On the Waterfront

I've been spending a lot of time at the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a Visiting Artist, quickly filling up the sketchbook I've dedicated to that project. I'd planned to try to fill one book during my stint there, but maybe it'll wind up being two? Anyway, here's a couple, roughly grouped under the subject of "mooring." Thanks to my sister-in-law, who attended the the Maine Maritime Academy, for helping me to identify what some of these things are called.

Providence and Portsmouth

I spent the last two weekends touring with the Bang Group dance company to Providence and New Hampshire/Maine. I've been lighting their holiday show Nut/Cracked for the last couple of years. They're in Boston this week and you can catch it in New York City at the new Flea Theatre.

Providence

Sheperd Company Builidng. This building in downtown Providence used to be Sheperd Stores, which was once one of the largest department stores in New England. The pillar seen in the window is covered with fashion advertisements. It currently housed state offices and local colleges.

Turks Head Building. I went to college in Providence, and always wondered what the deal was with this building. This giant, somewhat racist Ottoman head certainly makes it one of the most WTF subjects I've drawn. (What you can't see in this sketch is that the Turk has fangs.) When it was completed in 1913, it was the tallest building in Providence. A shopkeeper on the ground floor installed a figurehead from the ship Sultan above the entrance. It was later destroyed in a storm, and this stone replica was installed. I was pleased that I finally got the curved architecture almost right; I always struggle with that.

One of the interesting things about Providence is the remaining defunct street furniture, ghosts of the city's past. This tower on Weybosset Street is the remnants of a comfort station that was torn down in 2011. Now it's just a sort of traffic divider. The old night deposit box is outside the Union Trust Company Building on Westminster and Dorrance. The bank is long gone; now it's a restaurant and residences. But this night deposit box remains. Do businesses even use night deposit boxes any more?

Portsmouth, NH

We performed in Kittery, Maine, but stayed across the river in Portsmouth, NH. The World War I Memorial Bridge spans the Piscataqua River between the states. It is a vertical-lift bridge. The center span rises up to allow boat traffic through.

The North Church. The church, constructed in 1854, is one of the main landmarks in Portsmouth, visible from across the city. A winter storm was coming in as I sketched it. I completed it later with photo reference I took. I got the corbels, the protruding support structures, on the lower part, all wrong.

Dugong Vent

Structures like this are all over New York City, but are so non-descript that they're easily overlooked. It turns out these mysterious things vent gases from the city's underground infrastructure, subways and utility tunnels and the like. 

In this post, Forgotten New York claims that this model is called The Dugong (OBGUN-69a), but I think that whole post is a gag. I like the name, though.

Martha's Vineyard Pole

Utility Pole in Martha's Vineyard.

Before It's Gone: Village Voice Box

One of the most ubiquitous examples of street furniture in New York is the red Village Voice newspaper boxes. I drew this a few weeks ago as part of my "Before It's Gone" series, when I heard that the Village Voice would cease publishing print editions. Today, I heard that this week's paper is the final edition, so it seems a propos to post it today. I imagine these boxes, now on street corners across the city, will be gone soon.

I spent a year in Boston before moving to New York, and I would buy the Voice each week (you had to pay for it outside of NYC) and peruse all the listings and blurbs of all the cool stuff going on, and dream about living here. When I arrived a year later, the Voice played a pretty big role in my life. Now I could actually go to some of those things. Or, even if I didn't or couldn't afford to, at least I was in the same city! There was some great news reporting and columnists. And the classified section was huge. I actually got a job or two from them. People would line up at the Astor Square newsstand on Tuesday evening, where the new paper would arrive early. Everyone wanted to get first crack at the apartment listings. And there were tons of kooky, kinky sex ads, of every stripe, hinting at a huge illicit under-economy.

These days, it seems like every week, some iconic signature of New York City disappears: a restaurant, a bar, a store, a business. And everyone says, "I can't imagine New York without ________" But the truth is, a lot of times no one's gone to that place in years. I can't remember the last time I picked up a copy of the Village Voice. They laid off most of their main reporters and columnists and drastically cut the page count several years ago, and the functions of the classifieds have long been supplanted by the internet. The publisher says they will transition to being an online paper, but I haven't looked at their website in ages, either.

Water Street Pipes

A pair of pipes in front of a building on Water Street in DUMBO. I don't know what these pipes are for; pumping something in or pumping something out? They reminded me of a pair of drunk buddies, staggering home.

PIV

This water pipe, called a Post Indicator Valve, or PIV for short, stands askew in the grass outside the Music Hall building at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island.

A PIV is a valve used to control the water supply to fire protection systems in large buildings. It's the connection and control between the private and the public water system. One of the things I enjoy doing with these urban sketches is the subsequent research, either to discover the history of a particular building, or just what the heck it is that I drew, like these random water pipes sticking out of the ground. Very often, I come across some website that tells you more than you ever wanted of needed to know about the subject at hand. Like this site, which not only tells you all you need to know about Post Indicator Valves, but about fire hydrants in general, and even about the history of the Kennedy Valve Manufacturing Company, which is still in the hydrant business in Elmira, NY. So now I not only know what a Post Indicator Valve is, but that this one  is a P027 Model 541.

Type 24M Corvington Longarm

This is a replica Type 24M Corvington Longarm lamppost at the Northwest corner of Prospect Park. 

When I do these on-site urban sketches, I often do a little Googling to see if there's any interesting history or trivia about the subject. I didn't expect to find so much information of New York City lampposts! There are multiple posts on the cool site Forgotten NY, a very, very comprehensive site run by a guy named Jeff Saltzman, and several others.

Gas streetlights were introduced in New York City in 1823, and electric ones follolwed in 1892. Once the technology stabilized in the late 1800s, lighting companies began to pay attention to the ornamental design. The original "Corvingtons" were cast iron, and the "long arm" style was found on wide avenues and boulevards, to place the fixture further out into the wide expanse. There were many other types of lampposts suited for narrower streets, sidewalks, intersections, et al, with names like the "Bishop's Crook", the "Classic Twin", the "Type G", the "Type F," and the "Reverse-scrolled Type F."

In the 20th Century, they began to be replaced by simpler, cheaper aluminum and steel poles, like the Deskey Cobra and then the Westinghouse MO-8 lampposts, and only a few of the original cast-iron poles still exist. But in the 1980s, a movement started to retrofit lampposts in some areas with retro replicas, like this one in Park Slope.

The term "Corvington" was apparently coined by Mr. Saltzman after a similar model he'd seen in a catalog, and it was adopted by other "street mavens," of whom there are apparently many. "Type 24M" is from a code number given to every type of streetlamp in use by the NYC Bureau Of Gas and Electricity in The System Electric Companies: Photographs of Street Lighting Equipment As Of November 1, 1934. This is what I love about the internet. There are nerds for everything. No matter how particular or esoteric the subject, there is someone out there who is fiercely passionate about it, and they will build a website about it.

Street Steam

One of the signature visual symbols of New York City is the mysterious Con Ed steam stacks. Actually, they're not really that mysterious ... two seconds on Google tells you that they are just venting excess and leaking steam from the city's steam power system. But it seems mysterious, especially at night, these 12 foot towers places seemingly randomly in the city streets, continuously spewing clouds of steam. I've never noticed these in other cities - maybe they're everywhere - but like rooftop water tanks, yellow cabs, and hot dog carts, they are iconic symbols of the Manhattan landscape. This one was down on the Lower East Side, on Allen below Houston.