Pen-Elayne on the Web

Morning Schleppage

This would be the morning I had to run errands for my boss, but I learned some cool things:

There's a nifty piece of abstract art in the tunnel linking the 42nd Street shuttle to the 4,5,6,7 trains underneath Grand Central Terminal. It's atop the entrance to the 4,5,6,7 area, and has those four numbers surrounded by lots of nifty gold and silver decorations featuring circles and wires and other shapes presumably designed to evoke images of trains. Next time you're in the tunnel, look up before you get to the Lexington Avenue area.

Roger Price has a doppelganger who works as an orderly at Lenox Hill Hospital. Just thought I'd mention it.

St. Peter's Church cannot be for real. Is this building actually a house of worship? Far out. You wacky Lutherans.

There's a second "Tandoori Row" (to supplement the original Little India on 6th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues) located on Lexington Avenue between 27th and 28th Streets. Just about every building is an Indian restaurant. Half of them are boarded up. I shouldn't wonder.

On the Eighth Avenue (A,C,E) subway platform at 14th Street, I had my first encounter with the whimsical work of Tom Otterness, whose bronze sculptures are all over the place. Most people seem to like the alligator and the penny-sweepers, but my favorite was a lobster-creature with a moneybag for a head (and cartoon-shoes) clutching three cartoony-looking children in its claws; alas, I can't find a picture of it anywhere online. I found this presentation way cooler than the "eyes that follow you" Oculus exhibit in the Park Place station that Robin and I encountered yesterday. Once I can afford the tiny digicam I saw in J&R yesterday that I can carry with me all the time, I'm going to start documenting more public art in NYC and posting it to my Buzznet photoblog; it seems to have become something of a passion lately. (Incidentally, Otterness has done lots of cool public art but, contrary to rumor, other folks did the bird sculptures in the Canal Street Station uptown platform of the A train.)