Sounds and smells

How much do you remember about a place you've left. What things exist everyday in your world, today that you could miss if that world changed?

In Brooklyn I never smell fresh cut grass, but instead lots of lacquer smells from the auto body shops in the neighborhood. In Manhattan there is the constant sound of cars, buses, horns, stereos, protesters, ambulances, police sirens, construction, wind, and people. The smells in Manhattan shift depending on how fast you're walking: coffee, fish, rotting vegetables, baking bread, sewage, car exhaust, fried garlic, falafel, trash.......... In Knoxville, you always hear trains. The city doesn't have passenger trains, only freight, but the tracks seem to be ubiquitous. Trains honk their horns before every intersection of track and road. I've heard they have to do this, especially in crossing that don't have gates. I don't hear these trains anymore, because I live in Brooklyn, nor do I smell the burnt coffee smell of JFG on Sutherland Ave, where my studio used to be. JFG moved from downtown Knoxville to Sutherland Avenue around 2006, the same year I began renting space at Mighty Mud Studios. Standing out on the loading dock, you could hear trains, football practice on a nearby field, and smell burnt coffee wafting through the air. The studio, itself, had no windows, but the bay doors were mostly kept open, allowing fresh air to move through, all day long. I've been thinking about this, lately, because I want to start looking for a studio in Brooklyn, and know that it's hard to find one with even a window, let alone a view or fresh air, but I'm curious to see what reveals itself as possibilities.

I'll post what I find.

Poetry, History, Mud, and Gold

I just wanted to say a few things about this island we currently know as Manhattan. In the past year, the Manhatta project published a book about how the island has changed since Henry Hudson came here four hundred years ago. One of the things I read that mosts stands out in my mind is the fact that Times Square used to be a red maple swamp, and actually today, it is one of the only place on the island where access to the deeper layers of earth allows geothermal air conditioning to be possible.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/podcast-making-tkts-hip-to-be-square

http://themannahattaproject.org/

Last fall, I was on a team of architecture students conducting research on the geology of Manhattan, as it related to the site for our project at the time. This is when I learned about Manhattan schist, the bedrock strong enough to support the weight of so many skyscrapers on such a small stretch of land. (It is said that the cityscape contour follows the presence of manhattan schist, faithfully). This is the rock you see jutting out of the landscape across Central Park. In 1924, it was also decided that the schist would make a suitable floor to stack one third of the world's monetary gold reserves on. So the Federal Reserve Bank of New York did just that, creating a vault 50 feet below sea level. I love the image of a room full of gold set deep within the interior of a hard, black, knotty bed of stone.















And lastly, in the past week, at the site of the former World Trade Center towers, the remains of an eighteenth century ship was found. In the 18th and 19th century, fill dirt and random debris was dumped along the shore of lower Manhattan in an effort to extend the terrain. Battery Park City alone is built on the displaced soil that was excavated in order to build the WTC towers. Today on the WTC site, there are several new towers and a memorial being built, but excavation now went deeper than it did in the 70's and that is how the ship was found. Again, the image of time's relics set deep in the black mud of one of the busiest cities in the world, is a very poetic image. You can't help but wonder what other gems lie silently underfoot of 8 million people.

http://www.wtc.com/media/

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/18th-century-ship-found-at-trade-center-site/