Equal parts

I went to the opening night of the Tisch Interactive Telecommunications Program show and saw lots of great technology, but I was enchanted by this note on one of the student's lockers!

A sign a day

I've been snapping signs all over town, so I've resolved to post a bit of street signage a day until I run out. First up, Flormont Tailors at 857 Broadway in the Flatiron District, an area previously full of suit stores and tailor shops. Apparently this tailor is as nice as his sign.

Deteriorating Metal Signage

Kevin Gatta of Gatta Design (one of my past life design haunts) has quite the collection of these actual signs (they seem so much bigger when they're down on ground level). He also has quite the collection of stories of driving around in his pickup truck late at night salvaging these beauties. No doubt these would be welcome additions to his menagerie.

Josephine's Unisex in Hoboken is no longer a business, but the building has kept the sign up for years.



And King's Appliance in Jersey City is still open and waiting for your business, but the neon glow is long gone.

Tanks for the Memories

You've really got me going on hand-painted type. A very recent sighting is this great old truck for Rosenwach Wood Tanks. The type is amazing; I love the way the strong sans serif plays against the more jaunty script. Just as amazing to me is the rendering of the wood tank (done, it seems, back in the day when Graphic Design was called "Commercial Art"). Even in my quickie shots of the truck art, you can see the "decorative rosette made of four 'R'-shaped pieces on the top of the tank."* Craftsmanship and high-level branding join up.





I've always been fascinated by New York's skyline of tanks and how the Rosenwachs have been able to keep their business strong since the late nineteenth century. *In 2008, The New York Daily News ran an article that yields practical info about why wood tanks are the top choice for NY (cost, durability). An architect friend opined that the Rosenwach company possibly got itself written into NYC codes as well (I haven't researched this theory). Relationships? Relationship Marketing? Speaking of marketing, I'm amused to note that the look of the trucks and the tanks is far above the look and function of the Rosenwach website, although the newsletter is pretty interesting if you're a woodie.

All terrible TERRIBLE puns in this post are intentional.

Something to go with Juicy Lucy

Here's a shot of A. Frank, taken outside of the Met upon coming out of the exhibit, "Looking In," which is full of forceful Robert Frank photos. The handsome and exhaustive catalogue greatly enriches the experience of the show (although it's funny that Frank honed his shots for The Americans down to 83 images while the catalogue includes absolutely everything).



To pick up hand-painted signs, unlike Juicy Lucy, this notice is far from lovely, but I was struck by so much . . . er . . . brush lettering done by someone who seems unused to painting type. I doubt "T Woods" is the tanked Tiger, but one never knows.

A little bit of loveliness

Love this handpainted sign for the Juicy Lucy Juice Bar at 85 Avenue A (between 5th St & 6th St). It's making me thirsty for some lemonade! Or maybe it's the strong coffee today.

Does she or doesn't she?

You know I have complained bitterly about how Catherine Zeta-Jones seems to be getting younger and younger than me every year, when I know that in reality the woman is older than me. Now that's she in A Little Night Music on Broadway, she's finally getting tagged a lot closer to her real age, but through some incredible publicist or otherworldly powers, she manages to shine the fact-checking New York Times apple, too!

“A Little Night Music,” with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, is in large part about aging and mortality, and traditionally the part of Desiree, a famous actress at a turning point in her career, has gone to someone older than Ms. Zeta-Jones, who is 40 but looks younger.

It just goes on and on here.
Internet gossip is that she was caught in a background check by the White House in 1999 and that her real age is +10. For those of you who have seen Beth in person, she's giving CZJ a run for her money. Or her night cream!

Beautiful sorrow; ugly American

Today, I had an awful moment of being an ugly American. (I'd say unwittingly ugly American, but I think Graham Greene's point was that the cluelessness of the naive guy from the US in his novel The Quiet American was just as ugly as any intentional malfefactor).

Here's my confession of cultural cluelessness. A student had missed some classes because her grandfather, her only family in the US, took ill and had to return to Korea. The last I heard was that he was home, in the care of the student's grandmother. Today, after a few weeks of missed classes, the student brought me a note, saying that she could only obtain one in Korean. Thinking it was the usual doctor's note, I exclaimed, "It's so beautiful." (It was). Then, I saw arabic numbers among the Korean letterforms. The second I asked what the numbers were, I realized, to my horror, that they were birth and death dates—and that I'd been a twit. Abashed and embarrassed, I murmured condolences before reviewing the student's late (but good) work.