Thunderstorm sunset

I looked for a rainbow, but no such luck.
This is from the Zeckendorff Towers.

Coffee in the rain

Umbrellas

Bricks in the wall

Looks like they're tearing down all of that building on the huge lot between Bedford and Berry down around N 4th St. I don't now why I just figured they were keeping the painted walls like some kind of preservation effort. I guess I was wrong. These are on tip-toe, reaching over the wood fence.

Transit Hub Promisetecture

More vinyl sheets going up around the neighborhood. Are they not connecting the 1 train to the new hub? Maybe it's just not in this model.

Odd Job lot

I was interested to see Curbed's update on the Odd Job lot today because on Saturday I took some "before" pictures. Actually, I guess a shot with the building still there would be the real "before" picture, but you know what I mean.

Set scenes

All these Spider Man 3 photos make me look like a weirdo groupie, but it's not every day a blockbuster is shot on your block and I don't want to spend the rest of the month posting in dribs and drabs, so here's what I took of the Spider Man shoot today. The Tobey Maguire photos are here.
There were three sets, Thames at Trinity, Trinity at Rector, and Rector between Greenwich and Washington. I don't think there are any spoilers in here, but they are photos of the movie being made, so there may be a clue or two.

These folks are packed in because they think Fake Tobey is Tobey.

Below, the lights from Trinity Place shine down Rector on the spectators watching the Rector St. set. Very Close Encounters.

Below, someday Sidewalk Extra #2 will be famous and I'll have this cool shot of him.


Above, The extras line up behind a screen and wait for the command to walk down the sidewalk pretending it's raining. Below, the rain guy holds the sprinkler in the air so the water falls on Tobey's head. Hollywood magic!



Below, on tip toes for Tobey.





I had a lot of fun taking advantage of the movie lighting on Trinity Place. Even to my camera it looks like a Spider Man movie.

Fake Tobeys

I saw two fake Tobeys in today's shoots. Not decoys, but subs for the non-acting stuff. At the set on Thames and also Rector, fake Tobey did blocking (where to stand) and lighting. I took a bunch of pictures of him before realizing it was the wrong guy. He's the one pointing in the top photo. Way on the right by the alley on Rector.


Fake Tobey #2 was stunt Tobey. On Trinity Place, he rode a fake bike bolted to a flatbed trailer. He had a wire harness on and after rolling for a bit, the flew off the bike with arms flailing and his helmet flying off. I took these photos around 10 p.m. It's now 1:30 a.m. and I can see the movie lights are still on over there. It could be that by now real Tobey is over there.

Quien es mas macho, Real Tobey or Stunt Tobey?

Spider Man on the Block

As a photoblogger with a major motion picture shooting right outside my door, naturally I shot a billion pictures. Of course, the first question is whether I got the star. In my defense, I shoot with a pretty shot focus lens (28mm on a mid-size camera works out to about 35mm) so I don't have a zoom or anything.
It's pretty cool when you look out the front door and see Tobey Maguire walk by, but it's frustrating when you're behind him and can only get a picture of his back.

But then all the people who are craning their necks trying to see if he's on the set don't realize he's right behind them trying to get by, which is just enough of a delay for me to get a pretty good close shot.

Below he's third from the left. The scene will eventually be shot in that alley.

He briefly wore a dark sweater, below.

By the way, this is Rector St. between Greenwich & Washington. The alley is a perfect film location (as so many spots downtown are) and only runs as far as the back of the Pussycat Lounge. It's too narrow to have a name of its own as far as I know, and it certainly doesn't need any Hollywood magic to make it a creepy place.

Below is later in the evening after a wardrobe change. Now all in black, Peter Parker checks out the alley after a considerable amount of time has been spent blocking and lighting the scene with a stand-in.

That bottle in his hand is that Bawls soda that comes in the knobby blue bottle.


OK, this one below is the back of his head, but what you can't see is that the director has called, "Action," so this could be the actual scene that ends up in the movie. The scene itself, or what I saw of it, is pretty meager. He looks up a little, I think upset. It's raining on him. He leaves the alley.


Because they had fake rain going in the alley, each take meant he got wet. The extras all carried umbrellas and pretended it was raining. But for some reason he wasn't supposed to look wet when he got to the alley, so between takes they'd blow-dry him.

Tourists trapped

Neither snow nor rain...

I have no idea how the taxi reflections in the window behind him came out pointing in opposite directions like that. Bleeker is a one way street.

Rain slicked

MacDougal St.

Take cover

Washington Square Park

Rain haze

It looks like I put some kind of effect on that top photo, but it's the heavy rain that makes it look like that. I really like how the rain turns the greens all dark and heavy.

Rain Man

It wasn't until I saw the Paramount truck that I realized all those cherry pickers are for the Spider Man 3 shooting this weekend.

Open gate

6th ave.

Twin Tower helmet

It's a little hard to make out because you don't expect to see it, but he's got a model of the twin towers on his head. He waved to me rigth after this, but this shot came out better.

