Another prime example of a “graf-out” on the Lower East Side of New York City. We love these things. The graf-out has its own aesthetic — cloud-shaped blobs and swaths of gray paint on metal shutters look like abstract art.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Monthly Archives: March 2005
New York Grafouts – Lower East Side 01
Graf goes up, graf goes down. Or, rather, graf gets covered with a coat of paint. Often, that coat of paint is in a slightly different hue from the original color of the wall. We call these “graf-outs.” Nevertheless, a mismatching of hues is the price one pays in the effort to cover up the graf. The effect of the graf-out is like that of abstract art. The above photo is a prime example of a graf-out on the Lower East Side of New York City.
Ivan Corsa
East Broadway Paints, LES 02East Broadway Paints, LES 02
East Broadway Paints, LES 01
Williamsburg Rock Mural
This huge mural in Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, “rocks the rockingest!” This well-executed work has the look of a magazine illustration writ extra-large. But what really makes this mural pop is the explosive tag painted in the center, which is polished, highly-stylized and pristine. It’s rare to see such a juxtoposition of representative painting and graf integrated into a single, flawless piece of street art. The artist(s) has the skillz.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Teriyaki Boy Front – New York City
The East Village in New York City could just as handily be called “Little Tokyo” or “Japan Town” given the extraordinary number of Japanese restaurants, sushi bars and supermarkets, as well as Japanese owned-and-operated hair salons, vintage clothing shops and other establishments (from record stores to toy stores) opened and run by expats from Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya who now call New York City home. With the glut of sushi bars comes specialization, such as this Japanese fast-food chain restaurant, Teriyaki Boy, on East 10th St. The exterior design of the storefront and signage is eye-catching and demonstrates a successful use of logo-graphics and lighting elements to create an alluring storefront.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Downtown Up – “Lier” on the Lower East Side
“Snackbar” Logo – Logo Graphic NYC
A clever, “designy” (but not too designy) typographic treatment as logo for local eatery/catering company Snackbar on the side of it’s catering van. A glance at the logo — the brand — itself already makes us think that Snackbar’s food is reliably prepared and delivered. As to the taste of the food … well …
Ivan Corsa Photo
Triple Threat – NYC Street Art Mash-up
Here we’ve got the work of several street artists and writers, including that of a couple of the underground’s brightest stars – Shepard Fairey and Swoon. Here’s the breakdown: The black-and-white motorcycle cop paste-up holding the Andre the Giant icon is the work of Shephard Fairey (of Obey / Giant Has a Posse, Swindle Magazine, etc.). The wheat-paste paper cut-out of the man on the bicycle is by Brooklyn artist Swoon. Underneath are some wheate-paste cut outs and tags of several other artists and writers. Nice to all this work serendepitously aggregated in one location in downtown Manhattan.
Ivan Corsa Photo
NYC Graf – “Core” in Chinatown
A nice close-up of an up on the side of a truck in Chinatown. Mid-sized freight trucks are everywhere in lower Manhattan, but especially in Chinatown. Most of these vehicles are white and as such are a tempting canvas waiting to be filled by aspiring artists and writers. The mobility of the trucks gives the author’s tag greater exposure to a wider geographic audience as the trucks ferry cargo around the New York City and tri-state area.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Steet Art Sticker – Paint Brush
We don’t know who the artist is behind this sticker of a dripping paint brush, which can be interpreted as an ironic, cheeky comment on the nature art itself, given that painting is the medium most associated with the idea of art. The person who created this sticker could have been thinking precisely that, or, maybe, they just thought that a sticker of a paint brush would be “like, cool.” Whatever. Sticker art is a whole other medium (or sub-genre, if you will) of illicit street art. Putting up stickers is also a lot easier to do covertly compared the more visible and time-consuming effort required to put up wheat-paste posters and paint graf tags. As the authorities, especially in New York City, become more vigilant in the war on graf, stickers may become a more popular means of expression.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Downtown NYC Graf – “Gucci” by Claw on Clinton St., LES
Every time we see an up by Claw, it’s a little different from every one we’ve seen before. The colors are different, the pattern is different and there’s always a different number, word or phrase embdeed within the claw itself. It is that three-toe claw that is the only constant in his body of work. Pictured above is one of our favorites, the Gucci Claw, which you can find on the west side of Clinton St. between Houston and Stanton streets in the Lower East Side of New York City.
