Category: Place & Space
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William H. Whyte, People-Watcher
William H. Whyte (October 1, 1917 — January 12, 1999) was an American urbanist, organizational analyst, journalist and people-watcher. ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Whyte)) While working with the New York City Planning Commission in 1969, Whyte began to use direct observation to describe behavior in urban settings. Employing still cameras, movie cameras, and notebooks, Whyte described the substance of urban public life in an… Read more
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Ellis Island: JR and the Art of Immigration
The United States, like Canada, is a country of immigrants. Between 1892 and 1954, twelve million citizens of other nations landed at Ellis Island seeking asylum in their new homeland. Close to 40% of Americans can trace their genealogy through these early immigrants. ((http://www.history.com/topics/ellis-island)) There are two kinds of Ellis Island tours available. The first is a free… Read more
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What a Fleurt
Excerpt from A Tale of Two Hotels: The Gladstone (Part 1), November 2011 We were lodged in Room 303, the Red Room (or the ‘REDRUM’ as I joked in my best Jack Nicholson voice), designed by Kate Austin and Kristin Ledgett of RUCKUS. It was, all at once, intimate, stylish and homey… In a strange small-world occurrence on Friday, I… Read more
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Winnipeg is the Most Interesting City
Over dinner last week in Manhattan I declared to our three local hosts that Winnipeg is The Most Interesting City in Canada. They appeared politely skeptical as I tried to explain. I’ve written about the city before here, here, here, here, and here, praising it up one side and down the other. I can easily list the qualities I… Read more
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Displaced Words
I spy with my little eye a billboard I don’t understand. This inscription is “AP3851,” a remnant of Palestinian artist Emily Jacir’s recent installation ex libris (2010-2012) at Alexander and Bonin in Chelsea. The 1948 Palestinian exodus, also known as al Nakba (Arabic for disaster, catastrophe, or cataclysm) ((http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/al-Nakba)) occurred when more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes, as a result… Read more
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Walking Jane Jacobs’ Hood
This week, a walk around Jane Jacobs’ neighbourhood in Greenwich Village was my unfinished business and a Google maps walking tour my guide. Read more
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The Color of Water
What a deceptively simple way to capture the colors of a seasonally changing river in an historic/site-specific installation. Not that I hadn’t walked this portion of the High Line before, it just took a fourth go to stop me in my tracks. I might have to try this at home with my own river… ************ The River That Flows Both… Read more
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Impatience
Dear Guy in the Tan Sedan: What I want to know is this: Was it worth speeding down the main street in our village to catch up to the three cars who were already over the swing bridge? Was it worth ignoring the one-lane bridge protocol of stop-and-wait-then-go-and-wave to shave thirty seconds off your trip? Or… Read more
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Literary Houses: Emily Carr
[pullquote]Emily Carr (December 13, 1871 – March 2, 1945) was a Canadian artist and writer heavily inspired by the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Carr)) [/pullquote] A moment’s quiver of homesickness for Canada strangled the Art longing in me. To ease it I began to hum, humming turned into singing, singing into that special… Read more
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The Art & Science of Being a House Guest
There’s a fine line between persistent anxiety and enjoying time with people in their space. You will know how well you’ve tread that line when you’ve loaded up and pulled away. Read more