The more than 1,000 people who were evacuated from surrounding buildings on Monday were given little guidance on Tuesday as to when they would be able to return to their homes and places of business.
“This is what 90 million looks like” via New York Magazine, Urban Living, (Written Before The Deluge of Sandy):
“One57 is sharp, vertiginous. Where 15 CPW sought to blend into its surroundings, One57 seems determined to stand out—it looms over the drab commercial buildings and hotels on West 58th not so much like a waterfall, as the French architect Christian de Portzamparc has it, but as a gleaming, tumescent phallus…”
…Because let’s be clear: Although Extell is happy to open the doors of One57 to old Manhattan money—in fact, three residents of 15 CPW are reportedly interested in jumping ship for One57—the building is not really for New Yorkers. It has been built for the fresh-faced global elite and their riptide of foreign money, which swirls every month out of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia and straight into New York City.
Very tall (rendering makes her look like eight feet) , model-looking woman in a One57 bedroom. She is reading a book, not a Kindle.
And foreign buyers don’t want old. They don’t want lived-in. They want new. They want glass. They want steel. Or, as someone involved with the construction of One57 puts it, ‘Flash matters far more than tradition'”…NY Magazine
Snidley Whiplash via Jay Ward Productions
(Landlordrocknyc Opinion): Remember, Snidley Whiplash (aka Gary Barnett & Extell), all of these much-hyped mega-million dollar “sales” at your “Billiionaires’ Building” are only in contract . Your big buck buyers could back out before One57 closes in 2013 now that the show-off luster of the building is literally gone with the wind. (Like Lev Leviev, Barnett was also a diamond dealer.) Your company’s callous regard for the safety of others kinda makes me hope they do walk away. Turns out that serious violations are old news at the construction site, as are preferential tax breaks meant for low-income New Yorkers.–Landlordrocknyc
Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Lena Horne, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, The Nicholas Brothers. Zoot Suits and all that jazz from the movie, “Stormy Weather.” (VIDEOS):
It was all so simple then. Generations of NYC straphangers (without benefit of air-conditioning or Facebook) “liked” their fave Miss Subways Postergirl Finalist by snail mail postcard. Imagine the Twitter/social media P.R. ruckus such a contest would generate today. I suspect it would be a reality show.
From SFGate.com:
“It was an ad campaign conceived as eye candy to bring attention to other advertisements in New York’s transit system. But the “Meet Miss Subways” beauty contest posters of pretty young New York women and their aspirations quickly evolved into a popular and even groundbreaking fixture that ran for 35 years, from 1941 to 1976.“
When photographer Fiona Gardner first learned about it she “immediately wanted to know what happened to all the women.”
She set out to find out.
The result is “Meet Miss Subways: New York’s Beauty Queens 1941-76,” an exhibition at the New York Transit Museum running Oct. 23-March 25, and a companion book of the same name.
Call home Naomi, but please don’t hit your housekeeper with the phone as you’ve been known to do in the past. At over 28,000 square feet, this Moscow launch pad is a 21st Century Taj Mahal tribute to a man’s lady love, Russian billionaire style. That is, if the word “style” is appropriate here. Yikes!
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a Russian Trophy Property built by Vladimir Doronin for Naomi Campbell
From New York Magzine’s The Cut:
“Gizmoto reports that the Zaha Hadid–designed, and Russian Real Estate Developer Vladimir Doronin
Billionaire Moscow Developer Vladimir Doronon
–commissioned house in Moscow, dubbed the Capital Hill Residence, is “almost done.” The description from Hadid’s website(where you can also see photos):
Located on the north-face hillside in Barvikha where pine and birch trees grow up to 20 metres high, a villa with fluid geometries emerges from the landscape. Its programme is divided into two components: one merging with the hillside, another floating above the ground with dynamic views overlooking the forest.
