The people in your neighborhood

I stopped into my local grocery store that's only one block from my apartment today, a very nice Morton Williams. Actually, when I'm in the city I find myself going there practically everyday. Anyway, today I was in the produce section I noticed an extremely tall person out of the corner of my eye dressed completely (and stylishly) in white. It was a head-to-toe vision of Summer Coolness. I was going about my shopping and saw the person again two aisles over and it turned out to be none other than the famous Broadway dancer/director/choreographer (and fellow Texan!) Tommy Tune. I must say he lives up to his reputation for being one tall drink of water. He was in white Crocs and he towered over me. I was able to snap this pic.




After I got home I did a little Googling and found out he lives in a penthouse apartment on East 52nd Street just off Beekman Place, just five block from me. I love seeing famous people in the 'hood doing ordinary things. Now if I can just spot Sigourney Weaver...

The port cochere: shambles again

So they have now started the re-demolition of the driveway in front of the revolving doors in the port cochere. As I detailed in my last post on this topic, the curb was too steep to access so they have broken it up in anticipation of pouring new concrete with a lower curb 'lip'. I was told this would take a week. Yeah, right. We'll see.





In a separate problem, the sidewalk in front of the building is getting re-done at a snail's pace. While the sidewalks on both side of the building have been fixed and the requisite concrete poured, the last remaining piece, the sidewalk on the corner is not done. Before the new concrete can be poured for this section, the traffic light on the corner must be repaired AS IT IS ON THE FRITZ. OY!

The broken street lamp on the corner

This is under the city's prevue as well as the sidewalk but who knows when this will happen. So...all that construction mess in front of the building will stay there until further notice.

This is a saga with no ending...

Hollywood on Sutton Place

Ever on the quest to spot Hollywood movies that have been shot or have taken place on Sutton Place, I was watching the old noir thriller "Sorry, Wrong Number" the other day and, lo and behold, I found out that the apartment of rich heiress Barbara Stanwyck in the film is on our favorite street.



She's bedridden throughout the whole movie on a hot summer night when she overhears a plot to murder her on a phone call party line.



There are a couple of angles where you see an open picture window...and through that window you see a bridge. This can only be the Queensboro bridge as it's the only bridge in view of Sutton Place.



Therefore, based on this, her apartment must be in 1 Sutton Place South, probably the swankiest building in the neighborhood. This would make sense given the story's plot.

1 Sutton Place South

I read somewhere once that if you can't live on Park Avenue then the next best thing is this address. That would put her bedroom on the Southern exposure of the building on a high floor (maybe the penthouse?) Here's a picture of the top of the building and the bridge in the distance.



Now, I'm sure this picture was made on a Hollywood soundstage and La Stanwyck came nowhere near Sutton Place and the view through the window is merely a filmed backdrop, but it does look like the production designers got it right.

The port cocheré: CRASH!!

Just when you think the end of the saga with the front of the building is coming to a close you find out IT'S STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN.
The doormen told me that the entire driveway slope that leads down to the front entrance of the building, to the revolving doors, WAS DONE ENTIRELY INCORRECTLY. It needs to be ripped up and re-done STARTING FROM SCRATCH.
What happened?
Well, it seems that the construction company who did the job made the slope too steep and deep. They had raised it a few inches higher than the drive that was there previously, thereby creating a walking hazard. Mind you, none of this is detectable to me, but apparently an elderly tenant recently tripped and fell over the curb because of the steepness of the incline and she severely hurt her hip.
So here we go 'round the mulberry bush AGAIN. The front entrance will once again be closed and we'll have to enter from the side entrance on Sutton Place South.
My first concern was that we, the tenants, would have to pay for this overage, but the doormen are telling me that the mistake was made by the construction company so they'll have to eat the cost of the re-do since it was their screw-up. That's the good news. The BAD news is that all of this won't start until the sidewalk construction outside the building is completed. But it shows no signs of being done anytime soon. So I'm betting this new problem won't be finished TIL CHRISTMAS AT THE EARLIEST (if not later). OY!!

The walls have ears (and eyes, and noses...)

If you stare at something long enough you can see all kinds of images take shape...sorta like staring at clouds. You see a dog, a duck, an icecream cone.
The same thing happens when I stare at marble. I see all kinds of things in the marbling and swirls of the stone.
In my bathroom there are all kinds of faces staring back at me...here are few that stand out, see if you don't see what I'm seeing.
This one is the head of a tapir...



This one is one of the Spring sprites from Disney's "Fantasia", the little pixies that appear in the "Nutcracker Suite" segment...



And this one is kittenish chanteuse Eartha Kitt...



See what I mean?

Spoke too soon...

I've been writing about the work on the front of the building and how the renovation of the port cochere has taken its own sweet time in getting finished. Just when I thought that the finishing touches were all that were needed (some simple plantings in the driveway flowerbed), we were informed that there still needed to be work done on the sidewalk in front of the building on the Sutton Place side. So for the last couple of weeks we've had unsightly barricades and screens, jackhammers and an open pit of a sidewalk to navigate around to get into the building. Here are some shots of the corner of the building. This can't be over too soon for my taste.











The good news, small though it may be, is that they've put some plantings in the flowerbed, more still to come we're told...

"Amazing Aquarium"

I've written about how I LOVE my app from AppleTV that plays a serious of continuous fireplaces here. In the winter I use it constantly. Well, now that's it's getting warmer and the season's changing I've found a new app to love. It's called "Amazing Aquarium" and for only $1.99 you get the choice of four different aquariums to play on your flatscreen that almost look like they're an aquarium built into the wall (well, almost, haha). I find it's much better to have something playing on the screen than have a big black rectangle hanging over the room. You also get the sound effects of bubbles and the airator for more verisimilitude...OR, you can have it going while you play Pandora, so music wafts through the apartment at the same time.
The four styles of aquarium are "Tropical Aquarium", "Japanese Aquarium", "Goldfish Aquarium", and "Shark Attack". My favorite is "Japanese Aquarium" because I like the little pagodas placed in the 'tank'. If I had a real aquarium of my own I'd place things like that in it.
Here are pics of the 4 choices:

"Tropical Aquarium"

"Japanese Aquarium"

"Golfish Aquarium"

"Shark Attack"