Bye Bye Monkey

Director Marco Ferreri's Bye Bye Monkey was in the DVD player last night. I watched this 1978 dark comedy with the remote in hand and a quick finger on the pause button. The sweeping views of Tribeca and Lower Manhattan are amazing. A billboard that reads "Apartments Available" is planted opposite the still elevated west side highway that ran along the future Battery Park City. In the movie, a deflated King Kong lies in the middle of a sand field, but what is now Battery Park City. From the sand field are full views of the World Trade Center, the Verizon building pictured here on the movie poster, The Woolworth tower still dominates the City Hall area and very little of the skyline exists that we see now.

Other more intimate street views are the row houses on Harrison Street at Greenwich. These were boarded up at this time, but a few were used as the Roman Empyre Wax Museum as featured in the movie. Gerard Depardieu playes Lafayette, who adopts a baby monkey found in the hands of King Kong. He lives a few blocks at Hubert and Collister and walks, rides his bike through the streets. It's great to see how unpopulated our area was and what structures are still here. Another great scene was from the balcony of an upper floor apartment in the Mitchell-Lama apartments. The camera looks out and over for a sweeping view of everything South of Duane street.

At one point Lafayette rides his bike from the row houses along Greenwich and around the corner where Bazzini used to be and then down the Staple St. alleyway and walks into a theater from a doorway under that overwalk. Another point he is riding his bike along Duane St. Park and takes a left onto Hudson. He stops there and gets some baked goods at a bakery. I believe all of the exterior shots were what existed at the time. I wish there still was a bakery there.

The overall movie storyline is a bit strange and disconnected. The dialogue, the baby monkey, Lafayette and his whistle antics, I'm sure everything "means" something. But Bye Bye Monkey is either really 'artsy' and over my head,, or just one silly episode followed by another. I'm certainly not going to try and figure out what the movie is trying to 'say'. I'll just accept it at face value and for me, to travel around the streets of mid 70's Tribeca is surreally priceless.

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265 Broadway

The architectural details I referred to in my last post that I was looking at before getting distracted by the AIDS Plaza sign is here at 265 Broadway. The "bobbin" shaped feature at the top center of the building always catches my interest as I walk by. I wish I had an architecture friend to ask about it's style and some thoughts about it. I also like the placement of the vent squares 2nd floor left. The gray slate siding and windows all make it look so cool. Art Deco?

The Stoning of Tribeca

I've noticed more and more streets in the North-West area of Tribeca 'proper' (as I call it) are taking on a new surface. Old pitted asphalt streets with large cracks and potholes are now being replaced with beautiful newly created flat cobblestones.

Pictured here is Harrison Street near Greenwich, which has been torn up for several long months now. But instead of paving the street back to asphalt, the city has resurfaced the entire stretch of Harrison  from Hudson to the West Side Hwy in cobblestone.

Tribeca is already famous for many original cobblestone streets from the turn of the last century, but this new refacing on so many streets I'm sure is a welcomed 'boast' to local residents, restaurants and land owners. I do wonder if this is a decision encouraged by local real estate interests or part of some historical restoration of the area (?).

For now, it's a great foreground for the traditional buildings in this area of Tribeca. The streets look great weather you are out for a walk or while dining outside at the many and varied restaurants along the way. Cobblestones generate a lot less heat than black asphalt. For a real 'feel' of old Tribeca take a stroll in the heart of cobblestone central.

City Hall Park pops a Boner

Several months ago a building started going up on the other side of City Hall Park. It just kept going up and up and up until finally, being so out of proportion to all the surrounding neighborhood, I decided to find out what it was. So, I Googled "Big tall building, City Hall Park" and got introduced to The Beekman.

Now how something so 'out of place' got put in the middle of these tiny streets and short buildings is odd. 77 stories of luxury apartments, a school (now that's forward thinking), and part of the NY Downtown Hospital.

Flat on one side,, and 'swirvy' on the other three, the building is silver. Like silver painted cars, that always look dirty to me, the Beekman, with more than half the facade almost up, is completely muddy, dirty,,, from the air, rain, pollution. I only hope they give it a good 'car wash' before opening day.

Happy 100th Birthday; Manhattan Bridge

Tonight, fireworks will light up the skies at the East River Park Amphitheatre in NYC in celebration of the 100th birthday of the Manhattan Bridge. The entrance to the park is on Jackson Street just north of the bridge itself. There will be many places along the east side and Brooklyn to view the fireworks, the South Street Seaport I am sure, will be packed with fireworks enthusiasts.

A week long list of events to celebrate this milestone of the youngest bridge along the east river can be found at the NYC Bridge Centennial Commission website.













I have always loved the entrance to the bridge on the Manhattan side, which is now engulfed in our China town district. Thanks to Card Cow we have a view of what it once looked like.