The Manhattan Apocalypse is coming--if only in some guys' apartment. [Gothamist]
The New Museum of Contemporary Art is also coming--the banners are all over town and the New Yorker speculates that this "abrasive" tower that "contrasts dramatically with its setting" will be "powerless to prevent SoHo from following it to the Bowery." [NYer]
Pigeon czar to unleash $4,000 robotic hawk to rid city of pigeons. Okay, I know these birds are little more than rats with wings, but isn't this just another assault on the urban? What will the city spend thousands of dollars in technology to get rid of next? Unicyclists who ride around with parrots on their shoulders? (Actually, I wouldn't mind sending an electronic hawk after some of those guys.) [mcbrooklyn]
Speaking of hawks, check out these flesh and blood beauties of Tompkins Square Park (emphasis on the blood). [NMNL]
At least someone still loves the city critters. [NY Shitty]
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a.k.a. The Book of Lamentations:
a bitterly nostalgic look at a city in the process of going extinct
- Jeremiah Moss
- THE BOOK:
"We should all buy Jeremiah Moss’s book, Vanishing New York." --Sarah Jessica Parker
“Essential reading for fans of Jane Jacobs, Joseph Mitchell, Patti Smith, Luc Sante, and cheap pierogi.” --Vanity Fair
"a vigorous, righteously indignant book that would do Jane Jacobs proud." --Kirkus Reviews
THE BLOG:
"the go-to hub for those who lament New York's loss of character." --Crain's
"No one takes stock of New York's changes with the same mixture of snark, sorrow, poeticism, and lyric wit as Jeremiah Moss." --Village Voice, Best of NY
“Jeremiah Moss…is the defender of all the undistinguished hunks of masonry that lend the streets their rhythm.” --Justin Davidson, New York Magazine
"One of the most thorough and pugnacious chroniclers of New York’s blandification." --The Atlantic, Citylab
"Hyperbolic and combative, tireless and passionate." --Salon
Pigeons build their nests with their own feces. They carry bedbugs from windowsill to windowsill. They are a primary carrier of disease amongst humans in an urban environment. For these reasons, and others, we have a city government that seeks to reduce their threat to our health. Governments taking measures to protect our health is a long urban tradition going back t least to the tenement laws in New York, and to ancient practices in European and Asian cities.
ReplyDeleteWay to quote selectively from that review of the New Museum.
ReplyDeletethanks--quoting selectively is an art.
ReplyDeleteJeremiah ,for more blood , guts and perversity ( pidgeon rat and squirrel that is )use the NMNL search window to search for "Red Tailed Hawks "and scroll through the gore to the post about the Hawk that prefers to eat only the pidgeon's head ( the head is the best part you know ) leaving headless pidgeon corpses lying about Tompkins Square Park .
ReplyDeleteSo many feel so good about hawks providing a "natural " end to pidgeons and rats but really whats this new museum building going to look like in 5o years or so without that special patina that can only be created by pidgeon shit ...how can this building age gracefully ? How can this building gain the aesthetic gravitas required of any self-respecting public building with out at the very least a stain here and there?Pidgeons are necesarry ...its nature's way.
...and without rats ,who is going to maintain all those garbage receptacles filled by all the tourists that visit the museum and all the other entertainments downtown at a reasonable level of over-flow ...the maintainence staff ?
Really , get serious people , with all the new hotels , a whole new city of them just on the Bowery ,and the horde of waste- makers to come that will temporarily inhabit them , Rats are absolutely necessary ...its natures way . Ask any self-respecting Roman citizen .