New York City Waits for Sandy

New York slated for hard hit

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/xxxx/703958

National Hurricane Center Tracking

More details here 

A Wainy Wednesday in New Yawk: "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"

It's Positively 'Brooklyn Bucolic' at Flatbush's Landmark Subway Station

Photo by Tony Napoli

The Landmarked Avenue H Subway Station Gets a Touch of the Down Home with Architect/ Designer/Artist Ed Kopel's "Brooklyn Bucolic" winner of the 2007 Arts in Transit Award from the NYC Transit Authority. Of course, since "postmodernism" has become the new reality, the chairs, "ironically" (ouch) are rendered in Bronze and don't actually rock. But they are a pleasure to the eye, adding a further touch of country-ish charm to the quaint Avenue H subway house.

Artisans at Work: Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry

that rendered designer Ed Kopel's vision

From the Foundry's website: "Brooklyn Bucolic, Kopel’s installation, is inspired by the unique element of the station house’s front façade: it’s wraparound porch. Seven fixed and brightly patinated bronze Shaker style rocking chairs in varying sizes able to accommodate children and adults, scatter the north and east side of the house. Each original rocking chair, slightly different than the next, were hand carved in maple by JP Parnas Woodworking out of Massachusetts. Molds were made of every chairs’ element, followed by waxes, and eventually they were cast in bronze. The subtle bend of the chairs’ profiles up to the detail of the wood texture and lattice woven seats translated beautifully into metal."

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Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn asked Mr. Kopel a question about this work and his thoughts on design:

Q: As an architect who is also an artist, is utility important in design?

Mr. Kopel responded: For me, there is no architecture without utility. But how does one define utility or, for that matter, function? Is something considered useful if it provokes a thought or a mood or is just pleasing to look at? I think so but I also think that good design is approachable, understandable, and directly applicable to our everyday lives. So called "paper architecture" may be useful in the academy and may be great design but is not, in my mind, architecture.

More on the foundry that rendered the work here and the designer, architect Ed Kopel here and the New York City Transit Authority's Arts for Transit and Urban Design website here

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SIDEBAR: Additional Reading and Background on the Avenue H Station:

Avenue H is a local station on the BMT Brighton Line of the New York City Subway. Located at Avenue H between East 15th and East 16th Streets on the border of Midwood and Flatbush, Brooklyn, it is served by the Q train at all times. Among the many pleasures of our family's move from Fort Greene and Clinton Hill in the late 1990s to Fiske Terrace is the wonderfully pronto, el rapido, subway service that we enjoy, ensuring relatively quick access to the rest of Brooklyn and Manhattan via the Q or B.

The Avenue H station was opened around 1900 as Fiske Terrace, a two-track surface station serving the new planned community of Fiske Terrace in Midwood, Brooklyn. The station house, also known as the headhouse, through which the station is entered, is a landmarked wood frame structure built in 1905 as a real estate office of the T.B. Ackerson Company to sell homes in the new community. It was converted to railroad use in 1907, at the same time that the station was renamed "Avenue H." The campuses of Brooklyn College and Midwood High School are nearby.

In 2003, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced plans to demolish the structure, citing its wood construction as a fire hazard. The community intervened, emphasizing the building's historic importance, architectural significance, connecting to the adjacent community and the fact that several other wooden station houses on the subway system had been given landmark status earlier.

The Old, Pre-Renovation Avenue H Station

On June 29, 2004, the station house was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. This allows renovations inside, but preserves the major structure and exterior. The contract to "restore the landmark station control house" as well as rehabilitation of the platforms and other stations structures was advertised for bids by the MTA for January 2007.

In designating it for Landmark Status, the Commission indicated: "The Avenue H station on the BMT line [...] is the city’s only shingled wooden cottage turned transit station house. Often compared to a country train stop, it originally served as a real estate sales office for developer Thomas Benton Ackerson to sell property in the adjacent neighborhood of Fiske Terrace, an early twentieth century example of planned suburban development. The structure, with a hipped and flared roof and wraparound porch, evokes in miniature the area’s Colonial Revival and Queen Anne houses. After nearly a century of commuter traffic, the Avenue H station remains in service and retains much historic fabric, from a corbelled chimney to peeled log porch columns. It is one of a very small number of wood-frame station houses surviving in the modern subway system, the only station adapted from a structure built for another function, and the only surviving station from Brooklyn’s once-extensive network of surface train lines, which had originally attracted Ackerson and numerous other developers to the area.

