I Have A Thing For Buildings

When I was in high school, I pal'd out with this awesome group of guys who enjoyed doing things beyond the usual go get drunk at a field party weekend. We were the Rocky Horror crew (a solid decade, or more!, after it arrived as a cult fave)... We spent a lot of time watching old Monty Python episodes... We were theater geek, new wave, aspiring intellectuals... It was awesome.

One of my favorite memories from that time was a trip we made one weekend night. We all piled into "Rykk's" CRX and drove into downtown Louisville to stare at the architecture. My friend Will wanted to actually be an architect (which, by the way, he completely is)...and the rest of us were just enthralled by the old buildings. We ended the evening dancing, Fred and Ginger style, across the concrete circles on a fountain along the riverwalk and pondering...I dunno....whatever it is that high school kids ponder.

I still have a thing for buildings...as evidenced by the fact that I came back from NYC with a crick in my neck from staring up for almost 24 hours straight. But I saw some pretty neat stuff...

This building was a few blocks down from the hotel somewhere between the edge of Chinatown and the edge of Little Italy...
I'm not actually certain what building it is, but the architecture was awesome....and there was a lot of greenery around it (green is a rather shocking color in this part of Lower Manhattan). Had it been this area, I would have called it an Embassy. But...I dunno...do they have embassies in New York? Probably not...

One of my favorite things about old residential buildings are the fire escapes. I think I've watched Rent one too many times ("I wanna go....ouuuuuuuut tonight!")...but nostalgia aside, from a strictly visual standpoint, a building lined with fire escapes has incredibly interesting lines...
I love how the curved lines of the landings make swirly little shadows. It's like the side of the building has a mess of curls...

And then there was this...
...which is kind of a jaw-dropper. (MrR actually sent me back across the street to get a picture of it because we were both just standing there slackjawed staring) Only in NY could a rib place double as a BDSM joint without anyone thinking twice about it.

And, last but not least, a non-building vignette...
We discovered this poor soul outside of Lombardi's while we were waiting for a table. I'm sure there's quite a story about the history of this moment...but I didn't spend much time theorizing about it. I was more impressed that a discarded object had managed to decay itself into art.

So. Cool.