cities in film

After watching all of these movies in class and talking about their settings and locations, I started to think about more period films. Obviously the language and dialog are incredibly crucial in making the era in a film seem realistic, but above all else is the setting — if it doesn’t look realistic, no one is going to believe it. I was watching Gangs of New York a while ago, and became absolutely amazed at the sets themselves and how believable they seemed to be. I got a little curious, and found out that the sets they used to film the movie (set in the 1860s in the 5 Points) were created completely to scale according to original documents found. The roads, the buildings, everything was rebuilt to look as close as humanly possible to the way New York looked 150 years ago.

So I was wondering if you guys think that sets and locations are really important to films, and whether or not it is worth it for movies to go all out to rebuild million-dollar cities, etc. for the sake of a movie.

this is an image of Paradise Square in the film

than an old sketching done in 1859 of a different angle on the same block

abandoned stations

The grandeur of the New York City subway system never ceases to amaze me. It seems illogical that these subways are constantly crossing oceans and islands, going above and underground, and taking us wherever we need to go. It is amazing to think of the work that the original engineers of Manhattan had when they were creating the 5 boroughs. Each is carefully planned so that the lines can communicate and connect with each other to strategically move as many people as possible. It is a testament to the genius of the original architects of Manhattan that we all still use this system, and that is works despite the population boom of the city. However, the subway stations you ride in daily have a lot of history to share as well. This website has an ample listing of abandoned railways and the plans for lines that never came to be. The platform at Hoyt-Schemerhorn is also profiled here. Search around and find out something new about the places you frequent every weekend.

Grand Central during construction

Stealth in a new environment…

Many, many years ago, when our country was still considered “new,” mapmakers, land-surveyors, engineers etc. needed a way to map and locate places to a very high level of accuracy. For this reason, they started to place objects called “benchmarks” throughout the country. Benchmarks are most commonly found to be metal disks usually marked with the date and logo of The Nation Spatial Reference System.

This is a pretty boring historical post so far, right? Wrong! I hate history…

In a nutshell, from this process a game called Geocaching was formed. Geocaching, in a nutshell, is a modern scavenger hunt where people who own GPS navigation will punch in the coordinates of a “cache” (or the hidden treasure) and go on a hunt to find it.

Easy right?

Wrong! These caches are planted by other lovers of the game who take it very seriously. This isn’t as simple as a child’s easter egg hunt. At times, caches can be near impossible to find though some will spend what seems like forever looking because, supposedly, the harder a cache is to find the bigger the prize in contains (i.e. I once had to go into a park, follow a trail into the woods, wander from the path onto a bridge, lower myself into a creek from a guard rail, walk along the creek until it split, then go into the island of land the splitting creek created, dig through a rotten tree stump, and pull out the cache which only contained a few marbles and some shells). Therefore, the game is very involved and can become very intense…and then I moved to New York…

Imagine doing all of this in suburbia, then moving it to a densely populated city where everyday civilians are just watching, lurking, and waiting to call the cops on people trespassing. Trust me when I say, most people won’t take pity on you intruding on their territory if you say “Hey, sorry, I’m just on a scavenger hunt.”

Maybe none of you will find this interesting, but it is truly an experience worth trying at least once (and because I suspect most college students don’t have GPS, I’ll add that you can do it without one). Visit the site (geocaching.com), and mabe even find a geocache or two lurking around Pratt…

Stefanie Posavec’s “On The Map” Project

Alright, I’m pretty sure this is my week to post something, so I’m going to share this link with you:

http://www.notcot.com/archives/2008/04/stefanie_posave.php

Posavec makes literary maps; she charts the length and subjects of specific books and makes really neat images. You definitely need to look at the keys to read them, or else they’re completely incomprehensible.

Picturing New York: The Art of Yvonne Jacquette and Rudy Burckhardt

The Tuesday before break I went along with my LCD class to both the Met and the Museum of the City of New York, having never been to the latter. At the Museum of the City of New York we saw two exhibits, that were placed just across the hall from each other- two exhibitions presented as a dual experience – the paintings of Yvonne Jacquette and the photographs by Rudy Burckhardt, a married couple that share more than an abundance of silent letters in their surnames. Both of their shows, in their respective media, display some statement of New York City. I thought both of these exhibits were very relevant to the course and interesting to look at. My final project for LCD is actually supposed to be based on these shows as well.links to:photographspaintings

Overheard

I am a little late with my post. But this is a good one..so it is worth the wait.

Do you ever get the feeling that someone is listening? Perhaps when you say something that isn’t too intelligent, on a crowded train, the person next to you isn’t really listening to his iPod, they are taking notes for the next submission to the overheard blog. This is the phenomena of big cities, if you are in a public place , you have no privacy. So watch what you say, or don’t, it is far more fun that way.

I’m sure some of you know this website, but I hope there are some who don’t, and this blog is just too good to pass up.

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/

Will Manhattan be the Next Atlantis?

Do you ever think that? You know, that Manhattan, with all its skyscrapers and trash, might just sink into the Atlantic Ocean.
It just seems like it could happen one day. One day when there are flying cars and powdered meals.

Then hundreds of thousands of years after that, people would read Frank O’Hara and mythologize what New York City would’ve been like. What do you think? What would last? What would be misunderstood?

Would they think our gods were Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, that we were some advanced-for-our-time goddess-worshipping society? When really we treat them like ladymeat.

I guess what I’m wondering most is what would they think we were? Would they get us right? Could they get us right? Can you explain, or know, a society simply from what they’ve written down, or would there be gaps, missing pieces in the New York-puzzle?

What do you think?
Are we bound to sink into the ocean? Maybe it’ll be the exact opposite, and Manhattan will just keep growing (you know, miles have been added to the coast of the island from build up of trash and gunk) and cover the entire sea?

Pictures of Walls and the Anonymous Masses

Hey there y’all. Not particularly sure what will interest all of you into excited discussion. But there are mandatory posts to be posted, and here is something I stumbled across the other day. It’s not really directly about the city, but more about people as a whole…?

http://www.picturesofwalls.com/

There they are, the announcements of the world; the “anonymous masses”, shouting to the even more anonymous. Check it out, there are some very interesting and thought provoking declarations. I dunno, I think its just cool that you are seeing the thoughts of other people, and those people could be anyone… and you the viewer… could be anyone as well?

Sorry if I sound vague, it’s very difficult to communicate what I am thinking alot of the time…. Oh well, discuss away!

“all the writers are in brooklyn these days”

 thought you might like to see this piece by colson whitehead in this sunday’s nyt book review section. here, he discusses what it means to be a writer living in brooklyn.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/books/review/Whitehead-t.html 

Big City Blues

What makes a big city? Is it only size? Or does culture and location play a role? How about politics? Celebrities, landmarks, economic and social advancements? This is the question Ohio and it’s capital city of Columbus are asking themselves. Columbus is a larger city than Boston, Devner, Seattle, and Miami yet it is often overlooked by Americans and immigrants. This is the article concerning the situation: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-01-columbus_N.htm