--Tony Napoli for Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Coda: Hey, We Coulda Been a Contender

The Future is Unwritten: City & State's 40 Under 40 Rising Stars

Photo by Tony Napoli

Political journal City & State hosted a reception for its list of 40 under 40 Rising Stars last night at Sprig, a restaurant in the Lipstick Building in midtown.   The event reflected the young and energetic group of winners which included a great  mix of up-and-coming players in NYC politics, government, media, and business.

As twilight falls on the Mike Bloomberg mayoralty, and with the continuing evolution of Andrew Cuomo's governance of the Empire State, and the complex political dynamic in the media and on the campaign trail as President Obama seeks to stretch "44" into "45" despite a stubbornly intransigent economic recovery and global upheaval and conflict, it is clear and reassuring that, in New York City at least, the Next generation of talented and dedicated movers and shakers are already taking the stage. 

(Coda/Cautionary Note: the Lipstick Building is the former home of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. Inhabiting the 17th -19th floors, the multi-billion dollar ponzi scheme was "financially engineered" from the 17th floor, which reportedly had no more than 24 employees.)

--Anthony Napoli

CODA: Paint It (in the) Black - Stones Choose Newark Over Barclay Center

The Rolling Stones will celebrate their 50th anniversary in the New York area but it will be at the Prudential Center in Newark not at the new Brooklyn Barclay's Center reports Gothamist .. while the bottom line is no doubt a factor in the decision, it will be interesting to hear the rationale since there was a flurry of hype and hooplah in anticipation of the decision ever since the tour was first announced late this summer. Whether there have been intensive, ongoing negotiations or whether this was in the bag all along remains to be seen.  For the record,  Prudential reports 17,500 capacity for end-field style concert seating; Barclay 19,000. So, somewhere in the numbers, Prudential appears to have come up with the better deal.

Looks like they'll be no Junior's cheesecake for you, Sir Mick.  Nevertheless, DITHOB is still merrily grooving on the Stone's new, terrific single, "Doom and Gloom"....

"Doom and Gloom": New Rolling Stones' Single

Lyric video above. Now available for download on iTunes. Despite early word in late August, and a renewed buzz over the last couple of days, still no news on the Barclay Center performance in Brooklyn, U.S.A., before the end of the year. Watch the skies!

The Rolling Stones @ 50 -- and Brooklyn's new Barclay Center?

The Rolling Stones have announced they are touring for their 50th Anniversary as the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World. And, is it possible, a show at Brooklyn's new Barclay Center is in the mix? Discussions continue. Details here but doesn't appear to be on the Barclay official roster of amazing events just yet here

"The Wheel of Fortune Keeps Turning Around": The Rolling Stones

THE HAND OF FATE
The hand of fate is on me now

It pick me up and knock me down
I'm on the run, I'm prison bound

The hand of fate is heavy now
I killed a man, I'm highway bound
The wheel of fortune keeps turning round
Turning round, turning round
I should have known it was a one horse town

My sweet girl was once his wife
He had papers the judge had signed
The wind blew hard, it was stormy night
He shot me once, but I shot him twice

The hand of fate is on me now
It pick me up and it kicked me right down
Kicked me right down
Kicked me right down

I had to save her life
Yeah, I gunned him twice
Yeah, and I watched him die, watch out boy
Yeah, I watched him die

He was a barroom man, the violent kind
He had no love for that gal of mine
Then one day in a drinking bout
He swore he'd throw me right of town
The hand of fate is on me now
I shot that man I put him underground
I put him underground
Yes I did

I'm on the run, I hear the hounds
My luck is up, my chips are down
So goodbye baby, so long now
Wish me luck, I'm going to need it child
The hand of fate is on me now
Yeah it's too late
Too late baby, too late now
The hand of fate is on me now
The hand of fate is heavy now
It pick you up and knock you down
copyright M.Jagger/K.Richards

Note: Mick Taylor had left the band, and The Rolling Stones were auditioning lead guitarists while recording Black And Blue. American session man Wayne Perkins played on this and almost got the job, but Ron Wood beat him out.

