All houses dream in blueprintsEvery freaking day I walk past the new Astor Place highrise, which is growing like a weed in the spot that was formerly a parking lot. The Sculpture for Living, as it is called. This cracks me up, because the taller, shinier, and more hubristic this abomination gets, the more it becomes (in my eyes) the Sculpture for Dying (When Either a) the Building Goes Up in Flames and Melts Like a Shrinky-Dink Before They Can Save You or b) Some Terrorists Decide to Fly A Plane Into It Because They Simply Cannot Resist, The Temptation Is Too Great). Peripherally related: I don't get why this piece in the current New Yorker about the behemoth doesn't once reference the fact that the whole "Sculpture for Living" dealie seems like a riff on the Le Corbusier's concept of a machine for living. Can I get a witness? Posted by Dana at 12:00 PM
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Shit from an Old NotebookPreach it! Besides, the concept of a "machine for living" actually makes sense. A "sculpture for living" is a two-bit hack ripoff of a phrase that sounded cool as it was sailing over the copy-writer's head.
Posted by: Vidiot at April 25, 2005 12:49 PMMy god. It's full of stars the most horrible people this culture has yet produced.
Posted by: jpoulos at April 25, 2005 01:36 PMDamn <s> doesn't work!
Posted by: jpoulos at April 25, 2005 01:37 PMit can hardly ruin St. Mark's; she's already ruined. back when i first lived there, it could even be sorta scary! every second person on the sidewalk was selling pot (and everyone else was undercover trying to bust them), random groups of young men would take to each other with baseball bats and broomsticks for 3am sidewalk brawls, every summer day they wheeled another OD corpse out of Tompkins Square Park, and every pay phone was covered in vomit or blood. and we always stayed out until 6 am.
Posted by: reeves at April 25, 2005 02:19 PMI miss the guy that used to sit in the trash can across from your apt. and smoke, Reeves. And the frenchmaidjunkiehooker. Miss her too.
Good times.
Posted by: N at April 25, 2005 03:55 PMThe front page of the Astor Place website has a typo. Scorn them and their "limitied" collection!
Posted by: tizzie at April 25, 2005 04:10 PMyeah, good days. but back to the point: that building, i think it will look a bit out of place.
Posted by: reeves at April 25, 2005 04:16 PMfunny how you choose this topic.
HG and I were walking by astor place yesterday and beside the fact that the they installed the window into the cigarette lighter, i realized with a 911 type of shock that the rotating cube is gone along with the skatekids. I am old, now.
No cube?! bastards.
Posted by: jpoulos at April 26, 2005 10:10 AMDon't worry, it's just gone for repairs.
Posted by: dana at April 26, 2005 10:16 AMah! dana you so informed, do you want the post of Director of Central Intel ? Leaderonia is awaitng you.
Posted by: SECRETARIAT OF THE GREAT LEADER at April 27, 2005 09:36 AM