naturally.
Have a safe and happy Labor Day weekend.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
bugspray métier
From the NewYorkTimes:
“Back in 1992, Mark Lawrence, a spraycan artist who had been doing graffiti since he was a child in the Bronx River Projects, founded Color Cru in upstate New York. Back then, he wasn't earning money for it.”
“I was doing a lot of walls, a lot of trains, in the Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn,” he recalled. “It was a culture. If you were doing graffiti, you were doing break dancing, and you rapped.”
"He now has stores in Brooklyn, Harlem and the Bronx and graffiti-inspired advertising is his staple. He also decorates shoes and jackets at prices from $18 to several hundred dollars."
"He gets orders from abroad, too, in London, portraits of the murdered rapper Biggie Smalls are popular; in Japan, the dead singer Aaliyah is all the rage. Unable to meet demand alone, he now has seven artists working for him.”
Thursday, September 1, 2011
remix culture checks in
...and Taylor Swift goes all hip hop.
“Every girl get they freak on please.”
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
pamper yourself
Back in June ClockTowerTenants visited the Bronx Botanical Garden and featured the amazingly cool Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
In July we turned our camera to the tailored and meticulous grounds.
Today, the greenhouse interior.
Afterall, this is our nation’s largest Victorian era greenhouse and it’s open all year round.
It rises a spectacular 90 feet (nine stories) high at the dome interior. Look up.
And much of it is doubled in a gorgeous reflecting pool. (Look back down)
Some plants feel primordial, and many are just plain beautiful.
The Conservatory interior can accommodate 50 people for cocktails and you can rent it for a cool $50,000.
These are very pampered houseplants.
Pamper yourself, too.
Go visit them this Fall.
This photo is upside down: (really)
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
sailing with a cargo full of love and devotion
Adam Green is one of those remarkable people in the south Bronx who does well by doing good. International news agencies like CNN and the New York Times have been noticing for years.
He’s founder and executive directer of rockingtheboat.org, an organization with “13 full time and 10 part time staff, operating boatbuilding, environmental education, job skills, on-water classroom, and public rowing programs for over 2,000 youth and Bronx community members each year.”
I recently visited the Hunts Point Park woodshop where rockingtheboat is headquartered and Adam graciously offered me a tour. What he does is so simple and so effective.
Instead of raising money and giving Summer boat rides to kids, he requires they learn how to actually build the boat and then administer to a free rowing program on the Bronx River, giving them pride in accomplishment and a skill when they are older.
The shop is impressive.
Instruction is given in tool safety, layout,
wood finishing and shop technique.
And the boats are just fantastic.
“Kids don’t just build boats at rocking the boat,
boats build kids.”
Indeed.
1974
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