Or, as Gizmodo puts it, “The stunning 28,524-square-foot (2,650-square-meter) mansion feels like a smoothed Star Destroyer, with two 65-foot (20-meter) towers as the ship’s bridge.” Among the amenities: a gym, a Finnish spa, and an “indoor swimming pool that can reportedly turn into a dance floor,” according to the Daily Mail. The paper of record also notes that Doronin bought a vacation house for Campbell last year, which “is situated on one of Turkish islands has 25 rooms and is shaped like an Egyptian eye.” We’ll let you visualize that one.”–The Cut
Asked what the best day of her life was, she answered, “It was a night”.
I have stilll not forgiven PETA for rejecting BB’s offer to pose nude (in 1994, at age 60) for their “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” advocacy ad campaign. “Ageist” and “sexist” are not strong enough words for that call
or the snarky comments all over the net because Bardot’s been brave enough to age naturally–wrinkles, weight gain and all! So here’s to Brigitte,
sex symbol, style icon
Bardot And Jane Birken
and animal activist before it was cool:
Bardot & Harley Davidson (1968) (VIDEO):
Bardot and Sacha Distel
“I have always adored beautiful young men.
Just because I grow older, my taste doesn`t change.
So if I can still have them, why not?”
`
`I gave my beautyand youthto men, and now I am giving my wisdom and experience, the best of me, to animals.“
I love the irony of Microsoft going all gorgeous on us, but losing the
actual software plot with the release of their tablet contender, Surface. Here, with his famously nerdy (and always very bad, signature $7 haircut), Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his very funny 2008 retirement video: Cameos by Obama, Hillary, Gore, Clooney, Bono, Spielberg…(VIDEO):
From David Pogue’s NYT review:
“How would you like to move into a stunning mansion on a bluff overlooking the sea — in Somalia? Or would you like the chance to own a new Ferrari — that has to be refueled every three miles? Would you take a job that pays $1 million a year — cutting football fields with toenail clippers?
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
The Surface tablet has a 10.6-inch screen with a Touch Cover, attached by magnets, that contains a full keyboard.
That’s the sort of choice Microsoft is asking you to make with the spectacularly designed, wildly controversial Surface tablet.
Now, for the very first tablet it has ever manufactured (in fact, its very first computer), Microsoft could have just made another iPad ripoff. But it aimed much higher. It wanted to build a tablet that’s just as good at creating work as it is at organizing it.
On the hardware front, Microsoft has succeeded brilliantly. Read the specs and try not to drool on your keyboard…” NYT
Who knew? That one of the people to blame (or thank) for our wireless, always inter-connected world, was inventor Hedy Lamarr. The Viennese-born movie star and legendary beauty never profited from her patent and died broke in Florida in 1999 at 86, having been arrested twice for shoplifting–once in 1991 for stealing only eye drops and a laxative.
“On a recent evening, sitting home alone suffering and brooding about my treatment at the police station because of an incident in a department store, and being replaced by Zsa Zsa Gabor in a motion picture (imagine how that pleased the ego!) I figured out that I had made – and spent – some thirty million dollars. Yet earlier that day I had been unable to pay for a sandwich at Schwab’s drug store.”–Hedy Lamar, 1966 from her memoir, “Ecstasy & Me”
An Amazon.com editorial review of Hedy’s Folly, written by Pulitzer-Prize winning author Richard Rhodes :
“Here’s a recipe that might surprise you: take a silver-screen sex goddess (Hedy Lamarr), an avant-garde composer (George Antheil), a Hollywood friendship, and mutual technological curiosity, and mix well. What results is a patent for spread-spectrum radio, which has impacted the development of everything from torpedoes to cell phones and GPS technologies. This surprising and long-forgotten story is brought to life by Pulitzer Prize winner Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb), who deftly moves between Nazi secrets, scandalous films, engineering breakthroughs, and musical flops to weave a taut story that straddles two very different worlds—the entertainment industry and wartime weaponry—and yet somehow manages to remain a delectable read. Hedy Lamarr is experiencing something of a renaissance, and Rhodes’s book adds another layer to the life of a beautiful woman who was so much more than the sum of her parts. It will appeal to a wide array of readers, from film, technology, and patent scholars to those looking for an unusual romp through World War II–era Hollywood.”—Teri S…
“Hey There, Deliah” by the Plain White T’s, (VIDEO):
1950s Bombshell and The First Woman To Sing Rock ‘n Roll, Wanda Jackson.
