toy world.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

Tilt-shift time lapse photography of NYC by Sam O'Hare

the backside of hell's kitchen

Stayed at Ink48 back in January. It's snugged into the backside of Hell's Kitchen along 11th Avenue, which is just a nudge too far off 9th Avenue -- that wonderful street of shops and restaurants -- to feel like you're still in Midtown, even.

But the rooms are massive, for Manhattan, and it has a lovely view of the Hudson.

The sky starts to open up as you near the hotel, walking along 48th towards 11th. The skyscrapers of Midtown are just a memory and the sun has more opportunity to seek out surfaces and shine them up, resplendent -- which you think would be a good thing, and your evolved brain that digs beauty says *yes,* but your animal brain that has taken safety in the canyons feels tiny and nervous and exposed.

Like a creature crawling out from under a rock after a hard rain.

big yellow taxi

Upper East Side. Holga.

then & now (midtown)

Sometime last Summer. (holga)


Day before yesterday. (shot by a colleague)

and to think I saw it on mulberry street

I took this shot from my hotel room in Manhattan three blocks away and one day before that plane touched down in the Hudson River.

I was presenting in the same hotel the afternoon that it did, just before the news came in and the room started to buzz, and then later that evening I got the job of closing the bar bill, so I never got to step outside to hear the sirens in the street and see folks walking quick to the river bank, craning their necks to get a look at the miracle of a planeload of people standing in the cold water on the wings of the craft. I never got to see what I could see.

Maybe if my head hadn’t been pounding after everyone else went home and I retired to my room to order room service and work on a slide deck for the next day’s meeting, maybe I would have stepped out into the street to hear the quiet city silence that settles in after the wondering, after the what do you know about that, after the parade has passed, the lion tamer has gone, and the dustman sweeps the street.

analogue prologue to the dialogue

Holga.

empire state (near dawn)

Holga. NYC.

apparitions, bryant park

Just a few steps distant of Nikolai Tesla corner.

Holga. NYC.

Crumpler's packed.

Crumpler's packed.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Tetanus' injected. Chloroquine's quaffed.

Dumpling Man will probably stay behind for safekeeping. (OMG whadya mean you don't know the Dumpling Man of the East Village? Many thanks forever to Rahul, who introduced us.)

Posting by cameraphone from home where I'm packing for Chiapas and the Petén.

under wraps. in the rain.

I love the New York Public Library in Midtown Manhattan. I love the little hotel that I usually stay at because it's right there, near the library. I love that our NY office is just a block or two away. I love the Rose Reading Room, where I can camp out and get some work done in all that light and space and on those lovely long tables lit by those beautiful copper lamps.

A long long time ago I designed the information architecture for the Seattle Public Library's web site where I proposed a component of their site design that they still use today -- a library locator that, when selected, takes the visitor to a page that's dedicated to their local branch. I know: seems like a no brainer today. ;) But this was before MapQuest even (I'm pretty sure) and the Seattle Public Library was working hard to get the public behind funding of a new downtown library building, and they kept hearing complaints from folks who said "MY library is my LOCAL branch." So we wanted to make that idea clear and inclusive in the information architecture of the site. Which we did. [1]

I learned a few months after it went live from my SPL client that she met with the folks from NYPL and they commented that they really liked that locator feature. So guess what they did? Yep: got one of their own.

So yeah: there is a little piece of me that is over the moon happy to think that the NYPL has a little piece of me on their website. Because that part that's stored deep in my heart? The one that loves climbing those double branching stairways and double dog digs the marble washrooms: it's the deep heart parts that are often the hardest to see.


[1] And a footnote: The original execution -- which is not longer out there -- had all of the branches displayed as links on screen in the right hand rail. It's now a dropdown menu which I don't dig as much. It doesn't tell the story in the same way: It doesn't have the same heft that says "We are Us."

rainmaker

rainmaker
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Cabdrivers in Manhattan must welcome the Spring rain with the same joy that farmers feel when it falls on their crops. Rain means nobody's walking; rain means everyone flags a checker cab from the curb to stay out of the mess, to try to stay dry; rain is how the money is made.

And rain means I'm having one heck of a time getting out of here.

Posting from the limo (not a single cab available) that I flagged down on 5th Avenue after my car service called to say they'd be another half hour late, on top of the one hour late they had already promised me.

It took awhile. I'm soaked.

Had hopes of catching an earlier flight home to arrive in time for at least *half* of the Devotchka show in Chicago tonight -- the show that I bought tickets for about, oh, three ago months now.

Looks like I'll be listening to stories about how great it was instead.

Posting by cameraphone enroute to Laguardia.
Pouting a little.

brooklyn academy

BAM
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Waiting on a friend. Two tickets to Beckett's Endgame at BAM's Harvey Theater in my pocket. Sipping tea. A little bit tired after a long day of meetings with one more on the horizon before I head home tomorrow night.

Reminding myself that I can sleep when I'm dead.

