The New Lens

I went ahead and bough myself a rather expensive 100-400 zoom lens for my camera. I am still kind of thinking that I should not have any equipment that expensive (and heavy), but now I find it rather hard to bring myself to return the damn thing. I can afford it, but I still feel guilty about it.

I took it out for a spin and here’s a sampling of pictures taken in a couple of humid, hazy days without the use of tripod:

The sign on top of the UBS building used to say something else:

Rockefeller Center Prometheus could use a bath:

The crosses that top St. Patrick’s Cathedral look like they were designed by HR Giger. What’s up with that?

This is what the Wireless Maiden on the top of the old RCA building actually looks like:

Time to Get on the Top of the Rock
or
Can You Smell What’s Cooking at the Top of the Rock?

There’s one thing that I hate about Chrysler Building. It does not have a public observation deck. I feel that any major skyscraper needs to have two things at the top: a restaurant and an observation deck.

To the owners the public areas at the top are usually a pain in the ass and rarely pay for themselves. Having a lot of people from the street come up to the very top of the building, adding to the overall traffic is not fun for building management from the security standpoint. I remember reading about the co-op board of a posh building at 30 Central Park South trying to evict Nirvana, a top floor Indian restaurant with amazing views of Central Park. They complained about the traffic and the cooking smells.

Because of this most buildings that used to have observation decks and restaurants closed them. Over a the Tishman Building Top of the Sixes turned into an exclusive cigar club. At the City Services Building the public observation deck, which was actually planned as the owner’s penthouse, was turned into a closed lounge for AIG brass. An at the Chrysler Building, the observation deck became Schrafft’s Restaurant, then it morphed into posh and private Cloud Club, and then closed altogether.

When I was younger, I was not particularly attracted to the views from high vantage points. But for some reason at the turn of the Millennium found me deeply fascinated with skyscrapers and views from them. To this day I can’t forgive myself not visiting the observation deck at WTC. I probably did not have enough money to eat at the perished Windows on the World, but not visiting Top of the World still fills me with remorse.

Because of this upsetting tendency of restriction and destruction public spaces high in the skies, I find this very joyous news: the rocket-like 30 Rockefeller Plaza will be opening an observation deck to the public. It’s going to be called “Top of the Rock.”

Rockefeller Center has an interesting distinction of being one of the very few Rockefeller family projects that carry their name (the other big one being Rockefeller University). Most people also think that it’s built and named after John D. Senior, the Mr. Burns prototype and semi-crazy hander outer of nickels, when in fact, it was the mellow John D. Junior who built it.

Since the Rockefeller name is not that popular, it’s common to see “Rockefeller Center” to be shortened to sexier “Rock Center”, as for example the menu of Yummy Sushi contains several sushi combos named Rock X, where X is a number of the combo.

As much as I tried, I could not find out a more definite date than “sometime this fall”, but one of the free booklets that you can get in the lobby of the GE (former RCA) building has a little blurb and the logo. I like the logo. It’s all Art Deco-ey.

Get Some

I am currently reading Great Fortune : The Epic of Rockefeller Center by Daniel Okrent, which is epic indeed. This quote made me chuckle, as it seems to be the only absolutely correct way of thinking about buying real estate in New York:

“… Arthur Brisbane, whose own ventures with William Randolph Hearst in the West 50s had already made him a very rich man, codified for his readers in The American the lesson of the Upper Estate deal: “Select your real estate CAREFULLY,” Brisbane wrote, “but GET SOME.“”

Don’t Make Me Bust A Cap In Your Rink

For the first time ever Rockefeller center rink was “capped” with a tent, its floor covered and filled with orchids for the The 24th New York International Orchid Show.

Strange. It turns out that the first time I ever stepped on the Rockefeller center rink it had no ice.

Interesting to note that the white orchids in which Prometheus is taking a swim in on the picture are my favorite type. I know that reception desks, spas and offices are full of them. Still, even with them being a horrible cliché, I can’t stop liking them. They are classy. Right, ?

Rise of The Machine or Deadprogrammer’s Throne

Remember I was lamenting the lack of robots in my household? Well, I went ahead and did something about that. I am a proud owner of a butt washing robot.

Yep, I purchased a top of the line Toto S300 Washlet (Jasmin). It looks kind of like that, except I have a different model toilet, different mosaic tile on the floor and walls and an orchid that I bought at the Rockefeller Center Orchid show instead of the vase with a lily. But the idea is the same.

Now, think about the question that Howard Stern’s co-host asked Dan Rather. “Do you check after you’re done wiping?” And how many times do you have to check before you are satisfied with results? Toto washlet seat does an amazingly good job of washing your ass. I mean, squeaky clean. Really.

Being top of the line, Jasmine seat comes with really amazing features. Believe it or not, it forces air through a deodorizing filter while you do your duty. And the dryer works much better than I expected. Yes, you have to wait a minute or two, so you should keep some toilet paper around if you need to dry yourself in a hurry.

The machine is so smart that it remembers when you usually use it and turns itself off to preserve energy during “off peak” hours. Still, even when it enters “sleep mode” water heats up instantly and is always at the temperature that you set it. Well, almost, maybe the first couple of seconds it’s a bit colder, but not freezing cold.

The remote control is very, very usable. I like how they hid rarely used buttons under the top cover. Cleaning is a snap.

The only thing that is not so cool is a big fat wire loop that you can’t see on the pictures on Toto’s website. It’s located on the right side of the seat and I got to tell you, it look like that wire on the side of Borg’s head.

I guess it’s there to remind us about the dark side of technology.

More Useless Rockefeller Center Trivia

Rockefeller Center buildings are not overembellished with decorations. A few major buildings have beautiful art deco relief’s on their facades, but most lesser buildings don’t have those. On the other hand an underground tunnel that connects the buildings has this beautiful mural on the wall.

I’ve been passing it by for many years without thinking too much about it. I called it “A Half Naked Punk Whipping Two Naked Women”.


I came by a photograph showing this bas relief on a side of a building. But it’s in the underground tunnel, I thought. Well, as I learned from the book (and could have learned from the little plaque on the wall), the bas relief is actually called “Radio and Television Encompassing The Earth” and a similar plaque used to be on the 49th street facade of the demolished RKO Roxy Theater aka Center Theater. The piece if based on a watercolor of Hildreth Meiere. I wonder what happened to the original plaque..

Here’s what the Roxy Theater used to look like inside:

State Of The Art

“Robert Natkin discovered his calling at age 17, in Chicago, when he opened a book and stumbled on the intense abstract art of Paul Klee. He was stunned by the beauty, the color harmonies, and the “music” in Klee’s work.” And decided to rip him off. Behold – the mural at the Newscorp Building (formerly Celanese Building):

Apparently people pay Mr. Natkin to do this sort of stuff. This only shows that corporate art today ain’t what it used to be. Here’s a mural from the former Eastern Airlines Building (currently bleakly called 10 Rockefeller Plaza ):

Rock Center At Night

Group portrait of the newer, uglier Rockefeller Center buildings: Newscorp Building, McGraw Hill Building and Exxon Building.

Jewelry district with the view of the illuminated glass crown of the Bear Stearns Building. The crown houses machinery and water tanks.

Wheeee.

For some weird reason green traffic light turns blue on my photographs.

Is That A Rocket In Your Plaza?

There is a pretty cool Centennial of Flight exposition in Rockefeller Center. It’s on until the 18th of August. Among other cool things they have full scale models of the Wright Flyer and Red Baron’s Fokker (heh, heh) , a backup Apollo bell module, a predator drone, a Harrier II, a Shuttle cockpit mockup and piece de resistance: a full scale model of a Redstone rocket!