Today is the 130th anniversary of the dedication of the Brooklyn Bridge, one of New York City’s iconic structures.
My favorite depictions of the Bridge are the watercolors and prints created by artist John Marin in the early 20th century. Here’s an etching from 100 years ago, from the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.
Image: John Marin, Brooklyn Bridge, 1913.
When I’m walking through the streets around Times Square, I tend to keep moving as quickly as I can, while focusing on my destination rather than my actual surroundings. If you’ve been anywhere near Times Square over the past decade or two, you’ll understand.
One afternoon, however, I was forced to wait for a traffic light to change, and as I stood on the corner of Broadway and 46th Street, I did something that New Yorkers often forget to do: I looked up.
The Wall Street Journal has just published an article about C. O. Bigelow, “the oldest apothecary in America,” in honor of its 175 years in business. The article gives an enjoyable overview of Bigelow’s history, including this line:
Civil War generals frequented the shop, according to old ledgers, and store records from 1905 show Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, strolled the aisles alongside Clarisse Coudert, aka Mrs. Condé Nast.
You can read it here (at least, until some paywall shuts us out).
I was doing some research at the New York Public Library’s main reference branch yesterday, and when I left the library and crossed the street, I spotted this mural. It’s painted on a pair of doors off to the side of the Andaz Fifth Avenue, a hotel that I’d never really noticed before.
The painting is signed by artist Aimee Cavazzi. I looked her up when I got home and learned that she is “artist in residence” at the Andaz. She painted this work just a few weeks ago, and she says,
“I would take the train in the spring time and early summer as a young teenager and felt, just as the picture depicts, inspired, overwhelmed and in awe of the immensity and intensity of the city.”
I know what she means, and I’m glad I still feel the same way in New York sometimes: energized, happily astonished, percolating with ideas, drawing inspiration from my surroundings.
You can see some photos of Cavazzi (and her students!) at work on the mural here.
Image: photo by Tinsel Creation.
There are many things I could say about outfits worn by various guests at last night’s Costume Institute gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The title of this spring’s Costume Institute exhibition is “PUNK: Chaos to Couture,” and invitees were encouraged to dress accordingly.
Kim Kardashian, who is the very first person I think of when I think of art, culture, and fashion history, showed up wearing a floral gown designed by Givenchy.
Not very punk, you might say. Not at all transgressive or deconstructed or what have you. And then again. . . .could she possibly have been making an obscure allusion to a costume worn to the Met by another risk-taking visitor, some twenty years ago?
