St. Vincent's Isn't The Only Place Closing

Today is the last day of operation for St. Vincent's hospital in the Village.  For more than 160 years, the hospital has taken care of the neighborhood.  It has even taken care of me when I had my bike accident a couple years ago and broke my wrist.  But as of tomorrow, it will become merely an "Urgent Care Center" tending to local cuts, scrapes, and minor medical emergencies.  Anyone needing surgery will have to go uptown.


Though the closing is shocking, what I've noticed lately is somewhat more shocking; the number of local businesses shutting down in general.  As the nation's economy supposedly improves, things here have seemingly gotten worse in recent months.  There are countless "closed" or "for sale" signs in storefronts all over the Village.  Some of them are stores that have been around for decades and others just a year.  


I've been taking some photos recently of all these closing....these pics below are just in a few blocks radius of my apartment. Along with the closure of St. Vincent's, they are truly signs of the times.

Dubai Photos Show Highs and Lows

Dubai, that space-age city rising out of the sandy Persian Gulf coast, has been in the news lately for its troubled present--namely a huge debt crisis which shook world markets last Friday. But despite it's financial problems, this city of tomorrow still looks pretty fabulous, especially the Burj Dubai, the tallest structure in the world.

Set to be completed in spring of 2010, there was a cool photo gallery of pictures of the Burj on the Guardian UK's website recently. The building truly looks like something from a sci-fi movie-I was thinking LOGAN'S RUN for some reason. Anyway, this super-sized skyscraper will have about 160 floors when completed though it's actual height is a closely guarded secret.

Yesterday, I found another less glamourous photo gallery on Dubai over at the TIMES website, as part of their excellent LENS feature. Photographer Lauren Greenfield has a series of pictures showing the troubles Dubai is experiencing due to its growing pains. The pictures here, though, are as equally stunning as those of Burj but in a different way. My favorite and weirdest is the caravan of trucks carrying sewage out of a city that's grown so quickly, it's sewer system can't keep up with demand. It looks like a fascinating place to visit....though I may wait a few years until all that construction is finished.

The Blinking Building

Christmas has come early to Nolita. Last week, this half finished fancy condo building started blinking like a mod X-mas tree, lighting up it's corner of Houston & Mulberry. This bit of impromptou art is part of a mini-trend here in NYC as empty buildings and storefronts give way to public art and even art gallerys. In the last week, I've noticed the ground floors of new construction on 8th Ave in Chelsea and Flatbush Ave in Brooklyn that were previously unrentable have suddenly filled with canvasses and scultpures.

This building, 290 Mulberry, is one of these ultra lux condos that have been popping up all over downtown. According to the Bowery Boogie, only 4 of the nine floor-through units have sold and the building remains without a formal occupancy date. Usually, I despise these buildings but this one, with it's undulating brick facade and now it's colorful light show, is turning into an interesting neighbor.

What's In A Font

Apparently a lot. Recently, I have received requests on FB to join a group angry about Ikea's change of font, from Futura to Verdana. When I first received this, I was somewhat puzzled. I like Ikea as much as the next budget-conscious New Yorker but I didn't know the depth of love their font style had generated amongst the design cognoscenti. There were impassioned comments and posts on how the new font (a Microsoft creation btw) is meant for the web, not print and how its definitely not meant to be blowup to billboard size.

TIME magazine has a nice summary of all the brouhaha. The thing that bothers me about the whole thing is not so much the aesthetic issue but the financial one. I mean, whose bright idea was it to change their corporate font, something that clearly will cost the company millions of dollars, in the midst of the Great Recession? I thought Ikea was supposed to be all Swedish and frugal and smart. Though their website boasts "new lower prices", I fear that this massive change will begin to show up in the price of a Ribba and that would make truly me an unhappy Ikea customer.

Signs Of The Times in the TIMES

I've noticed that the NY TIMES has been getting pretty adventurous in the ways that it covers news. With its "grey lady" days long behind, the TIMES has recently taken to commissioning artists and illustrators for soft news and feature stories.

The TIMES recently put up a slide show of drawings by artist Jane Chiverton which grabbed my attention. It consisted of illustrations of store fronts in the city reflecting these brutal economic times. What I really liked about Chiverton's work is that it honestly documents what I have noticed walking around town in recent weeks; family businesses closing after decades (like this butcher in Chelsea), abrupt restaurant disappearances (like the Two Boots on Ave A and the famous Vesuvio's Bakery), and an ever growing number of "for sale/rent" signs in shop-happy hoods like SoHo and the West Village.

There is no doubt we are deep into this Great Recession. And, as Chiverton's drawings illustrate so vividly, the signs are literally everywhere.