Street Art by Faile: “Michael” in SoHo
The artist(s) who goes by the name Faile is among the stars of the global street art underground. This artists work takes several forms, but the most striking are wheat-paste posters like the above image, wwhich we snapped in the SoHo lofts district, in New York City. In this case, the subject is the mega-famous celebrity Michael Jackson, who the media have called King of Pop. The Michael depicted in this poster looks like the early 1980′s-era Michael of “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” fame. Faile has explained in “Street Logos,” Tristan Manco’s excellent book on street art, that artists use methods similar to advertisers and brand strategists and that images artists create — like those created by marketers — can be powerful because they can communicate so much with so few words.
Ivan Corsa Photo
View From AOL Time Warner Building
A view from the mezzanine inside the AOL Time Warner Building looking out through the huge glass front onto Columbus Circle in Manhattan. Across the roundabout, at 2 Columbus Circle, is a white skyscraper that is an important piece of 1960′s-era architecture, The New York Cultural Center Building. Originally it was an art museum — or, rather, a very large gallery — called the Huntington Hartford Gallery of Modern Art, an institution born by the heir to the great A&P Supermarket fortune. Built from 1964-65, this singular skyscraper was designed by architects Edward Durell Stone and Associates expressly for the purpose of housing a world-class art collection. It has been vacant for years and is in serious need of repair and renovation despite the structure being recognized as an architectural gem. Fortunately, in 2004 the building was designated as an “endangered building” by the National Trust and is now the focus of efforts by architecture preservationists to protect the design from being altered in the future.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Wall of Java Tops at Ini Ani, LES 03
Wall of Java Tops at Ini Ani, LES 02
Wall of Java Tops at Ini Ani, LES 01
One of our favorite cafes in the Lower East Side is Ini Ani Espresso Bar on Stanton St. The small cafe has an exquisite interior designed and built by a local architecture firm called Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis. The architects made an innovative use of materials to decorate the walls and create a gentle acoustics and comfortable –if cozy — environment. This sets Ini Ani Espresso Bar apart as a chill place to sip lattes and mochachinos while whiling away a Sunday afternoon with the New York Times. The most memorable interior feature is a plaster wall surface with a pattern of circular impressions, each circle created from a unique plastic coffee cup lid.
Ivan Corsa Photo
East Village Up 1 – “Sasse”
East Village Up 2 – “Sasse”
Renovators’ Delight – Posted NYC Work Permits
In New York City, if you’re engaged in any kind of construction, whether putting up a new luxury condo or renovating a factory to make way for loft apartments or buidling a new restaurant interior, you’ll need city work permits for construction and these permits must be posted in public view on the front of the building or site, as in the picture above. Sometimes, there are multiple renovation or construction projects happening within a single apartment building, which leads to a glut of paperwork and permits.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Subway Car Aesthetics
We like how the purple of the No. 7 Line circle/graphic symbol on the New York City subway system works well with the silvery stainless steel finish of the subway car itself. The number of arts projects and the amount of graphic design that has gone into decoration and visual communication within the subway system is impressive, diverse and first-class (even if subway service itself isn’t) and could easily fill a large museum.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Post-Modern Timekeeping on Wall Street
This series of numbered panes on the side of a Water St. office building is a clock. As a piece of architecture, it is intriging and looks more like a work of post-modern art than a serious, practical — if novel — way of keeping time. The historic Wall Street financial district of New York City is home to many examples of large-scale corporate-sponsored public art, most in the form of sculptural pieces in the foyers and plazas in front of office buildings.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Corporate Cathedral of Banking – Citibank Building in Queens
When you see the high-rise Citibank Building in Long Island City, Queens, it looks clearly out of place among the renovated turn-of-the-century industrial buildings (now lofts) and low-rise brick tenement buildings and clap-board townhouses, as if the glass office tower had wandered away from the massive cluster of skyscrapers just across the the East River in Manhattan. Citibank was a real estate pioneer by putting up a towering corporate cathedral in this part of Queens. It was a move encouraged by a larger economic strategy for New York City. Long Island City is being primed as an alternative to Jersey City as a destination by companies in Wall Street and Midtown to set up back-office operations. Rents and costs are lower in these places compared to in Manhattan.
