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Tiles For America covers a triangular fence enclosing a parking lot along Greenwich Avenue. It’s an interesting juxtaposition of a memorial with outdoor advertising. At first I thought the androgynous head was staring at anyone passing, but on second thought she/he appears hypnotized and slightly nauseated.
And in this one, the face gazes out over barbed wire symbolizing how materialism both imprisons the mind and distracts. Deep, huh?
The Day-O on Greenwich, closed for “renovations” since 2007 was repossessed early this year by the landlord.
Just another ugly building.
The guy with the beard (not pictured) came up to me when I was taking pictures of this new building on Greenwich near its northern terminus. He said, “It’s better than the parking lot that it replaces.” You may know him – he’s retired from the publishing business and now gives walking tours of the Upper West Side and Greenwich Village.
“It’s not so bad,” I said. “It has curvy windows on the upper floors.”
“Not in this neighborhood,” he said. “It doesn’t belong here.”
Garden variety empty store.
What defines a truly ugly building in a city with hundreds of thousands of buildings? A pristine modern structure with reflective surfaces and smooth edges can be decidedly ugly while a run down building layered with graffiti sprouting plants from cracks can be, in the context of the city, excruciatingly beautiful.
I offer the following as examples of ugly. You may disagree, but then, you’ve always been needlessly argumentative. This first one, with its exposed electrical components and bland circa cold era eastern bloc windowless walls….
…and this with its rusting screened-in terrace-cum-gangway, without which, the building would remain unremarkable…
…and what of this one? A monolith, is pure oddness distinguishes it. Its smudged white graffiti, cloying vines and peculiar miniature iron fence create an effect just crying to be marked by bar patrons too disoriented to find indoor plumbing.
Maybe you’d like to enter a NYC ugly building into our contest. Send a photo submission (nothing larger than 200K please) to deficioscriptor@gmail.com.
And to view updated blogs in real-time, go to http://alphainventions.com or http://condron.us/.
First place, upper west side-ish division including Broadway from 57th to 76th St. Is there an uglier building on the Upper West Side than this one at Broadway and 76th? This building will be entered into the Manhattan regionals with a winner to be announced some time after I get around to photographing all the buildings in the borough.
This stretch of buildings on West 57th St. finished last.
