Four Legs Good

the long and the short view

2010-01-12T11:52:00.013-05:00

Three views from New Haven, CT, an inspiring locale.

Perhaps I will be back in NY soon.

Two shots from my video installation at Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia.

A once-gorgeous edifice in downtown Philly, and below it, a beautiful chunky late-19th C office building, also in downtown Philly.

and closer to home, all the trappings of future success...

Please visit my website at http://www.ceciliadougherty.com

Sumpthin's gotta give

2009-12-27T16:40:00.011-05:00

People waiting in line for prescriptions (above), people waiting to see a doctor (below), and mostly it's people of color, or from other countries who wait all day to see an overworked MD or pharmacist. I wait, too, but not complaining, right?

An occasional glance down, wherever you are, will sometimes provide a glimpse of sunlight and shadow in a beautiful arrangement of soft hues - a brief bit of another reality over the one you were just in.
And sometimes a sunset will reveal a truly ugly building in all its glory.

And evening will reveal the magic of a noirish Edward Hopper-esque and seemingly innocuous structure as situated in the slower neighborhoods.

And of course the imposition of steel and stone that even an airplane can't crack in the busier districts.

I was behind this man on the stairs at Grand Central. He seemed poor and burdened - it couldn't have just been me projecting. I didn't want to take a picture of his face, which was a fine face, but only of his posture as I went up the stairs behind him. One can go to Grand Central to get out of the cold, to have a seat for a while, and to find a safer spot than one finds out of the street.

A sign in a New Haven shop window. On closer inspection, the rules of the house laid out fairly clearly.

NYPD cops approaching a man sitting in front of Bellevue Hospital. He's telling them to leave him alone, and a man in a wheelchair on 23rd Street nods out whilst his sign informs passersby that he would like some cash.

Blood left on a doorstep, New Haven.

The bar car on Metro-North.

Various Spaces and Places

2009-12-14T07:19:00.025-05:00

A pharmacist and his wares, NYC.

Art exhibit, Chelsea - Taylor Davis's sculptures.

Staircase, above, at Yale University Art Museum; below, at a Tribeca loft building.

Santa's at Grand Central.

Pizza parlor pugilists, E. 14th Street, East Village.

Outdoor lighting, 10th Ave, Chelsea

Store window display, to maximum effect. Me, transfixed by the multiplicity of ideas present.

Dirt...there you have it.

Mystery photo

A vegetable called 'Buddha's Hand', which I may not be able to cut open, cook or eat.

New Haven workplace, just after 5PM.
And three store window displays, below, New Haven.

Train station, above, and trains below, New Haven.

Cops in New Haven arrest a man who is saying "Tell me why I'm under arrest..."
They take him to the squad car and there he sits, in handcuffs, in the back seat.
Don't they have to tell you why they're taking you in?

Cody's Cafe, New Haven - the best place in town...

...where the portions, as well as the waitresses, are quite large.

Lancaster, Pa.

2009-11-26T09:03:00.027-05:00

The train station in Lancaster hasn't changed much in decades.
It's a beautiful old station, needing a little repair.

The Marriott Hotel was built on top of the Watt & Shand Department Store on Penn Square, right in the center of town.
The lobby, above, incorporates a colonial era building and does it rather well. Then there's the exercise room and lots of extra space on the lower level, which also incorporates the back of the house owned by abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, which, upon excavation, revealed a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Penn Sqare at night ...

and views of Lancaster as the morning fog drifts over the city from the Conestoga Creek.
The Greist Building at far right, next to the 19th century Farmer's market and the colonial tourist board, which was once the town hall.

Looking westward towards the 8th Ward, with the Kunzler Meat Packing Co., in the center of the photograph, sending off steam. St. Joseph's Church steeple just to the left of that.

The Greist Building used to be Lancaster's tallest building, but the Marriott Hotel, just across the square, has taken top honors in that department.

St. Joseph's Church, built in 1842 by German Catholic immigrants.

The humble 19th century row houses on St. Joseph's Street.

Moving up a notch, the red brick row houses in the 8th Ward.

And moving up still further, a beautiful 19th century town house on South Duke Street.

A colonial era house on South Queen Street.

And the Thaddeus Stevens House, above - just a few details.

And the cops and sniffer-dogs that everyone is getting used to at train stations. Welcome to our free society!

Mary

2009-11-16T20:04:00.006-05:00

Goodnight, and God bless you.

Gowanus, A Hospital That Shall Remain Nameless, and Nite Scenes from the Cell Phone

2009-11-12T11:09:00.010-05:00

Night-time via cell phone, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn

It's all green lights from here on out, apparently.

