December 20, 2004

Gray Sunday

Sunday was cold and gray. Jon and I went for a neighborhood walk. Yesterday's final destination was Socrates Sculpture Park on Vernon Blvd. in Long Island City. On the way there we discovered this wall painting by De La Vega, a street artist that leaves similar paintings all over New York City. It was surprising because the wall it is painted on is attached to a dreary, worn out old building. We walked through a pretty run down and somewhat scare part of Long Island City near the water front. The Sculpture Park seemed to pop up out of nowhere. When you first approach the park, you notice that there are blocks lining the outer gateway. They look like letters collected over the years from other signs, but who knows? They could have been created as part of some installation. Jon took a picture of three blocks that spell out a funny word.

We continued on into the park and facing us as we walked in was a replica of the Paramount movie insignia. It's kind of hard to see in these pictures because the sky was so grey but I'm posting them anyway. That is upper east side of Manhattan far off in the background.
For the most part, the park was pretty dismal with the exception of a wind chime sculpture which has been in the park since 1991 or so. I also liked this rusted pile of scrap. The picture on the right is a mere detail. The man in the foreground is Jon.

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