Grand Recycling

Maybe the most epic recycling is that of the sea floor where it melts under the weight of continental shelves, but the revamping of the armory for use as a neighborhood sports complex is very impressive. As proponent of adaptive reuse Dave Burney suggested, check out those trusses. If this was built today it's pretty hard to imagine the product wouldn't be a nightmare along the lines of the Atlantic Center. No trusses to speak of. By the people, for the people, 7 years in the making, the Park Slope armory represents an inspiring community enrichment. I wonder what's in the works with all those other Brooklyn armories?

New Aquaintance

Not Williamsburg, William Burges, an eminent Victorian architect who gave Cardiff Castle a mid-century upgrade. This morsel comes to me via 13th St., where I picked up a small book on Cardiff Castle tossed out with some pamphlets on various Pueblas.

Also among the plates, this stuffy little closet and John, 3rd Marquess of Bute, 1858. Watch out.


The art-architect died in 1881, and his epitaph bears the words of Lady Bute: "ugly Burges who designed such lovely things - what a duck."

Friends of the Triskelion

Cartouche emblazoning the entrance of the 9th St. YMCA, just a few blocks down slope from Prospect Park. Maybe that explains the flipped P's? If you think it fulsome, you should go check out the 'stoons!

multiplication

pinkcandescence on 3rd street

They're here!

Around Ansonia

Into the Ansonia Court this weekend for a 4-year old's princess birthday party. They have pictures of the old factory hanging in the Court's entryway, but I wish they'd put up some images of the amazing clocks they once fashioned there. Back before the court was lined with trees, I imagine. I never noticed how all the trees planted every three yards around the courtyard have limbs that grow nearly straight up in most cases. A good choice for the tight space.

I asked Russell if he knew what the green stuff growing on this 12th St. tree could be. He said barley. Once I told him about it he kept calling it Lincoln instead of lichen and cracking up. He wanted to take some home, but I didn't have anything to put it in and didn't feel like putting it in my pocket. Perhaps I had my karmic retribution when a gel pen spilled its ink in my pocket, coating 2 of my fingers with a glittery blue patina.

I'll have what she's having

8th Street Facade

This is not the grandest building in the slope but its facade always stops me in my tracks after I've parked the car in the CVS parking lot on 9th St. It has the appeal of a fancy cookie.

Darn that fence! If I ever become a stilt walker I'll have much better photography to offer.

Sad About Tuna

At C-Town this morning I noticed a brand of Tuna called Dolores. Such a strange name for Tuna. The name derives from a word meaning sad, but it doesn't make me sad because it reminds me of my wonderful aunt. Well, it is sad that she passed away but I like to think she's still around, joking, guiding me to stumble across a brand of tuna bearing her name. Just like I once wound up driving behind a car with plates that read AUNTDODO, which is what we all called her. While she was alive, she collected dolls and had a husband so sensitive he cried when he listened to Segovia play the guitar. It was very hard for a man like that to recover from losing his true love, but he did it.

I was three quarters down the aisle when I backtracked a little to look at an old man whose profile reminded me of my father's father. He was talking to a woman about his health, telling her he has been in tears for the last two weeks with some health problem. He blamed her, he said it was because of her damn ouija board. That's when I decided to continue eavesdropping. He said that the board talked to everyone but him, so he challenged it and shoved it under his bed. The next day he tore his achilles tendon which is not a good thing when you live in a 5 story walkup.

In another aisle I saw a woman shopping, her beautiful baby sitting silently in the seat of the cart like a tiny glowing buddha. I had seen her when I first entered the store about 10 minutes ago, and now I was seeing her again, but she didn't have a single thing in her cart. I complimented her on her baby, and she spoke to me a little, with a foreign accent. I started to wonder if that was why she wasn't buying anything, maybe nothing was familiar. Maybe she doesn't trust American food. I know it's hard to switch from European bread to the kind we make here. I once new an exchange student from Spain who wouldn't go near American grocery store bread.

Tuna has been something I've been reluctant to go near since childhood when I learned about the dolphins killed in tuna nets. But I love to eat tuna, and so did the teachers at my elementary school, who weren't happy when I set up a booth to collect donations and disseminate information about the dolphin slaughter. I only got to do that one time.

The NYT reported that there are other reasons to avoid tuna, or at least just eat it once every three weeks. According to the article "The highest mercury concentration, 1.4 parts per million, was found in tuna from Blue Ribbon Sushi. The lowest, 0.10, was bought at Fairway. Why so much mercury? Can the oceans, as vast as they are, really be that polluted?

Extinguished Fire Exists

As my wedding planner told me...sometimes you look but you don't see. The first time I parked in the CVS parking lot I didn't notice these exits at all; thanks to Icky I became aware of the building's past as a vaudeville venue graced by the likes of the Marx Brothers and their ilk. I wonder if any fire emergency ever required the use of these now bricked-up doors.

Coming Your Way...

Do I really have to be thankful for 18 wheeler that drove my Thanksgiving dinner into town? Eh, why not.

Gold Digging at Colson

I've been eyeing Colson, the patisserie with a vintage 20's aesthetic which is on the corner of 6th and 9th St., next to Barbes. I know people who live over there, I often wonder if they go there, I would.

I went there today but maybe I picked the wrong moment. I had 3 heavy bags (yes, plastic, still hopeless) in my hands when I yielded to the impulse to dash in for a few cookies for the kids. I didn't see the little step up and tripped, flew into the metal and glass wall to the left of the door. Everyone in the place heard the impact and looked up. When I went in, everyone looked at me, and a woman asked me if I was OK. I told her it was just the bags that had crashed into the wall, pointing at my 3 overloaded Ctown bags. She said "Oh, I thought it was your face." No, it wasn't my face, but it was many things including the dozen eggs I just bought. One of which I later discovered had imploded.

Once I saw the delicately browned and delightful confections called Teddy Bear Financiers behind the glass the bad moment melted away. What creative broke type wouldn't swoon over the prospect of a financier, that is also a teddy bear, that is concocted with delightful proportions of butter, sugar, ground almonds and chocolate? But I was a little suspicious of these cuties. Where were their suits and attachés? How come they were lying naked on a plate here in Brooklyn in the middle of the day and not marching down Wall St? And why could I get one for only $1.50? That's all I'd have to put out?