***

A trip to a hospital that dare not speak its name. The ante-room for xrays is empty, except of course for the person at the desk and myself behind the camera . . .

While the waiting room to see a doctor is full of frustrated people, some of whom have been waiting for hours . . . time for a change?

The staff's a bit over-stressed as well.

Then one wants one's prescriptions, but one must speak to the pharmacist through a tiny, lowered window, which forces one to speak in a bent down and bowed position. Overworked pharmacist on the other side of the bullet-proof plexi.

Then one can finally exit via the quite nice and spacious lobby.

***

The beauty of Lowe's, Gowanus, Brooklyn

And the rugged handsomeness of the Gowanus neighborhood itself.

Brighton Beach + cell phone = videos

2009-11-05T20:04:00.009-05:00

Yes, I have an old cell phone, so the videos are pixellated and grey, but I love them precisely because of that. And besides, I just realized recently that my phone has a video option, so I have to use it as much as possible!
Brighton Beach and Coney Island are mellow in early November, and it's not too cold yet to take a nice stroll along the beach. Some hardy Russians were swimming that day, too.

New York, Inside and Out (plus one photo from Upstate in Rhinecliff)

2009-10-29T06:50:00.010-04:00

The cell phone is allowing me to take pictures without being noticed, so I notice even more than I did before. Everything is subject. The subway platform, above, and the supermarket below, where the workers are wheeling out the old refrigeration unit because the new ones have been installed. I suppose that's a good day at work, if you work there - something new and different to do. The old unit was completely filthy, by the way. Did they never clean it? Even once?

Looking into Katz's Deli on Houston Street, Lower East Side.

Park Place, Brooklyn, in the early evening hours.

The table is set at Chavella's for a little outdoor dining on Classon St., Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
The next two photos were taken from the Express Line (15 items or less) at the Park Slope Food Co-op on Union Street. I think taking these photos and putting them online might be enough reason for them to suspend my membership, but I hope not. That place has a lot of rules but I love it just the same.

On the platform of the No. 4 Train, Yankee Stadium stop, in the Bronx.
And the two below taken from the Q-Train window as it rolls over the Manhattan Bridge at sunset. The cell phone camera completely abstracts certain types of image, which I like.

Pizza parlor on Houston Street, above, and a Metropolitan Transit Authority sign for subway users on the F-Train from Williamsburg.

Looking out on the morning sun...

On the Chinatown Bus from NYC to Baltimore.
And in Baltimore, a bed awaits.

The view from the platform at the Rhinecliff, New York, Amtrak station - the mighty Hudson River.

Unidentified Red Objects.

Only the flag stands still at Grand Central Station.

It's been a rough week, but the cell phone delivers - out 'n about in bklyn

2009-10-28T10:49:00.009-04:00

All around Prospect Park, Grand Army Plaza and Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn

The new Richard Meyer building - dusk at No. 1 Eastern Parkway

General Grant, the reluctant leader, as depicted on the Civil War Monument, Grand Army Plaza.

Yankee Stadium, The Bronx - for me it's a tough one because in my heart I want the Phillies to Win! but I love the Yankees, too!

Apartment building lobby, Park Place, Brooklyn

Sunset Park industrial zone, above, and brownstone staircase, below.

Sunset Park - a peaceful but noir-ish kinda night.

New Media Department - Cell Phone Photography

2009-10-19T09:41:00.008-04:00

More from the digital depths - Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the wilds of Connecticut ...and some paprika

2009-10-13T08:13:00.012-04:00

Footnotes from the underground.

Say cheese! Everyone's taking snaps on Wall Street.

I'll have two of everything...

And the misty wilds of Connecticut, as promised.

Back in Manhattan - the audience is the show at the Guggenheim.

And in Brooklyn, another lonely walk home.

Another lonely random workplace - the security station of an apartment building as viewed from the street.

Ever look deeply into one of those subway grates? Well, don't...
then home again to think good thoughts - yoga with Rodney Yee and Mariel Hemingway will make everything go away.Except the paprika.

Mining the Digital Archive - New Old Photos - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Vermont, and views from a plane

2009-10-11T08:18:00.010-04:00

Looking into the Franklin Avenue Shuttle station at Park Place and Franklin Ave, Brooklyn
Then onward to Grand Central Station...

and onward still further...on a propeller plane from New York to Burlington, Vermont on a snowy winter day

Once in Vermont, a meal at the New England Culinary Academy. I'm not sure what this particular dish is called, but it's quite inedible.

My room at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Spare, in a New England kinda way.

And the 19th century main building, College Hall, on the Vermont College of Fine Arts Campus, Montpelier.

