had a good story to take home.

Everyone on the street was dying; It was a beautiful New York moment.

Aston + Martin with Foster + Partners just won the competition to redesign the London buses.

London
Double-Decker In NYC
Bleeker
Greenwich Village
Beatnik authors
Aston + Martin
Foster + Partners
Dezeen
My London