Human Geography: The Late Dr. Neil Smith and The Politics of Place

Bill Roberts, a founding member of the ISO, and Hector Agredano, a doctoral student at the CUNY Graduate Center, remember the life of a determined activist:

October 2, 2012

NEIL SMITH, the renowned scholar, beloved teacher and devoted activist, died on September 29 at the age of 58.

Neil is best known for his academic work. He was a professor of anthropology and geography at City University of New York. In particular, his writings on the patterns of social development in cities--drawing on history, economics, political and social theory, and ecological studies--are among the most prominent left-wing views on the subject.

But Neil will also be remembered as a committed socialist and activist. He came to the U.S. from his native Scotland in early 1977 to complete his graduate studies with David Harvey at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He wasted no time becoming an activist on campus, helping to establish the Graduate Representative Organization.

In 1978, Neil joined the International Socialist Organization (ISO), then only newly formed, and helped to build a campus chapter at John Hopkins of a dozen committed socialists. Neil became a frequent contributor to Socialist Worker, then a monthly newspaper. One memorable article of his in 1981, titled "It's Right to Rebel," put the London urban riots of that summer in the context of the severe economic recession and the hopelessness it produced.

As Kathy Ogren, a fellow student at the time and now a recognized scholar in her own right, remembered, Neil was "a great popularizer of Marxist ideas...and a good listener to a person's evolving political consciousness. He could help one sort out the connections between personal and structural questions and conditions."

Though Neil left the ISO in 1984, his comrades and students remember the humor and fearlessness he brought to his political organizing. "Neil was one of the most creative thinkers I've ever met," Ogren said. "He saw connections, applied his prodigious energy to researching an answer, and then found innovative ways to write or speak about what he had learned."

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AS A scholar, Neil's intellect was evident from early in his academic career. In 1979, he wrote an influential article titled "Toward a Theory of Gentrification: A Back to the City Movement by Capital, not People." More than scholarly research, this was a political intervention in the field of urban geography at a time when questions on urban decay and ghettoization were riddled with inconsistent theories and contradictory research.

His most important theoretical contribution to the understanding of the geography of capitalism is outlined in Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space. Here, Neil laid out a coherent explanation for the unevenness and distortion of economic development, specifically in urban areas, because of investment and disinvestment in the built environment by capital markets.

Inspired by insights from Lenin and Trotsky, Neil's thesis is based on the contradictions of capitalism outlined by Karl Marx in Capital. However, in applying these ideas, he helped to anchor disparate theories from disciplines that often remain separated in the academy.

Neil would expand on these theories to develop analyses on the commodification of nature under capitalism, politics in the study of geography, and U.S. imperialism. One of his most celebrated books, American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization--for which he received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography for 2002--traces American military interventionism through the age of globalization. The book would prove prophetic when, one year later, the U.S. launched its invasion of Iraq.

Upon his arrival at the City University of New York's Graduate Center, Smith's scholarship and sharp politics attracted a crowd of activists, intellectuals and radicals of all stripes to his courses. From seasoned anti-gentrification activists of Washington, D.C., to peasant organizers from Costa Rica, and the curious from everywhere in between, they all found a seat at the table. His classes were lively with dissension and debate, and it was alright to be political; in fact, it was encouraged.

During the last years of his life, one of Neil's main concerns was that radicals and revolutionaries were losing hope. He was frustrated that it was easier for radicals to imagine an environmental apocalypse than a triumphant revolutionary movement against capitalism. During class and in meetings, he would raise the concern that one of the victims of the ruling class offensive had been the utopian imagination of the left.

This was one of the most inspiring things about Neil--he never gave up hope. And when the Occupy movement burst on the scene last fall, he welcomed it with open arms. Class discussion would turn into strategy debates--he encouraged students to participate, and would hold class at the Occupy encampment in Zuccotti Park or cancel them to allow us to participate in major demonstrations.

Neil leaves a lasting legacy of scholarship and dedication to geography and to Marxism. As a socialist, he always placed himself in the revolutionary tradition--he spent his last years trying to raise revolution to the agenda in people's imagination and political frontiers. He left us too soon and will be sorely missed by friends, colleagues, students and loved ones.