Crate & Barrel rocks the retail ad world with a soon-to- be-viral (and iconic) new campaign. All the spots are fun, graphic and fresh. But my heart belongs to this one featuring “the good girl with the bad voice”. Wanda Jackson. Crate & Barrel Thanksgiving Commercial with Wanda Jackson (VIDEO):
Elvis and Wanda Jackson
Wanda Jackson, The Queen of Rock ‘n Roll, on Town Hall Party in 1958.
“Hard Hearted Woman”: (VIDEO)
Wanda Jackson, Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame Interview 2010; On Dating Elvis & How He Convinced Her To Sing “the new music” : (VIDEO)
Elvis as Deke Rivers, Loving You 1958, “Let’s Have A Party”
Men’s Black Velvet Pirate Loafers by Stubbs & Wootten, $450
Shhh….Don’t tell Bravo’s Andy Cohen about this one or we could soon bear witness to Historical Reality Re-Enactments starring big Bravo names like Interior Designer Jeff Lewis (Flipping Out) and Douglas Elliman Broker Michael Lorber (Million Dollar Listing). Certainly sounds worthy of at least one night of Watch What Happens: Live with the real estate reality stars in full pirate costume. (And of course his signature Stubbs & Wootten slippers for Lorber. )
Think a slightly tipsy You AreThere but without Cronkite.–Landlordrocknyc
Andy Cohen with Real Life Housewives of New Jersey’s Melissa and Joe Gorga on “Watch What Happens: Live”.
From The Jewish Chronicle:
“If the key to getting attention for a new book relies to an extent on the title, Edward Kritzler has cracked it.
His new book is called Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean, which summons up visions of Yiddishe buccaneers, cutlass in one hand, tallit bag in the other, wreaking havoc on the high seas. It could almost be the title of a Mel Brooks movie.
But while there were indeed real Jewish pirates in the Caribbean, Kritzler, visiting London from his home in Jamaica, concedes the title of the book was “a commercial decision”.
Published by Random House, 2009
Kritzler had originally intended to call it Jewish Pioneers in the New World. However, his editor, Adam Bellow, son of novelist Saul Bellow, had other ideas. Says Kritzler: “Adam told me: ‘We’re going to call it Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean’ on the basis the movie Pirates of the Caribbean had made billions of dollars.”
If the title is not strictly descriptive of the contents, no one can claim that there is not some startling material in the book. It describes the flight of Jews, hounded from Spain during the Inquisition, who found their way to the New World, and made their mark as pilots, cartographers, merchants and, yes, even pirates.
The starting point for Kritzler’s journey was the fact that Jamaica was originally colonised by Jews — conversos who were refugees from the Iberian peninsula. It was the discovery of this information that got him started on 40 years of research which culminated in the book.
“Before it was colonised by the British, Jamaica belonged to the family of Christopher Columbus who provided a haven for Jews in the New World. It was Jamaica for the Jews. Jamaica could have been Israel,” he says.
You Are There, Radio Version with John Daly, Coumbus Discover’s New World. Walter Cronkite would host a 1950s TV version of the historical renactment series: (AUDIO)
Kritzler
The Late Author and Historian Ed Kritzler
adds that among the “big machers” on the island, many of the most eminent families still have Jewish connections.
But what of the pirates? The most buccaneering of them all was Samuel Palache, who went nowhere near the Caribbean. He was known as the “Pirate Rabbi”
Samuel Palache, The Pirate Rabbi
and he combined a swashbuckling career involving capturing Spanish ships on the high seas with preaching from the pulpit in Amsterdam.
“He was the father of it all,” says Kritzler. “He was a Barbary pirate, operating from the North African coast, but the generation which looked up to him were the guys who went to the New World. This is a pirate who founded the Amsterdam Jewish community then went out to attack Spanish ships. He always had a kosher chef on board.”