Posting by cameraphone from Brooklyn, NY

the scottish play

the scottish play
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

A few brief thoughts about the Scottish Play headlined by Patrick Stewart (oh hell: Macbeth. We saw Macbeth. This isn't a theatre. I can say it.) which I caught last night at the Lyceum with @karigee, because there isn't time enough to write up something thorough and thoughtful -– it was too big, and any approach I might make is heavily saddled with former English Major baggage, and I have to be at a meeting in half an hour.

So here it is:

• The sitcom Friends gets a lot of credit for introducing brief episodic scenes into the dramatic narrative. Shakespeare did it first.



• I thought this was a play about ambition. The director Rupert Goold wants me to know that it's about tyranny and tyrants and, maybe?, George W. Bush. And he's right. And I'm ready to rally against it.



• The thing of a play is: it must be inhabited. The life that is brought to this play through the blocking, through the body language, through the acting -– always and again I'm astonished by how powerful dramatic action can be. When it's well done.



• There's such a huge and clear difference between a mediocre Shakespearean actor and an accomplished Shakespearean actor. When a player can deliver that language with all the naturalism of breathing -- like Stewart did last night -- there's nothing better. It's potable poetry.



• Devastated by the scene where Macduff learns of his family's fate. Reminds me of the Henry production in Chicago -- the scene with Hotspur and his wife. How often did Shakespeare do this with the antagonist -– infuse them with a humanity that brings the big themes into startling focus? Making it all manageable. Evoking such compassion.



• Lady Macbeth: I wasn't your fan in the first Act, but now that you're washing out those spots I'm all yours. Such pure, believable madness.



• And, right: How old is Patrick Stewart again? Damn he's hot in those boots.

Posting by cameraphone from Union Square in NYC.

first we take manhattan

Headed to NYC this afternoon, but not staying in Midtown, where this holga was taken, and where I’ve spent so much time over the last couple of years that it’s starting to feel like home. It’s close to Bryant Park and my favorite office away from the office, plus I know where all the drugstores are.

Instead I’ll be staying near Union Park, on the edge of the East Village, near Teddy’s birthplace, close to the only Louis Sullivan in New York and alongside the pub where O’Henry wrote the Gift of the Magi. And just around the corner from where the statue of John Wilkes Booth’s brother Edmund playing Hamlet adorns Gramercy Park.

(And yes: I’ve been reading the guide book. ;)

Working of course, but may be able to squeeze in a walk or two. Stay tuned.


holga.

boxed in

boxed in
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Spent the afternoon losing my way with** an old friend through the New Museum of Contemporary Art, which really *is* a new museum (designed by architects Sejima & Nishizawa) and is also *called* the New Museum.

The structure and the exhibits were wholly disorienting.

Which is not entirely a bad thing.

The going without my big gun camera? That was kind of a bad thing.

Posting by cameraphone from NYC.

**and catching up and eating lots of good food with too.

south of houston

south of houston
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Just South of Houston which, I'm told, means we're in Soho. (SOuth HOuston)

And Houston? By all means *don't* pronounce it like a city in Texas -- instead lead with the word "house" if you want to avoid the subsequent moment in which the cabbie asks: "So where are you from?"

Which carries the subtext: "Because clearly you're not from here."

Posting by cameraphone from NYC

remote office

remote office
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Being stuck in Midtown due to a flight cancellation meant that I made the Rose Main Reading Room at the NY Public Library my office this morning.

Pure blue heaven.

Only something like lunch with the inimitable jkonig was strong enough to drag me away from that place.

Now to Newark to catch my flight.
Wish me luck and clear skies.

the empire state wakes up

the empire state wakes up
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Staying in a postage stamp sized room where the A/C unit is positioned right next to my head -- correction: the A/C VENT is right next to my head.

But this was a nice perk -- woke up to discover the sun rising on the Empire State Building.

Posting by cameraphone from NYC.

word on the street

Soho, NYC
Cameraphone shot

where to go in new york city

Detritus had a hit from Croatia this last week from someone looking for "farnsworth house,mies,bathroom".

I love that.

(Landed them at beinahe nichts -- I hope they weren't too disappointed.)

Just for you, my Croatian friend, I'm going to offer up another Mies van der Rohre bathroom -- this one in midtown Manhattan -- and a good one to have tucked away the next time you're tooling around the big city.



Tucked unobtrusively off 52nd Ave, just off the main 375 Park Avenue address for Mies’ and Phillip Johnson’s Seagram Building, is the lobby for the Four Seasons Restaurant.

When I was there back in September with my darlin' companion the lobby was all ours – the coat check was unmanned, and none of the people behind the gentle sounds from the restaurant upstairs ever ventured down the glorious travertine staircase. The restrooms were all ours too – sweet little Miesian marble stalls with their own individual light fixtures (those, too, in marble) and wide open slots where the ashtrays used to be. (Although I can't vouch for the loveliness of the men's room.)



One of the best public restrooms in New York City, for my money -- if you rank public restrooms (as I do) for their cleanliness, ease of access, historical interest, and proximity to architectural greatness.

The Seagram Building
375 Park Ave.
New York, NY