Neil Smith, ¡presente!

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Published by the International Socialist Organization.

Material on this Web site is licensed by SocialistWorker.org, under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [1] license, except for articles that are republished with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed to the author and SocialistWorker.org. [1] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0

The late Dr. Smith's home page, including some of his papers, appear here

CUNY Graduate Center Anthrolopology  Department here

CUNY Graduate Center's Center for Place, Culture and Politics here

Radio Free New York: Bob Fass

Radio Unnameable, a documentary about broadcast visionary Bob Fass's half-century spanning tenure as host of the late night show of the same name, is winding up its run at Film Forum. How an artist, such an original talent, could be working as a volunteer at WBAI at 79 years of age, is a mystery. I mean, if Garrison Keillor could turn a radio show into a public event, why Mr. Fass couldn't be recruited, at the very least, for an adjunct position at a university, or general manager of a college radio station seems a mystery... C'mon, how has my beloved NYU (WSUC, 1976), somehow managed to drop the ball on this local NYC broadcast gem? The film combines wonderful documentary footage of NYC in the early 60s onward, combined with a social history of WBAI and the unique reach and impact of Fass's show as an altenratively poetic and interactive media venue for the American counterculture. It's an absorbing and occasionally moving film, a bit slow in dealing with the internecine warfare at the station, but remarkable in its coverage of how one man could bring this FM radio medium in a completely new direction in a relaitvely short amount of time. The NY Times article today offered some additional archival material from the show, which was archived and digitzed as part of the film here. At 79 years of age, Bob Fass is a significant figure of historical interest in the history of American media; he has devoted his life to radio. Bloomberg, Bill Gates, somebody give this man a Grant (or a pension)!

Joe Strummer: If You're Out There Getting the Honey, You Don't Go Killin' All the Bees

CoEvolution: Your iPad is Like An Arthropod

Via Big THink: "Learning guru John Seely Brown finds an intriguing analogy between the disruptive technology of today and what evolutionary biologists have observed in the fossil record during a period over 500 million years ago. The Cambrian period was like evolution on steroids. After a period of long evolutionary stasis, a warming climate created marine habitats that gave birth to new complex life forms. Among the great evolutionary innovations of this period were animals with external skeletons, or arthropods.

To follow Brown's analogy, if anthropologists many years from now are to look at our current "Cambrian explosion" they will see that in the early 21st century human biology did not change so much. Instead, humans have co-evolved with technology, acquiring increasingly sophisticated tools in a short period of time." More here

Early Roman Kings: Dylan Unleashed

The video from the Cinemax series "Strike Back" has been out for a little while, but we have been really grooving of late to the Bob Dylan TEMPEST album, especially "Early Roman Kings" a heavy blues riff, lyrically adventurous, as always : All the early roman kings in their sharkskin suits bowties and buttons hightop boots drivin' the spikes in raisin' the rails nailin' the coffins in top hats and tails fly away over fly away flap your wings fly by night like the early roman kings all the early roman kings in the early early morn comin' down the mountain distributing the corn speeding through the forest racin' down the track you try to get away they drag you back tomorrow is ? we'll see what it brings everybodys talkin' about the early roman kings there's peddlers and theres meddlers they buy and they sell they'll destroy your city they'll destroy you as well their lecherous and trechurous hell-bent for leather each of 'em bigger than all them put together sluggers and muggers wearin' fancy gold rings all the women goin' crazy for the early roman kings i can dress up your wounds with a blood clotted rag i ain't afraid to make love ? if you see me comin' and your standin' there wave your hankerchief in the air i ain't dead yet my bell still rings i keep my fingers crossed like the early roman kings i can strip you of life strip you of breath ship you down to the house of death one day you will ask for me they'll be no one else that you'll wanna see bring down my fiddle tune up my strings i'm gonna break it wide open like the early roman kings i was up on black mountain the day detroit fell they killed 'em all off and they sent 'em to hell ding dong daddy you're comin' up short gonna put you on trial in a sicilian court i had my fun i had my flings gonna shake 'em on down like the early roman king -Bob Dylan 2012