Saturday, September 08, 2007
Mosaic Man and the 9-11 Memorial Planter ..
Above , Jim , the only true " Mosaic Man", stands in Astor Place with his back to the beginning of St. Marks Place where his "Mosaic Trail" of mosaic adorned light posts ,storefronts and sidewalks begins .St. Marks Place runs all of 3 blocks east to Tompkins Square Park and is lined with many of Jim's mosaics . Jim's "Mosaic Trail" was started here at this location in Astor Place 20 years ago on Labor Day.
Jim on Semptember 11 , 2005 standing next to his recently begun "9-11 Memorial Planter" in front of the " Cave " , the last of the illegal East Village squats , at 120 St. Marks Place where he lived and worked .
Last night Jim's "9-11 Memorial Planter" stood alone under a street light , backlit by the blue light of the Chase Bank at the base of the latest tower of multi-million dollar condos on Astor Place . Jim and Jesse Jane ( his dog not the porn star ) had been sleeping with the planter here in Astor Place many nights recently but on this night they were able to get a much needed night's sleep off the street in a generous friends apartment .Today we were told here at NMNL that NYPD has warned Jim to remove the planter and to not sleep in Astor Place .
Jim has nowhere to go to live , he is homeless , and he certainly has no place to put the planter .
Crafting the Memorial Planter has occupied Jim for more than 2 years . It is dedicated to the NYC police officers , NYC firemen and Port of NY Authority officers that died on September 11 , 2001 . Jim has intended to somehow finish the planter and place it at Ground Zero with a tree , a small tree , planted in it .
It seems now that the planter is at risk : it may be simply broken -up and hauled away by the Sanitation Dept.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Crane Accident at 110 3rd Avenue : Update
We return again to last September's tower crane accident at 110 3rd avenue and note that after nearly a year little of nothing has been done to punish anyone for the indifferent and incompetent behavior that caused the accident .This was a serious accident which injured 5 people ,crushed a taxi-cab , caused the evacuation of many near-by buildings , shut-down all traffic in the area for close to 24 hours and cost the New York City tax-payer a great deal of money.
As the building's construction proceeds to completion ever so slowly, the workings of the Department of Building's hearing of fact concerning the cause of the so-called accident at 110 3rd avenue also moves ever so slowly . Hearings continue to be moved into the future with the current date for the next set of hearing's being 27 Dec. 2007 . All parties involved in the accident are still apparently preparing to present their cases on this date . Of the parties involved ,so far only Tishman construction has been punished in any way : they have been fined $1500 aqccording to the DOB building profile .
For the details of this crane accident see here at NMNL the 4 post on the subject at the beginning of the October 2006 archive .
We also recomend an article on the event in ENR (Engineering News Record) , 10/9/2006 , Vol. 257 issue 14 , pg 11 , one page . We can not achieve a lasting link to this article . In NYC ,the article can be accessed through the public library ,if you have a library card , at : www.nypl.org
The DOB building profile with the details of complaints , DOB violations , actions and hearingscan be found by going to http://www.nyc.gov/ and clicking on the buildings depatment on the home page drop-down and then selecting burough ,house number and street in the profile selection field .
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]