Living the high life on the High Line

On Saturday afternoon, I had the pleasure to walk the new High Line on the west side of Manhattan. I was with my great friend Tom, a man who knows the history of Manhattan with a thoroughness that's as impressive as it is engaging. It was a treat to see the new park and it was an even greater treat to hear the story of the area told with affable manner of a man who's in love with where he lives. Anyhow, it was a pretty dreary day and in looking over my photos, they didn't do it justice. But thanks to Flickr, somebody else's will do the job far better than mine can.

I first learned about the plans to turn the High Line Railway into a linear park in about 2004. I was in New York to see the new Museum of Modern Art building and there was a whole gallery on the first floor of the new MOMA dedicated to the architectural plans for the new park. They were enchanting and ambitious plans to turn an emblem of west side urban decay into an asset unique in the world.

The High Line railway was built in the 1933 and it's an elevated railway that runs from the freight yards on 34th Street and follows 10th Avenue to the wholesale grocers in the meatpacking district at Gansvoort Street. The last train ran down the High Line in the early '80s and it sat abandoned for 20 years.

During those 20 years, it was cordoned off and allowed to go fallow. In time, the rail bed sprouted grasses and wild flowers and eventually, small trees. One of the final acts of the Giuliani adminstration was to set in motion the eventual destruction of the High Line, much to the horror of a group of preservationists called the Friends of the High Line. With the end of the Giuliani years came the new, High-Line-friendly administration of Michael Bloomberg. The Friends of the High Line had been raising private money to preserve the High Line for years and with the blessing of the Bloomberg administration, the transformation of the High Line from decaying relic to shining asset began.

The park's been described as an urban meadow and it's a perfect description. It sits about 30 feet above the street and as soon as you walk up the ramp and step onto the High Line, the smell hits you. It's the sweet, grassy smell of being in the woods. It's a total disconnect, because you're surrounded by the warehouse and water tank views of the meatpacking district.

photo from Flickr

The park itself is a graceful, meandering path and it's easy to forget where you are. But every once in a while you turn a corner and to the northeast looms the Empire State Building and it throws everything back into context.

photo from Flickr

Prior to the construction of the new walkways, the Friends of the High Line hired biologists to catalog the plants that had grown over the tracks naturally. They collected seeds over the course of two years and cultivated them. The landscaping in the finished High Line is a naturalized, balanced mix of native grasses, wildflowers and small trees. It's pretty cool to think that most of the plants there now are the descendants of the pioneer weeds that took over the place to begin with.

photo from Flickr

The park meanders through neighborhoods and through actual buildings at a couple of points. It's a surprisingly quiet respite in a city not known for providing very many of them. If you find yourself in the Greatest City on earth, head west on 14th Street and pick up the High Line.

photo from Flickr

photo from Flickr

photo from Flickr

photo from Flickr

photo from Flickr

photo from Flickr

photo from Flickr 

Read the background on this art installation here.

My last day in New York and The September issue

For the third night in a row, I'm sitting down to write a post and it's late and I'm beat. But it makes me feel like I live here when I run myself into the ground and I can sleep when I get home tomorrow evening.

I had another great, great day. I spent the first part of it talking to Yakov and Angela Hanansen, two great mosaic artists with a studio and mosaic school in Chelsea. Yakov's latest work was unveiled last week and I was indeed fortunate to be able to see the work and have him describe it to me.

His installation is in a new 7th Avenue entrance to Penn Station and it consists of marble mosaic detail shots of the original Penn Station embedded in a wall of the current Penn Station. He described his work there as an expression of the fragmented nature of memory. Since people remember things in small fragments, it made sense to use small fragments of marble to illustrate New Yorkers' collective memory of the much-loved and now long-gone original Penn Station. Brilliant and to hear the artist describe his work to me in those terms while we sat in his studio was a real thrill.

Look for more about the Hanansens after I get back to my usual routine next week.

After that, my great and smart friend Tom and I took a walk through his neighborhood and looked at architecture. Tom's been a New Yorker for nearly 30 years and I swear he knows every square inch of this city by heart. Walking around with him is an archeological expedition and I can't get enough of that stuff. Today we walked the new High Line Park, which is spectacular, and then he pointed out the old department stores along Sixth Avenue.

I have walked down Sixth Avenue more times than I can count, but I've never really noticed the buildings that line it. I like to think of myself as the guy who notices everything, but clearly, my attention to detail can be flawed.

This is the original O'Neil department store. Sixth Avenue had an elevated railways running down the middle of it 100 years ago and lining Sixth from about 17th to 23 Streets was what was knows as The Ladies' Mile. The Ladies' Mile was where the dry goods, department stores and dress shops were centered in the Manhattan of the last century.

Here's the O'Neil department store today. Like everything else in Chelsea, the O'Neil building has been carved up into wildly expensive condominiums. It still has its iron facade and cuppolas, and there's something to be said for that.

New York's filled with gems like the O'Neil building and I'm fortunate to have a friend like Tom who takes such pleasure in pointing them out.

