Asiatic Hotel, Flushing, Queens, New York, New York

135-21 37th Ave.

cultural collision?

real collision Porsche

The Cloisters, Manhattan, New York, New York

The Cloisters is a museum located in Fort Tryon Park.  It incorporates parts from 5 European abbeys which were shipped to NYC from 1934 - 1939.

The tapestries were owned by the La Rochefoucauld family of France for several centuries, with first mention of them showing up in the family's 1728 inventory. At that time five of the tapestries were hanging in a bedroom in the family's Château de Verteuil, Charente and two were stored in a hall adjacent to the chapel. During the French Revolution the tapestries were looted from the château and reportedly were used to cover potatoes – a period during which they apparently sustained damage. By the end of the 1880s they were again in the possession of the family. A visitor to the château described them as quaint 15th century wall hangings, yet showing "incomparable freshness and grace". The same visitor records the set as consisting of seven pieces, though one was by that time in fragments and being used as bed curtains.




John D. Rockefeller, Jr. bought them in 1922 for about one million US dollars. Six of the tapestries hung in Rockefeller's house until The Cloisters was built when he donated them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1938 and at the same time secured for the collection the two fragments the La Rochefauld family had retained. The set now hangs in The Cloisters which houses the museum's medieval collection.

"The Unicorn in Captivity" 1495-1505 Wool warp with wool, silk, silver and gilt wefts, gift JD Rockefeller jr 1937

"the Unicorn is Attacked"

"The Unicorn Defends Itself"

High Bridge Promenade, Manhattan/Bronx, New York, New York

The High Bridge is the oldest bridge in NYC, having opened as an aqueduct in 1848.

Creedmoor Psychiatric Center,Queens Village, Queens, New York

The sprawling Creedmoor campus was constructed in 1912 in Queens Village as the Farm Colony of Brooklyn State Hospital, one of hundreds of similar psychiatric wards erected at the turn of the century to house and rehabilitate those who were ill equipped to function on their own.  Musician Lou Reed and jazz pianist Bud Powell were treated at Creedmoor.  Legendary folksinger Woody Guthrie, who had been institutionalized for years while suffering from Huntington's disease, was transferred to Creedmoor in June 1966 and died there in October 1967.

Palladian window a nod to the ancients.  Art Moderne railing is Art Deco.  Clear delights unencumbered by decay.

Living Museum at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, Queens Village, Queens, New York

The Living Museum is an art studio dedicated to presenting the art produced by patients at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, the largest state psychiatric care institution in New York City.
The founders of the Living Museum were two scholars, Bolek Greczynki and Janos Marton, who sought asylum in the United States in the early 1970s. Their idealism, influenced by ongoing studies of the work of André Breton, Jean Dubuffet, Meret Oppenheim, Hans Prinzhorn and Leo Navratil, led them to start the project of an ever growing refuge of Art Brut in New York City. Dedicated to beauty, the arts and healing, in collaboration with self-taught artists who had experienced the burdens of the world, the project space was initiated as a conceptual performance “taking place in the formless and fleeting (vergaenglich) sphere of trust in the patient, the prejudice of the spectators and the actual work of the artists in the space.”  The Living Museum became, for several decades, a space where each participant could develop a sense of ownership and foster their inherent creative talents in any sphere of the Arts.

Pink Floyd "The Wall" painted on straitjacket, John Tursi, artist

Gallery entrance

chatting with Hungarian founder of Living Museum, Janos Marton

remnants of kitchen ovens

Issa Ibrahim

Issa Ibrahim

Picasso knockoff, John Tursi

John Tursi

John Tursi, horses, male well hung

John Tursi

John Tursi, French curve motif

relic dental chair

skyview, from2nd floor balcony

Fountain Gallery exhibit (Jan, 2010) brochure

one last look

Movie Stars' Homes, Bayside, Queens, New York

During the 1910s and 1920s, movie stars of the silent screen gravitated to mansions on Little Neck Bay in Bayside, close to Astoria, the Hollywood of it's day.  Producer Joseph Schenck and his movie-star wife Norma Talmadge were most notable.  Buster Keaton, Gloria Swanson, and W.C. Fields were also regular fixtures.

Schenck compound

Gloria Swanson guest house, Summer 1923

boxer James "Gentleman Jim" Corbett, Corbett Rd.