2002-07-07: Downtown NYC

2002-07-07: Downtown NYC:

: PGK Art: Bowling Green Park (oldest existing public park in N.Y.C.), where Broadway starts its long trip uptown.

: PGK Art: Charging Bull (sometimes called the Wall Street Bull or the Bowling Green Bull) is a bronze statue sculpture by Arturo Di Modica that sits in Bowling Green park near Wall Street in New York City. The sculpture depicts a bull, the symbol of aggressive financial optimism and prosperity, leaning back on its haunches and with its head lowered as if ready to charge. Arturo Di Modica reportedly created the sculpture following the 1987 stock market crash as a testament to his belief in the unceasing vitality of American capitalism. The sculpture, however, was not commissioned by the city as a work of public art. Rather, Di Modica created it on his own and installed it in December 15, 1989 as “guerrilla art”, trucking it to Lower Manhattan and placing it in front of the New York Stock Exchange as a Christmas gift to the people of New York . The police seized the illegal sculpture and placed it into an impound lot. In response to the public outcry favoring the sculpture, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation re-installed it several blocks away to its current location in the plaza at Bowling Green where it faces up Broadway. The sculpture is one of the most photographed pieces of art in the city and has become a popular tourist destination for visitors to the Financial District. It has also come to be an unofficial symbol of the Financial District itself.

: PGK Art: Tourists …

: Krysia

: Pawel

: Krysia

: PGK Art: Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, which currently houses the New York branch of the National Museum of the American Indian; and the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan Division).

: PGK Art: U.S. Custom House, built 1902 – 1907 by the federal government to house the duty collection operations for the port of New York. Sculptures of four of the continents, America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, by Daniel Chester French, flank the Bowling Green entrance.

: PGK Art: Rotunda inside the U.S. Custom House.

: In 1936, Reginald Marsh was commissioned to execute a series of murals in the Rotunda as part of the Treasury Relief Art Project, which gave work to artists during the depression. The larger ones display eight views of the activity at the port of New York. Eight smaller panels, depicting figures of famous explorers, are painted in grisaille to simulate statuary. The fifth mural panel depicts a panoramic view of New York Harbor and the city skyline with the Statue of Liberty in the left foreground. In the right foreground, the RMS Queen Mary is heading for port. This scene is meant to demonstrate the centrality and prominence of New York as both an international port of call and a center for immigration. By the mid1930s there were over two hundred international steamship routes using New York Harbor; a major vessel sailed into or departed from the harbor every ten minutes during daylight hours. The fact that Marsh chose to depict foreign-flag vessels in the Custom House murals, and not solely American superliners, greatly displeased Joseph P. Kennedy, the chairman of the United States Maritime Commission. He complained to Secretary of State Henry Morgenthau, Jr., the senior head of TRAP, who was forced to come to Marsh’s defense. Morgenthau told Kennedy that Marsh chose to show foreign vessels in the murals because they accurately represented the liners visible in New York Harbor at the time. He said that Marsh had used the Scottish-built Queen Mary in particular “because he feels that any painting of present-day New York Harbor omitting this Blue Ribbon liner would not be a complete, nor accurate one.”

: PGK Art: Spiral stairway inside the U.S. Custom House

: Booming Out: Mohawk Ironworkers Build New York

: Krysia

: PGK Art: Living in the past … as made possible at the New York branch of the National Museum of the American Indian.

: PGK Art: You are but a spec within those concrete canyons

: Krysia in front of Rejected Skin [made from rejected pieces of the building’s aluminum siding and a junked ambulance, compressed in a trash compactor] (1969) by William Tarr, located at 77 Water Street

: Herring -Like Fishes Swimming Upstream (1985) by Pamela Waters, at 77 Water Street

: PGK Art: Who is the real you? Stainless-steel slab sculpture with an opening that faces a polished disk, located in the Wall Street Plaza, on Water Street, by Pine Street. Orient Overseas Associates – 88 Pine Street (also known as Wall Street Plaza), Manhattan, New York City “East-West Gate,” installed in front of the Orient Overseas Building (88 Pine Street in New York) in 1973, is one of Yu Yu Yang’s best-known LifeScape sculptures. 1973. Yuyu Yang (1926-97) was a prominent sculptor in Taiwan and China.

: PGK Art: Sometimes, reality is difficult to discern. Orient Overseas Associates – 88 Pine Street (also known as Wall Street Plaza), Manhattan, New York City “East-West Gate,” installed in front of the Orient Overseas Building (88 Pine Street in New York) in 1973, is one of Yu Yu Yang’s best-known LifeScape sculptures. 1973. Yuyu Yang (1926-97) was a prominent sculptor in Taiwan and China.

: PGK Art: South Street Seaport at Fulton Street & Front Street

: PGK Art: Fulton Fish Market on South Street

: PGK Art: Jasper Ward House At the end of the short two-block street called Peck Slip, is the 1807 home of Jasper Ward. This house was probably used as one of the many and notable Counting Houses, where newly arrived goods were auctioned off and distributed to entrepreneurs and shoppers, seeking the latest in cloth, spices, teas, and news from the “old country.” Jasper and his brother Bartholomew also had the foresight to buy what is now called Wards Island. At the time, Ward’s Island was part of the deep “wilds” of New York. This purchase was considered a bold move on the part of the two merchants who eventually established farms on the island as a business venture. The Triborough Bridge now passes over and is anchored by Wards Island.

: PGK Art: Cruise Boats — Seaport Music Cruises or the Beast

: PGK Art: Sometimes time just passes you by, and you never notice.

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