The Artisanry

People must walk around Manhattan with their eyes closed if they can't understand the uproar over the ugly glass buildings that are going up around town like a giant glass fungus sprouting from the bedrock below us.

I spent a few minutes trying to capture some details on buildings in the Lower East Side that make the difference between something created with thought and artistry versus something built cheap and fast to make a quick, greedy buck.

See the building in the middle on the first photo? No soul. Even the plain buildings next to it have some form of decorative detail that makes the difference between "kill me now" and "I can live with that." Eliminating design changes the texture of a neighborhood.

Keep in mind that these photos are buildings that were built for the working classes. The thought, artistry and energy that went into making them interesting doesn't exist anymore except for the very wealthy.






I love this fire escape. Across the street there is another building with the same design but painted black.