Middle Collegiate Church

 A drawing from four years ago of a lamp mounted to the Middle Collegiate Church on Second Avenue. I used to pass this church every day when I was at NYU. The church was built in 1891. Last night, a fire broke out in a neighboring building and spread to the church. It looks like it's a total loss.

Forklift Friday

 They're building a new playground at my kid's school.

Bell-47D1 Helicopter

A 1945 Bell-47D1 helicopter, nicknamed the "bug-eyed helicopter." This is on display at the Museum of Modern Art, where I work. It hangs in the atrium, and you can get close up views of it from several different vantage points.

Three thousand Bell-47D1 helicopters were manufactured between 1946 and 1973 under the world's first commercial helicopter license. They were used for crop dusting and spraying, rural mail delivery, traffic surveillance, and as aerial ambulances during the Korean War. Every time I see it, I hear the theme music to M*A*S*H.

This helicopter was designed by Arthur M. Young. Young didn't invent the helicopter, but did invent the stabilizer bar and other features that made it a more successful and practical vehicle. Young studied mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy at Princeton University. After graduating, he decided to find something to invent and settled on the helicopter. He spent 12 years experimenting on his own, building working models before bringing it to Bell. 

After developing the Bell-47D1, Young decided he was done inventing things and turned his attention to back to philosophy. He spent the rest of his life developing his Theory of Process, which sought to synthesize all geology, biology, anthropology, psychology, ESP, precognitive dreams, astrology, Jungian archetypes, yoga, mathematics, and quantum physics into a single metaparadigm.

One of his metaphors was the Psychopter. "What is the Psychopter? It is the winged self. It is that which the helicopter usurped - - and what the helicopter was finally revealed not to be." No, I don't what that means.

Process drawings: Pen and ink before applying color with my usual Derwent Inktense pencils. I forgot to take a picture of the third one.

More info on Arthur Young can be found here.

Halloween 2020

 Trick or ... well, probably just trick with these guys.

Frankel's Discount Clothing

A few years ago, this store in industrial Sunset Park, Brooklyn caught my eye. Then I saw an article that the elderly owner, 3rd generation owner Marty Frankel, would soon be closing the store and retiring to New Jersey. I filed it away as a possible entry for my "Before It's Gone" series, but forgot about it.

A few weeks ago, I happened to pass by and saw a bunch of construction workers around it. I figured they were preparing to demolish it, so that weekend I made my way out to capture it. To my surprise, I discovered that it was still open for business; those construction workers were apparently just shopping. 

Finishing up the initial sketch, a man waved me in. It was the 4th generation owner Erik Frankel. The store had closed in 2017, but Erik re-opened it two years later. It seems to be surviving pretty well in spite of the pandemic and competition from Amazon.

Frankel's was founded 1890. It was originally located across the street in a building that was demolished to make way for the Gowanus Expressway. It served longshoremen when Brooklyn had a thriving waterfront. It also did a brisk business selling condoms to foreign sailors in port from countries were contraception was illegal. After the shipping business died out in Brooklyn in the 1960s, the store transitioned to selling clothes and shoes for construction workers, ironworkers, and other laborers.

Initial pencil drawing, done from across the street, beneath the Gowanus Expressway.

Inks over the initial drawing, with the typography done with markers.

Laying in the color, mostly with watercolor pencil, and watercolor wash for the sky. You may notice a typo in the signage. It was my fault and I fixed it in Photoshop for the final posted image!

This feature on Marty Frankel, written when the store was about to shutter, is well worth a read: 

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York

On the re-opening of the store: 

www.star-revue.com: Sunset Park's Frankel's Plans a Reboot

To give them some business:

https://www.frankelsny.com/

Forklift Friday: Bryant Park

 Forklift Friday! A big one at Bryant Park.

Save Our Stages

I've had the idea to do a series of drawings of theaters for awhile. The closure of Broadway has drained Times Square of its overwhelming crowds. This has made it a great spot for urban sketching, but has also make it an especially depressing landscape. It is surreal to walk through block after block of shuttered theaters, empty of the throngs of tourists, workers, and hustlers that clog the streets in normal times.

I'd wanted to see Hadestown. I have a bad habit of procrastinating on going to see a show and then it closes. How was I to know that they would ALL close? Who knows how many of these shows will be able to re-open? Even if theaters were allowed to re-open tomorrow, they'd be subject to a limit of 25% capacity, and it is impossible for any production to operate at those numbers, even the big commercial shows.

Built in 1929, the Loew's Kings Theatre on Flatbush Ave. was one of the five flagship "Loew's Wonder Theatres." It fell into decline and was shuttered in the 1970's, lying vacant and derelict until being renovated in 2015 by the ACE Theatrical Group out of Houston. It is now shuttered again, like every other performance venue. On this day, the awning was shelter for a homeless man.

This one I drew three years ago. At the other end of the spectrum from Broadway are a number of tiny venues like this one. Their survival is tenuous in the best of times; I don't know how they will weather this situation. The commercial houses and big institutions will come back at some point, but these little theaters?

The Joyce Theater, a dance performance space on 8th Ave. On the side of the building is a quote from choreographer Twyla Tharp: "Art is the only way to run away without leaving home."

The Lunt-Fontanne Theater. Comedy and Tragedy, and maybe that's Dionysus in the middle? I'm not sure. These Greek theatrical masks are a reminder that live performance has survived a multitude of plagues, wars, failing governments, and disasters for millennia, and will surely survive this. The Tina Turner musical was playing here when Broadway shut down. A giant banner above the marquee reads: "I've rarely heard an audience with this mighty a roar."

