Apr 24

Apr 24 Excavating the Present

Architecture, Cityscapes, New York City, Travel

“The sound of strangers sending nothing to my mind
Just another mad, mad day on the road”

— Rolling Stones, Moonlight Mile from Sticky Fingers (1971)

I have lived in New York twice, and for 51 years, I have regularly visited the city and its outer boroughs. In all of that time, I have never been to the top of the Empire State Building. While out wandering the streets of Midtown today, I found myself standing outside that icon of art deco. “Hmm, no line.” I decided to head up, hoping to see what all the fuss is about; hoping to see the shadows that Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick cast long ago.

Clearly, the Empire State Building is a very profitable tourist attraction. To visit the 86th floor observation deck and the enclosed viewing platform on the 102nd floor set me back $77—at the senior rate. I took a pass on express elevator access—a $38 add-on—as well as on a pricey prix-fixe meal at the State Grill and Bar.

Unfortunately, I did stop in the Starbucks Reserve store on the ground floor for a quick cup of coffee and cookie after my visit to the top: a ripoff with no meaningful seating space. The manager told me I could not sit on the floor in a corner, but the window ledges were OK. If you decide to visit the Empire State Building, I suggest a bubble tea in the nearby Korean district. Who knows, you might meet a member of BTS, or Psy of Gangnam Style fame (celebrating the 10th anniversary of its release this year).

If you visit with kids, beware. Before boarding the main elevator, visitors must first pass through an area for a mandatory photo, which can be purchased when exiting through the gift shop, best described as department-store-sized (a slight exaggeration, but not too far off), selling every imaginable piece of crap known to mankind. Snow-domes, metal replicas of the building in a variety of sizes, photographs, mugs, books, T-shirts, King Kong and other memorabilia, among other trinkets for the folks back home.

But when all is said and done, I enjoyed the trip to the top and the views. Recommended. You don’t need to go to the 102nd floor for a good view, so you can just buy a cheaper admission ticket without missing out, but then you forego the bragging rights and an Instagram moment—there were at least three groups of Instagrammers when I visited. Aside from the view, my favorite part of the tour occurred while I was standing in a room with windows on interior walls. Projected on the windows was a film showing biplanes circling the building. Then King Kong appeared, peering in the window searching for Faye Wray, all accompanied by the movie soundtrack that I first heard as the Clergy track on the Jefferson Airplane’s Bless Its Pointed Little Head.

Looking down on Manhattan from the 86th floor, I appreciated once again why I love New York. It’s the layers represented by low-rise buildings built long ago, the terraced high rises buildings that preceded Mies van der Rohe’s era, the international-style skyscrapers that impaled the sky in the Fifties and Sixties, and the oligarch penises (aka sliver buildings) now casting shadows over too much of Central Park. While dissecting all those layers of progress, I visually navigated New York’s history, as encased in brick, concrete, steel, and glass.

But to understand New York, you need to walk the city. Sometimes, I focus on people during my perambulations. If I’m lucky, I encounter events such as a K-Pop scrimmage in Washington Square Park, a youth chess tournament near the Bethesda Fountain, or a march across the Brooklyn Bridge protesting former President Trump’s immigration policies. More times than not, I just follow the light and shadows to wherever they take me—I am a flâneur—often to a neighborhood or a street that I have not yet explored.

But today, and for the preceding two days, I focused on graphics: video boards in Times Square, posters pasted on the temporary walls of construction sites or subway entrances, and signage telling passersby what is inside the storefront. In Times Square, if you look closely and ignore the video walls promoting Broadway shows and movies, you will see on display the issues that divide our culture. On this trip, the issues being addressed were anti-semitism, opposition to flavored tobacco (with a BLM twist), and gun control. On one street just north of Times Square, a pro-life billboard’s neighboring billboard promoted a new rap album, referencing glocks and hoes. Below and tucked between those signs, there was a gentlemen’s club. The confluence of these markers is a surrealist’s dream.

Now that weed is legal in New York, an abundance of signage promotes brands and the stores where it can purchased. When younger New Yorkers are not stoned, they seem to be alienated, as evidenced by another video board just north of Times Square, which reflects growing dissatisfaction with work and employment. And those who get the late-night munchies will have no problem finding pizza, tacos, or McDonald’s, where death was on someone’s mind early Saturday morning. When pot no longer does the trick, people can turn to Scientology, Jesus, or both.

Taken together, the graphics, with their many seemingly disparate messages, reveal our collective psyche at this moment in time. Not surprisingly, we as a society have issues. Hail to the Italian photographer Luigi Ghirri, the master of capturing revelatory signage in the Seventies. He worked in one-point perspective. I am probably more twisted than Ghirri; I prefer a more slanted perspective. For people to truly appreciate this sort of photographic effort, several decades must pass. Time travel is always an enlightening experience.

[Click on an Image to Enlarge It]. For those who want to skip to the good part. The best image of from this trip is at the end.