His influence rubbed off on Moses Cohen Enriques, a Jew who led the Dutch invasion of Brazil and who later established a pirate island off the coastal city of Recife in Brazil.
The Jews who followed Enriques to Recife were a rough lot, claims Kritzler. “Enriques himself was fined 50 florins for taking Christian women into the mikvah. The community were also forced to outlaw gambling on Friday afternoon because too many Jews turned up late for Shabbat dinner.” The other interesting regulation was that the Jewish pirates of Recife were required to donate three per cent of their booty to the local synagogue.
Despite their sometimes nefarious activities — the colony of Recife owed much of its prosperity to the slave trade — Kritzler has much admiration for these Jewish pioneers in the New World. “Some of these guys went for fun and games, others were motivated by hatred of the Spanish but these pioneer Jews won the rights that the Jews in the West enjoy today.”
Another famous pirate who Kritzler claims to be Jewish was legendary American buccaneer Jean Lafitte
Portrait of a (Jewish?) Pirate: Jean Lafitte by Anoymous
. Kritzler says: “He wrote that his grandparents were tortured by the Inquisition and this inspired a hatred of the Spanish.”
One imagines that had Kritzler been around in those days he would have been tempted to join the buccaneers. He was obsessed by cowboys and pirates during his youth in Long Island. “I was a wild kid. I went to Cuba when I was 19 years old. I was a revolutionary, left-wing anarchist rebel. I wanted to be a cowboy when I grew up.”
He actually grew up to be a music journalist in New York but fell in love with Jamaica when he visited in 1967, and stayed. “In New York I was just another nebbuch — in Jamaica I’m someone. I love Jamaica and I love the music. When I interviewed Bob Dylan I told him about Bob Marley.”
His obsession with cowboys could lead him on to his next book. “Not many people know that the first cowboys in America were Jews. They moved to Mexico during the Inquisition and in the 17th century they took their cattle and their horses across the Rio Grande and introduced ranching north of the border.”
He has not yet thought of a title but How the West was Won… by Jews could be a contender.
Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean is published by JR Books at £17.99 on July 3
Landlordrocknyc checked out a few car services yesterday and was surprised to learn that rates change hourly and daily depending on traffic. So despite all those annoying limo jingles and smarmy Sex & The City-ish “he takes me home“ commercials, there is no such thing as a cheap (or even moderately affordable) car service ride in New York. Peak rate today for a short ride midtown from the hours of 2 pm-7pm is $30 plus tip. Rates also go up seasonally and during events like Fashion W eek.
Here’s the Pants Velour Production which won Dial 7’s jingle contest implying otherwise:
Pants Velour, Winner of Dial 7 Jingle Contest (VIDEO):
Carmel 666 Jingle (VIDEO):
Smarmy Carmel Commercial (VIDEO):
From the NY Times:
“It started with a single jingle, imploring New Yorkers to call Carmel Car and Limousine Service at “six, six, six/six, six, sixty-six.”
Now, months after that infectious spot first went on the air, New York City’s two leading car-service brands are locked in a Hatfield-and-McCoy-style advertising war, complete with dueling singsong commercials and a fight over which company thought to pen a jingle first.
The whole weird story — complete with a rider-rapper named Big Daddy and a lip-syncing chief executive — started when Carmel released its 30-second ad, filled with finger-snapping and hip-shaking sidewalk revelers who escort a woman to a waiting town car. “For wherever you want to go/Carmel is the number to know!” the refrain says.
Dial 7 was unimpressed. Its ad, plucked from an online jingle contest created by the company, features a rapper named Big Daddy, who delivers a rapid-fire verse about “comfort and style on which you can rely.” A woman in sunglasses croons the hook: “If you need a ride, dial 2-1-2, then 7, seven times.”…NYTimes
” via New York Magazine, Urban Living, (Written Before The Deluge of Sandy):
landlordrocknyc 