Ivan Corsa
Mad Ups – Graf All-Stars in East Village, New York
This image if a wall along 1rst St., between Bowery and 2nd Ave. in the East Village, really speaks for itself. Here we see some really good graf and mural painting mixed together to make a collage of aerosol art. It’s an impressive testament to the artists and writers’ mad skills and excellent can control. The location is worth noting — it’s a block around the corner from legendary live music club CBGBs and down the street from the infamous dive bar called Mars Bar. This stretch of 1rst Street has a lot of graf amid abandoned lots and crumbling buildings, which are now being cleaned up by real estate developers to put in expensive luxury apartments and condos. How long the street and aerosol art will remain in the face of the development boom is any one’s guess.
Ivan Corsa Photo
SSUR Plus Storefront – “Bruce Lee” Window
SSUR Plus is a select shop and exclusive, niche brand (along the lines of A Bathing Ape or Alife) of hip-hop-inspired casual clothing — hoodies, tees, jeans and gear. The store attracts hipster tourists from as far away as Tokyo and Stockholm. Its front window is the bomb! The Bruce Lee image etched into frosted glass and the electronic ticker at top is a stunner. Check it out on Spring St. in NoLIta.
Architecture 101 – Tonic NYC
The soul of the New York City downtown music scene, Tonic is small venue housed in a simple one-storey warehouse on Norfolk St., in the Lower East Side. The influential and down-to-earth club is home to avant-garde and experimental live music, as well as a favorite tour stop for indie-rock, jazz and electronic musicians — Sonic Youth, Boredoms, Cibo Matto, Arto Lindsay, Sean Lennon and Vincent Gallo are among the artists who have recently played regularly at the club. The venue was started by jazz musician John Zorn. The non-descript structure used to be home to a Kosher winemaker. In the basement is Sub-Tonic, a DJ bar that has refashioned the wine barrels into cozy semi-private booths for patrons. As a stand-alone, low-rise building, Tonic is unusual in the vertical city that is NYC. These qualities also make it an ideal location for live music — no attached buildings mean no neighbors to disturb and no noise complaints. Tonic is currently raising money to remain at its current home. As the Lower East Side completes its cycle of urban renewal and gentrification with the arrival of luxury apartment buildings, buzz restaurants and boutique hotels, rent has skyrocketed in the nabe and forced out many long-term businesses. Let’s hope Tonic can raise all the money it needs to remain part of the LES’s fertile creative, cultural scene.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Street Art – WK Interact “Boxer” Image on Lower East Side
The work of the artist WK Interact is some of the most easily recognizable of downtown New York City. The artist, whose studio/shop is on the Lower East Side (LES), creates large scale black-and-white murals, paste-ups and dimensional works that show people mixed with imagery of authority, violence, fast motion, technology and military hardware. Above is his “boxer” mural on Ludlow St. in the LES, around the corner from his base on Stanton St., which is open to the public.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Kate Spade Treatment for Scaffolding
Popular purveyor of smart, classic handbags and accessories, Kate Spade has a massive and always busy store in the heart of the Soho lofts-and-shops district in New York. Even at a time when there’s construction work or renovations being done and scaffolding surrounds the landmarked cast-iron loft building where the store lives, Kate Spade manages to add some color to a drab situation. Here the apparati is covered with a Kate Spade pattern one might find in a design for a bag, wallet, shoe or belt. The vivid colors of the graphic pattern replace the usual store signs, which are sedate and hidden by the scaffolding, and double as billboard advertising.
That Glass Staircase at the Apple Store SoHo
The glass-Plexi staircase at the center of the Apple Store, Soho, which we think is still one of the best Apple Store spaces of all we’ve seen. (And we’ve seen quite of few of them actually.) The home of the iPod and other istuff is located in a former US Post Office building in the main shopping district of SoHo, just around the corner and down the street from other premium and “cool” retailers like A Bathing Ape Busy Work Shop and the Kid Robot. The staircase — an architectural and interior classic — has been replicated in various forms at Apple stores around the world and inspired many copies by archictects in private residences and corporate spaces alike.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Reppin’ Manhattan – Faces of the LES
Pictured above is one of two paneled murals depicting actual immigrants living in the Lower East Side or LES. (The other panel can be found here.) The LES is historically the great immigrant hood of New York City, where waves upon wave of 19th and 20th century immigrants — Irish, Germans, Eastern European Jews, Italians, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Chinese — first settled upon arrival in America. Now the LES is the great hipster hood of Manhattanm but soon — given the soaring real estate prices, new luxury condos and loft renovations — will become the great young urban professionals hood. So long BAPE sneakers and RISD grads, hello i-bankers and Blackberrys.
Ivan Corsa Photo