A short trip it was, then back to New York, a night flight, and aerial views of Manhattan and Brooklyn as our plane comes in to La Guardia. This view shows the Brooklyn Bridge in the center, lower Manhattan on the right, and Brooklyn on the left. It all makes sense.

Other shots, other winter scenes - sparrows having a quick bite at the bird feeder on the fire-escape, Brooklyn.

And this would be Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, from the window near the elevators.

New York, New York - the intimate and the grand

And the old Rhinecliff train station with the Hudson River just beyond those windows - the passageway to the tracks looks like an airplane hangar - they used to really know how to build things a hundred years ago. Lots of space for floods of passengers.

And myself in shadow, interpreted through what looks like a spray of Fruit Loops on the sidewalk, Brooklyn.

Last Call for my Nikon Coolpix, which I used for the photos on this blog, and which I dropped and broke a few days ago. Still in denial...

2009-10-05T19:13:00.018-04:00

I broke my camera after taking this set of photos, so am saying goodbye to the Nikon Coolpix, which I was very attached to (loved?) and used everyday. After this posting, I'm going back through my photographs and uploading some that didn't make the first cut. Should be an interesting and eclectic mix. Then, of course, I'll start posting my cell phone pics.

I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello.

Getting out of the subway at Astor Place and on the way to an art opening at Cooper Union, I walked past a bank - Bank of America? Citibank? does it make any difference? - and snapped three nearly identical work stations that were on display, on the other side of a plate glass window, for all the world to see. There's something sad about the cool indifference of the workplace here to the needs of the workers, and the public aspect of being at work imposed on those who sit at these desks.

Brave new architecture by Thom Mayne at Cooper Union. The art opening was fine, some good and some bad work as usual, but it was the building itself that was kinda distracting in almost every way.

Later in Prospect Heights, things looking a little strange at night - and then trails of three lights on nose and wings of an airplane as is passes overhead.

Sometimes things look a little bleak in Brooklyn, and Atlantic Avenue can be a real scary road to cross. It seemed that everywhere I looked someone had wrapped up a part of a building.

My lady love, at a tailor's shop on Washington Ave.

One last walk around Prospect Heights with my Nikon.

And then off to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens to the local flora garden - the plants of the American East Coast, which, even though they are not the most dramatic or beautiful, make me feel the most at home and at peace.

Chinatown from above - a walk over the East River on the Manhattan Bridge

2009-09-06T10:00:00.004-04:00

Roof garden, Chinatown

Chinatown graffiti artists are hard at work. The graffiti landscape only truly visible from high above street level.

About halfway across the Manhattan Bridge one sees the graceful span of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The mighty metal span; and a secret garden on the other side in DUMBO, Brooklyn.

Late summer incantation

2009-09-01T20:24:00.006-04:00

Out of the subway, walking down the street, seeing what's on offer, and then catching the F Train at 4th and 9th, Brooklyn

2009-08-31T15:01:00.006-04:00

Back in Brooklyn, where I belong

2009-08-30T12:47:00.003-04:00

Sometimes one has to go to Baltimore and Northern Virginia

2009-08-29T09:15:00.003-04:00

The wisdom of trees and other items on no particular list

2009-08-29T09:04:00.005-04:00

The neat green trash of trendy Soho.

The grand gate - entrance to the Manhattan Bridge, Chinatown

At the Atlantic Avenue subway station a pretty lady exits the scene.

Where am I and how did I end up here?

Aboard the Bolt Bus to Baltimore. $15. from NY, wireless and seat belts.

Milk, in another form, quite monstrous

2009-08-29T09:00:00.004-04:00

Walking after midnight

2009-08-29T08:55:00.004-04:00

Walking home from the subway after a weekend in New Haven

2009-08-17T17:59:00.006-04:00

Turn on the fan! It's 93 degrees out there...

2009-08-17T15:40:00.002-04:00

Sky over Annandale-on-Hudson

2009-08-10T18:09:00.002-04:00

Summer in Annandale-on-Hudson

2009-08-10T15:28:00.013-04:00

This is a wonderful meal of organic corn, organic eggs, and what's left of an organic cucumber - all a bit on the yellow and white side of the food chain, but delicious, as it's a product of Community Supported Agriculture in the Hudson Valley.

And below, a couple of lawn sculptures by the excellent Rachel Harrison, outside the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

And inside the Student Center at Bard College - no one in sight. The MFA program is over for the summer.

A walk down the lane brings one to the Fisher Center for Performing Arts designed by Frank Gehry, also known as the potato chip building.

And across the road, a kind of disaster by Olafur Eliasson - a walkway to a bridge to a pond to a middle area - great for kids, right?

Then the oppression of parking lots in the middle of the country on a hot day...and walkways to more parking lots.