Webster Hall is one of the most historically significant halls in New York City, and has been recognized as the first modern nightclub. It was designated a New York City Landmark in 2008. It was built in 1886 as a "hall for hire," hosting labor union rallies, weddings, lectures, concerts and other events, particularly focusing on the working-class and immigrant population of the Lower East Side, and gained a reputation for leftist, socialist, Anarchist and labor activity. In the 1910s and 20s, it became known for masquerade balls and soirees of the Bohemians, earning the nickname "The Devil's Playhouse." It became known as primarily a music venue in the 1950s, featuring Latin artists, such as Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez, and folk artists like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. Over the next 70 years it featured just about every major musical act you can think of, from every genre, and countless more that you've never heard of. In the first half of the 20th Century, it survived at least five fires, as well as the 1918 pandemic. Will it survive the 2020 pandemic?

The Brooklyn Academy of Music is the oldest performing arts center in America, founded in 1861. Originally located in Brooklyn Heights on Montague St., that building burned down in 1903.

This building was then commissioned for Lafayette Ave. in Fort Greene, designed by architects Henry Herts and Hugh Tallant, who also designed the New Amsterdam Theater and the Lyceum Theater. It opened in 1908 with a production of Faust starring Enrico Caruso and Geraldine Farrar. It quickly became a predominant venue in the city, featuring legendary performers such as Isadora Duncan, Paul Robeson, Sarah Bernhardt, and Rudolf Nureyev, and speeches by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

In 1967, Harvey Lichtenstein was appointed executive director, and over a 32 year tenure, BAM was revitalized and became known as a center for progressive and avant-garde performance, as well as film. It has featured a multitude of international artists, including Philip Glass, Trisha Brown, Peter Brook, Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham, Bill T Jones, Laurie Anderson, Peter Sellars, Robert Wilson, Mark Morris, and many more.

RIP Eddie VanHalen

 

I can't claim to have been the biggest Van Halen fan, and I don't remember the last time I listened to their music. But they were definitely a big part of the soundtrack of my teenage years. Diver Down was one of the first albums I ever bought, if not the first. So I was sad to hear of the passing of Eddie Van Halen.

All Star Garbage

For a week, there was a fleet of garbage trucks at a demo site across the street from my job.

Street Shoes

 Someone put out a bunch of shoes in front of my building. They looked like pretty nice shoes!

Forklift Friday

 I doubt I'll keep up with this #ForkliftFriday thing, but I happened to come across another one this week, so here it is.

Church chimneys

Chimneys on the roof of the United City Church, located next to McKkenna Park in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.

Bobcat

Bobcat forklift loader.

Argyle Road

An 1898 house on Argyle Road in Beverley Square West, one of eleven neighborhoods that comprise Victorian Flatbush. This area stretches south of Prospect Park, and contains from 2000-2500 houses in the Victorian, Queen Anne, Tudor, Greek Revival, Colonial Revival styles. It is one of the largest concentrations of Victorian Houses in United States. In the early 1900's, Thomas Benton Ackerson conceived of a planned community in which no two houses were alike and each had a lawn. He purchased 10 acres of farmland from Charlotte Lott for $85.000 and developed the area known as Beverley Square East and West. Ackerson was able to get to get the BMT subway line to build two stations to service his development, and convinced the city to rename East 13th, 14th, and 15th Streets to the tonier-sounding names, Rugby, Argyle and Marlborough Rd.

Process:

History of Victorian Flatbush:

Untapped Cities: One of the country's largest concentrations of Victorian-era homes is found in Brooklyn

2014 Victorian Flatbush Request for Landmarking

Tree and fence

Tree outside my apartment building.

Process

3 Houses

Three houses across the street from my apartment building in Kensington, Brooklyn. The sky is a lie. In reality, a humongous, 16-story apartment building looms behind them.

Three steps of process:

Triumph TR6

A Triumph TR-6 parked in Windsor Terrace. Cars are surprisingly tricky, with all their curves and angles, and getting the proportions just a little bit off can make them look completely wrong. I almost got this one right.

Gravesend F Train

Elevated F Train on McDonald Ave. near Avenue P in Gravesend, Brooklyn.

Mystery Pagoda of East 31st Street

Usually when I find a building as distinct as this, I can find some sort of information about it. Not this time. It may be associated with a Chinese cultural organization a few doors down, or it may have been an Asian restaurant or bar, but I can't find out for certain.

May The Fourth Be With You 2020

Happy Star Wars Day!

McKenna Park

A still-bare tree at Captain John McKenna, IV Park. It's a small park in Windsor Terrace named after a local soldier who died in the war in Iraq. I like taking my kids there because it's so small and hardly anyone is ever there, except this cranky old woman who's always yelling at other people for being there. She seems to be angry that people aren't social distancing enough, even though it's only a very few people nowhere near each other or her. I suspect she's just never liked people being in "her" park, even before the pandemic.

Amabie

The Amabie is a Japanese yokai, or spirit. According to legend, in 1846, it emerged from the sea in the Higo Province. A town official encountered it and drew it in his report, depicting it with long flowing hair, a mouth like a bird's bill, scales from the neck down and three fin-like legs. The Amabie prophesied six years of good harvests, and told the official that "if disease spreads, show a picture of me to those who fall ill and they will be cured." Though a minor and obscure figure in Japanese folklore, it was revived by manga artists during the current pandemic as a symbol of resistance to the disease.

The original report of the Amabie from an 1846 kawaraban, a type of news sheet made from wood or clay block prints.

Life Drawing: Anastasia

From a figure drawing session at the NYU Theater Design Department in March.