I went to the new Rose Center ( = Hayden Planetarium) with my Ancient Aunt
Mary.  Big cubic space with a globe inside and swirly walkways.  Planetarium
show is a bit hoky but perfectly satisfactory; the building is made of sheet
slabs of glass hung from a huge system of tensioned stainless steel struts.
It's more interesting from the outside - a night its a big softly glowing
extraterrestrial cube, about the color of a bug zapper.  Designed by Polshek
& Partners.

Called up my friend Tyler Donaldson (at Polshek) and left a message asking
why this style [8'x8' slabs of 1" glass hung from metal framework] has
appeared only recently - technology, materials, labor unions or just
inspiration?  But he hasn't called back.  Tyler's grandfather, Boyd
Donaldson, was a yacht designer, although there's some dark side to that
story he's never told me.

Went out to northwest Brooklyn this afternoon, the East River waterfront
opposite 14th Street or so.  First stop was 492-494 Humboldt Street, the
remains of one of Brooklyn's many colonnade rows.  This one was built about
1850, a stretch of two-story rowhouses unified behind a double-height
colonnade.  Now there's only two left, covered with six different kinds of
siding.  Painful, but interesting - like a car wreck.

Next stop was Greenpoint, an 1840's waterfront village which grew up into a
handsome, handsome town, and is now heavily Polish - although I notice the
venerable Cafe Europa has been replaced by a Burger King.

Went to check on the Charles Pratt's Queen Anne-style Astral Apartments, on
Franklin between Java and India (it's a pity they're parallel - wouldn't you
like to live at  the corner of Java and India?).   Mr. Pratt ran the Astral
Oil works near by (and did pretty well - he was JD Rockefeller's partner) and
this red brick building was worker's housing - beautiful on the outside, but
grim (raw stone and brick) on the interior.  Morally uplifting in its
sanitaryness, but still dank.

Then down to Kent Street, from Franklin to Manhattan, an exquisite rowhouse
street where the Volvos & Saabs are slowly moving in.  This block is unusual
in gradual building over five decades (1850-1900) resulting in a very
attractive variety - Italianate, mansard, brownstone, Queen Anne, plus
two-count'em-two churches.  Some careless alterations, but nothing too
gruesome.  The sun was golden, sending its setting rays straight down the
street, which dives westward into the east river.  Quiet - the birds were
louder than the cars.  I noticed that the work of "the Swirlmaster of
Greenpoint" - someone who faux-grains doors in unnaturally curvy lines. He or
she is all over the place, not just on private houses, but also spruced up
tenements and flats.  It's not unattractive, just peculiar.  Maybe it's a
friend of Ken's?

Taxied-back-to-the-subway past the Brooklyn Navy Yard - the granite block
Commandant's House and Officers Houses (c. War of 1812??) are sealed up, and
reuse for those seems unlikely, although a private group is trying to make a
go of the Navy yard buildings.  The Monitor was launched from there (probably
shelled Dan Becker's street, for all I know).

Came up for air at 79th and Broadway to a blue-velvet sky.  They say sunspot
peak is at hand, and we have a good shot at seeing Northern Lights even in
these latitudes, but I guess that doesn't include New York.   Turned south to
see the new 4 story roof top addition to a 1910 hotel at the southwest corner
of 77th and Broadway.  The hotel is sort  of Classical, but the
architect-adder went neo-Modern, with a Frank Gehry-like assortment of canted
roofs and galvanized wall coverings.  Kind of neat, especially because he
resisted the temptation to "make it contextual".  It's a pleasing solution.
The architect is David Kenneth Spector, who did the ultra-mod Galleria at 117
East 57th in the 1970's.

Had a BLT, FF, B&W shake looking out the window at the Apthorp, where the
owner is using vacancy decontrol to boost the rents enough to pay for
cleaning the exterior AND the courtyard.  You can tell from the street which
apartments are paying $5000 a month and which are paying $500 - at night,
this really is a naked city.

Looking at the reflections in the show windows I noticed that "ATM" in the
mirror spells "MTA".  The letters that do that are A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W,
X, Y.

Christopher Gray