Back to the film/video department for some finishing up...meetings, take-out junk food, the dept. in-house coffee station, and the general look of the film/video department at the end of a long summer session.

The gold bike, by Ephraim Asili.

Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY - Dorm Life and Thunderstorms Storms Brewing

2009-07-25T08:49:00.006-04:00

Ways of Seeing New York

2009-07-25T08:36:00.010-04:00

Some pictorial notes from here, there, and elsewhere

2009-07-12T09:37:00.015-04:00

Coming into the evening from below the terrain - leaving the No. 2/3 train subway station and exiting onto Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn

Stately Eastern Parkway. Costs a bundle these days to live here.

Bland food from Switzerland: macaroni and cheese with potatoes, and potato-leek soup.

Macaroni and cheese with potatoes and ketchup.

Stairway to the stars - or, stairway at Rafik's video dubbing house, Broadway, Manhattan

The lobby of the Spanish Museum, Morningside Heights, on a rainy day.

Moving day. From the window of the Chinatown bus, before we depart for Philadelphia. Round-trip to Philly: $15.00. Cannot beat that.

An offer for gentlemen from a lady - a discreet message on the top of a taxi. Chinatown bus heads to the Holland Tunnel.

All too soon, we're in Philadelphia. Where there's still room to grow, apparently.

Ok. That was Philly, and now the bus is heading back to Chinatown through the streets of New York.

Then off to Coney Island on the Fourth of July.

The Collection of Silence - A Project by Eileen Myles, Tuesdays on the Terrace, Dia at the Hispanic Society of America

2009-07-02T17:02:00.002-04:00

Back in Brooklyn, feelin' that NYC was kinda crummy...until I took a serious look skywards

2009-06-28T09:34:00.011-04:00

On the road in Milan, Trento and Bolzano...

2009-06-27T15:39:00.020-04:00

Trento, the Palace of the Archbishop, a musem...and other pics from Trento follow...

And on to Bolzano. On a bridge above the Adige River, bikes cut loose, but locks remain.

Then an education in Fascist-era Architecture. Not pretty, nor graceful - compare to the few images of Renaissance Architecture from Trento, above.

Then on to Milan, where one does one's penance at the Duomo.

The Flayed San Bartolomeo by artist Marco d’Agrate dates from 1562. A truly remarkable statue, as the Saint appears with his skin draped around him.

Then on to more of the details, the artwork and the architecture of the cathedral.

A sarcophagus of the De Medici's, and below, a confessional.

The Baptismal font

A reliquary of St. Sebastian, and then the cathedral's exterior.

La Scala...then from the sublime to the sublimely ordinary - shop windows of a door store on the Viale Lombardia, Milan.

On the Metropolitana.

Lo-res perspective from the vaporetto, Venice

2009-06-26T13:06:00.003-04:00

A side trip to Venice - please forgive the touristic eye, but quotidian Venice seems to be about the visitor

2009-06-13T03:12:00.013-04:00

Early morning arrival in Venice. After two capuccinos I take a ride around the city on a vaporetto.

The boat leans, the camera leans, the buildings lean.

One begins to love Venice very soon into the ride.

And one feels proud, unduly, of one's Italian ancestry.

The Society of Italian Authors and Editors, for all you bibliophiles out there.

The last ride of the day.
And videos to come, domani.

Night sky, full moon, Saas-Fee, Switzerland

2009-06-09T09:37:00.006-04:00

Not elsewhere, but here

2009-06-08T12:13:00.008-04:00

I took the gondola to the top of a mountain, above the timber line, other higher mountains surrounding us. A child's playground at the top.

And I walked down, here, the beginning of the trail.

Elsewhere, again.

2009-06-07T03:21:00.009-04:00

The town of Saas-Fee, Switzerland

Eidelweiss, in memory of Nonna.

Swiss laundry.

11PM alpine time.

Then a walk the next day past the remains of an ealier landslide, to a meadow and brook.

Elsewhere

2009-06-01T03:17:00.023-04:00

"Elsewhere" is the title of a book by Yasmine Alwan, prose that examines the details, the interstices, the view of nearness.
In Geneva, Switzerland last week. Lake Geneva, the medieval city, Jean Calvin's church and the beginning of Calvinist Protestantism, streets that look like towns in France. Elsewhere can also mean the long view, taking it all in, taking in details and landscape at once indistinguishable.

Hotel Montbrillant, decent and inexpensive, and right across from the train station.

The Protestant Union.

A 100 year old plane tree in the park near Le Bastion, Geneva.

The town of Visp, to catch a bus further into the Alps.

On the bus.

Arrival at Saas-Fee.

Mountains in the mist.

The European Graduate School, Saas-Fee
----------
... and back to Geneva for bits of irony...