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And now for something completely different

by praktike at 04:34PM (EDT) on October 28, 2004 | Permanent Link

Burned out on politics? So am I.

I get a big kick out of antiquated technology, ruins, grandiose abandoned projects, and secret places. So I wish I had been in New York yesterday for the 100th Anniversary of the city's subway system. For the centennial, Mayor Bloomberg held at a ceremony at the glorious but abandoned City Hall Station.

Here's what it looked like as of yesterday:

If you like that photo, there are more here, and you can also take a gander at Joseph Brennan's elegant site telling the story of Broadway's secret train, the failed precursor to the 1904 subway system. Having read about New York's extensive 19th-century pneumatic tube network in The Victorian Internet, I loved this chapter, and especially this drawing of the Pneumatic Dispatch:

Those were the days.

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And now for something completely different above ground

by nadezhda on Fri 29 Oct 2004 12:16 AM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Thanks for the tip to Joseph Brennan's site. Not only is the Beach Pneumatic project a fascinating hoot, the subsite on Abandoned Subways is glorious.

If we're celebrating the NY subway's 100th we should also hark back to how the subway used to relate to the above ground foot traffic. The Paris Metro is of course renowned for its Art Nouveau "metropolitan" signs that steer travellers to the stairs leading down to the stations. Apparently the IRT entrances were all graced with these structures at one time.

I saw that, too

by praktike on Sat 30 Oct 2004 12:13 AM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Love that Art Nouveau.

Re: I saw that, too

by nadezhda on Sat 30 Oct 2004 05:37 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Kind of a cross between Art Nouveau and Beaux Arts that's quite handsome. But certainly not the Deco of the Chrysler Building (which may be one of my most favorite things in the world. Have you seen its elevators?) Yet all of pre WWII Manhattan shares an aesthetic of combining large scale with a human dimension. I think the decorative aspects, regardless of the era, help in that regard.

I certainly haven't mourned the Towers as architectural specimens, nor their impact on the street-level flow of people in the financial district. I always felt it was more of a moonscape than anything down there; or at least that people were aliens. Hope whatever winds up going in there is a little more true to the overall feel of Manhattan.