Then to put a cap on everything from the week, another friend and I went to see September Issue, a documentary about the making of the September issue of Vogue. It was a fitting movie to see at the end of my Fashion Week experience. The movie's fantastic and I think I understand the business and art of fashion a whole lot better than I did a week ago. Here's the trailer:






I doubt I'm going to start buying $5,000 suits any time soon, but I can see the fashion world's influence through the worlds of art and commerce in a way now that I couldn't see before. So let's say Jason Wu picks bright yellow to use as an accent on a dress and he settled on that yellow because it reminded him of something he saw or read. Anna Wintour approves of the dress with the yellow accent and puts it in Vogue. The editors of Elle Decor and Metropolitan Home see the yellow accent and start homing in on yellow accents in the rooms they profile. Manufacturers see a yellow throw pillow highlighted in a shelter magazine and start integrating yellow and other bright colors into their lines the following year. I get a furniture catalog and start seeing all of these bright colors coming out and when somebody asks me what's the hot new color, I say "Yellow, it's all over the new furniture catalogs." And all of that started with someone like Jason Wu taking a walk on a Sunday afternoon and seeing a yellow butterfly or raincoat or traffic light.

A week ago, I thought my answer to that question stopped with what the manufacturers were showing me. Now I can see the line it follows to get to me more clearly. The more I think about this the more I can see that what happens on the runways of New York and Paris directly effects me, what I do for a living and also what I like. It's interesting and I really haven't thought about it before.

And just think, I never would have seen any of that were it not for a forward-thinking faucet company that watches these runway shows like hawks for the very reason I just described. Thanks again Brizo!

New York day two; and what a day it's been

It is late. Again. And oh what a day. Again, many thanks to my gracious hosts from Brizo.

It was a day of firsts. I mean, not only did I go to a real runway show, I sat in the same room as Anna Wintour. Not that she noticed but still.

I was seated in the second row and the models weren't on an elevated walkway. I was right there and it was nothing like what I expected. It was loud and energetic and by the time I was five minutes into it I was really caught up in the whole scene. I still couldn't begin to describe what I saw, but the mere fact that I was there means something. In fact, Franki Durbin from Life in Venti Cup was getting quite the vicarious thrill from my being at that show today. She sent me this message on Twitter this afternoon after I sent her a couple of photos: frankidurbin @saintpetepaul OMG. Are you FRONT ROW at Jason Wu???????? You've got connections, my friend!

I don't have the heart to tell her that I met and spoke with Jason Wu at the after party.

If you're interested in reading about Jason's show this afternoon, Booth Moore from the LA Times posted this right after the show.

I met a ton of great people today. Fashion people, marketing people, PR people, advertising people, media people and beyond. It was fantastic. I'll be writing about yesterday and today for weeks and I owe it all to a really dynamic faucet company, Brizo. Thank you.

A Brizo Thursday

So I made it to New York this afternoon and after a two year absence, it's really good to be back here. I always forget just how much I like how this city feels. It has an effect on me and all I need to do is see the skyline from across the East River. That first time the city comes into view just does something to me. I feel instantly smarter and more successful. It's an odd thing.

I'm here as the guest of Brizo as I've been saying for the last couple of weeks. They've put me in a great hotel in Murray Hill, the 70 Park Avenue Hotel. The 70 Park Avenue is a smaller boutique hotel, and a lovely one at that. There are Frette sheets on the bed behind me and believe me, they are calling.

I'm here with a small group of designers and architects from around the US. We spent the afternoon getting to know one another a bit and then meeting with the Brizo product development and marketing teams. All of us who are participating have a vested interest in understanding one another and it's really cool to be a part of this group. We've been given the chance to see into the process of how Brizo gets an idea for a fixture and how that idea becomes a faucet. It's fascinating stuff and I could spend the next few days talking to the industrial designers in particular. They work in an environment of ideas and they love their work, that much is obvious. Listening as they traced back the allusions, homages and influences that went into the fixtures I already know was captivating. These people travel the world, looking for shapes and trends and inspiration and then they take all of those disparate images and distill them into a single shape. It's heady stuff, and pure design. Where all of this is heading next is jaw-dropping. Keep your eyes on this brand, trust me on that.

Following the process of going from an Erte illustration to the RSVP faucet above is a wild ride and after having been granted a glimpse into the process I can see the finished product in different light. This synergy of art and commerce, of elevating an everyday object to the status of an icon, is some pretty cool work and I'm thrilled to meet the people who do just that as their life's work.

New Ravenna's Beau Monde

New Ravenna Mosaics fabricates the newly expanded Beau Monde line for Ann Sacks. The great Sara Baldwin, who is the heart and soul of New Ravenna, has a run-through of the collection on her blog, Sara Baldwin Design. Reading Sara's stories behind the patterns and getting a glimpse of her motives and inspirations adds a significant dimension to this work. These patterns harness the vocabulary of natural stone and make it sing.

Look over New Ravenna's entire collection on their website, they are in a class apart. No one can make stone and glass look like this. After you look over their collections, read Sara's blog. I always learn something about both the designs and the woman behind them and that's a welcome thing indeed.