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A New Year’s Mystery
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The West 59th Street Sea Creatures
Way over on West 59th Street between 10th and 11th is this great little Parks Department rec center, dwarfed on all sides by ultra-modern glass-curtain highrises. Once a bath house, the rec center now houses a public pool. What I especially love about this building are the two aquatic sculptures in the upper corners. In…
1920’s Atlantic City in Greenpoint, Brooklyn
After watching the premiere of Boardwalk Empire last night, I was really excited to check out the Atlantic City set for myself, which was built in a parking lot in northern Greenpoint. A locations friend who lives in GP pointed me to a vacant lot on Commercial Street and Clay Street, and I hopped on…
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Whoa!! There’s a runway on that roof!!! There is no way a plane could ever take off or land there, even though there seems to be a plane on the roof!
The biplane on the roof is a sculpture designed by Rudolph de Harak and executed by the sculptor William Tarr in 1969.
The plane is a full-size model of a WW1 Sopwith Camel biplane, complete with runway.
It was put there to amuse inhabitants of surrounding skyscrapers including the World Trade Center before 9-11-01.
http://mtcave.blogspot.com/2008/04/sopwith-camel-ww1-biplane-on-ny.html
Here’s the intrepid news chopper, filming footage of an old WWI Sopwith Camel for a human (sorry – BEAGLE) interest story…
(Why can’t I have an ordinary dog that’s incapable of being meta like everyone else?)
Is that building still Sage Realty? (Do they even exist anymore?) Sage always put some fanciful design element into each of their buildings – the clock at 110 John Street, the Piano Building on Third Ave. They could be a pain in the ass to deal with, but their hearts were always in the right place.
Is that sculpture still there? I had heard the plane/runway was removed when NYU took over that building as a dorm. Or am I completely misinformed?
I seem to remember that building has a funky ground level space too. It’s a water feature with a couple of little footbridges that they (used to at least – I haven’t been down there in years) fill up with ice skating characters during the holiday season.
Nailed it!
Nice work! Further proof that I can’t get anything over my readers!