Cold Milling Machine, new and old

This beast of a machine was parked in my neighborhood for several days. It's a Wirtgen Cold Milling Machine, used to remove concrete and asphalt, stripping down the road before it's repaved. I really enjoy drawing construction vehicles with really complicated bits and parts. Not sure how successful the background technique was.

I remembered drawing a similar machine some time back, and was able to dig it up. I drew this 11 years ago. I've improved over the decade, but have I improved that much?

Road Saw

I've wanted to draw one of these big road saws for a long time, and I finally came across one parked at a place when I had some time to draw. Vermeer is an Iowa-based manufacturer of industrial equipment. As far as I know, it has nothing to do with the Dutch painter.

Some process pix:

Digger Arm

 I love drawing construction vehicles. It's always surprising that such brute, utilitarian machines often have such graceful curves and forms to them.

Forklift Friday

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

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.

All Star Garbage

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

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.

Bobcat

Bobcat forklift loader.

The Future of Upscale

An interesting thing sometimes happens when buildings are torn down. The backs and sides of the buildings on the other side of the block are revealed. Sometimes you can see a ghostly outline of the demolished building on the face of the adjacent property. Sometimes you see decades-old painted advertisements for long-gone businesses. At this lot on West 55th Street, next door to the Peninsula Hotel, you can see the backs of some of the mansions of "Millionaire's Row" on 54th St. Most of what's exposed is the rear of #11 West 54th St., designed by McKim, Mead and White. It had been home to James Goodwin, a cousin of J.P. Morgan, and later was home to the Rhodes Preparatory School. To the left, you can see the back of the Lehman House. Who knows how long those big bay windows were facing the back of some other buildings?

The lot was previously occupied by four turn-of-the-century townhouses, also designed by McKim, Mead and White. The architectural details of the buildings were stripped away, which is a sneaky trick real estate people pull to keep buildings from being designated landmarks, clearing the way for them to be demolished. In 2017, Skyline Developers, which also owns the Rockefeller townhouses on 54th, purchased the lots for $83 million. In recent weeks, before the pandemic shutdown, construction crews were in there, seemingly preparing to start building something. It's unclear what is going to go up there, but the giant signage out front promises it will be THE FUTURE HOME OF UPSCALE.


City Realty: "Skyline Developers Unfurl Banners for Prime Midtown Site"

The Real Deal: "Skyline Developers Scoop Up Vacant Site for $83M"

Road work

Excavator parked on Prospect Ave. I always enjoy drawing construction machines. They have all the intricate gears and hoses and doo-dads that I love to draw, even as I wonder what they actually do. But they also often have surprisingly elegant shapes in them, like the curve of the arm on this machine.

Inktober Week 3

Week three of the Inktober challenge.

Digger

They tore down two houses at the end of my block, and are building a row of big townhouses.

LaFarge Brooklyn

The LaFarge Cement plant in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. As it happens, this was the second time I've drawn a LaFarge facility. Last year, I drew this one, located in New Jersey, seen from the shore of Staten Island.

Before It's Gone: Kosciuszko Bridge

The old Kosciuszko Bridge, with the new Kosciuszko Bridge behind it. It spans the Newtown Creek between Brooklyn and Queens. The old bridge was built in 1939, and has been over-capacity for decades, no longer meets infrastructure standards, and is generally about to fall down. The new span just opened, and the old one will be replaced by a second span.

Everyone was excited because today was the day that the old bridge was going to be demolished. Lots of people, including myself, planned to go watch them blow it up. Two things, though: 1) It's not being demolished today; the date is still TBD. 2) They're not going to blow it up. They're going to dismantle it and lower the span onto barges. I guess it doesn't make sense that they would blow up a bridge that's right next to a brand-new bridge, and over a body of water. But I would've liked to have seen that.

The bridge was named after Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a Polish volunteer in the American Revolution who served as a general. I wonder if anyone would name a public project after a foreign national in today's climate?

Concrete Scraper

This machine is apparently a concrete floor scraper. For when you need to scrape a concrete floor. Outside the Empire Stores development in DUMBO.

1st and 1st

For years and years now, the intersection around First Ave. and First St./Houston St. has been torn up with construction. It's pretty bad, because it's the intersection of two major streets, a busy subway stop dumping pedestrians onto the street, and a bike lane. So I was pleasantly surprised at the beginning of the summer to see that construction was finally complete! The roads freshly paved, the bulldozers gone, the sidewalks open, the bike lane free and clear.

So of course, a week later, they were digging it all up again. The exact same spot!

This one was actually done over two or three days. Everytime I went to draw it, they would come and move it.

Fire hydrants to be installed. I'd never thought about how far underground a fire hydrant extends.

A steam roller. Why are they still called steam rollers? They don't run on steam anymore, do they?