Albany St. stylin'

Cities Services Building

Also the American International Building. I like how the one way sign points perpendicular.

Rock show!

Media rock stars on a panel last night: Michael Kinsley, Malcolm Gladwell, Arianna Hufington, Jacob Weisburg and Norman Perlstine.

That's Malcolm Gladwell a few feet away from Ze Frank.
I know these are lame but I only had the little camera and I just wanted some "look where I was" shots.

Celeste Bartos Forum

'Higher standards' progress check

Sheesh, what a monster.

Spider Man takes NoBat

Sorry I didn't quite get the whole sheet, but as you can see, Spider Man is shooting in the area north of the Battery on Sunday night.

First date

Spectators

Barge watching

Phone escape

Boxed in stripes

Goldman Sachs gets scaffoling, cement

I assumed the scaffolding meant they were finished drilling and would soon build something above the ground. Yesterday the cement trucks were lining up. So they're definitely on to the next phase.

Can you hear me now?

The summer yachts are in

North Cove

Good crowd comes out for Son Volt

People everywhere. River to River fest. Son Volt.

Adames' big day

I understand he has some kind of gripe with the election process, but I'm not sure why he thinks this means he'll be mayor.

Holey Donut out, The Diner in

The old Holey Donut space now has signs for The Diner. Will it be a real diner?
Nassau St.
(P.S. Did you see the date on that Holey Donut link? Almost a year to the day.)

Kickflip

Probably not listed as a feature of 20 Pine is that the stairs out back are good for skating. Actually, I'm not really sure where the back of this building is. These are the Pine St. steps. You recognize the sculpture in the background.
(This camera is pretty miraculous for catching this at dusk with a walking hip shot.)

Urban Narcissus

What? You don't think it looks like the cart is gazing at its own reflection in the subway grate?

Criss Cross

Father's Day Sunset

Not actually taken on Father's Day, but that's a father and son watching the sun set over New Jersey and the Hudson River.

Tree, blimp, Empire State

I'm really loving seeing the skyline at the end of Williamsburg streets.

Star spangled

Doin' windows

Filtered

Mott St.

Better red

Playing games with the framing. Still not sure it works. I reckon below is the best way.

Williamsburg, where odd, old motorbikes go to die.

Community service or primer coat?

Either they're being punished or they're priming the bricks for a mural. I'll try to walk by there this weekend and see if it's a white wall or something pretty.

Check-out

On Mott below Spring there's a smashed window and inside you can see a totally gutted old supermarket. The cash registers are still in there.

Spectators

I just realized that I've been shooting a theme and not realizing it. Studies of postures from behind while people look at things. (See "Silhouettes" below.)

The new campaign

Has someone already coined the term "promisetecture"? Or would it be "promisetising?"

Silhouettes

New! Freedom Tower Construction Blasting!

Is it just me or does that look like an advertisement?

Coast out, Ho Yip in

And so we find out what will fill the vacated space in the small elite stretch of Liberty Street facing Ground Zero. Well... "elite" may be a stretch.

American way

For a special ceremony at the new FDNY memorial the Ten House guys came up with a clever way to create a little privacy.
...
This last one is just a test of a new photo upload tool to see if I can get it to resize better without making all my lines look blocky.

PATH train angel

I didn't look to see what he was handing out. I think it's a little creepy, maybe even in poor taste.

Church group

Groups of Mennonites are not uncommon in Lower Manhattan. I'm not sure if they go all over the city or just around Ground Zero. After 9/11 they were around a lot and would arrange themselves in rows and sing songs.
(Tough light in this shot. It was twilight under shady trees, so extra dark shadows but still bright whites. This is the graveyard behind St. Paul's.)

Shady line up

Conga

Williamsburg had Puerto Rican Day on Saturday, presumably so everyone can also attend the parade in Manhattan on Sunday.

Sliver

Clogging the curb cut

You don't really notice curb cuts until you're pushing a baby around the city in a stroller. This lamp post reminded me of this shot I saw recently on Curbed.

Lady in Pink

I kept trying to hip-shot it but couldn't get it right so I finally just picked up the camera and took a regular shot. Funny though, once I got home, I kind of like the crooked one with the exit sign.

Fork mounted speedo

An odd reversal of where the handlebars and speedometer are usually positioned.

Spectators

In the field they're playing soccer.

One of these kids is doing his own thing

Along one entire side of McCarren Park is all new construction of pretty big buildings. Except for one little hold-out.

At the movies in Lower Manhattan

What are all these SM3 signs doing all over the place?

Oh yeah! Spider Man 3! Looks like they're shooting a scene in Foley Square. What's amazing (and you may have to click the photo for the larger view to see it) is that they've strung a cable across the entire square. There was a camera contraption rigged to it, so I'm thinking we'll see someone swoop through this scene in the actual movie.

Look for the Spider Man rally scene when the movie comes out.

Meanwhile, on West Broadway there's a big billboard with a flashy pink castle covered up. It looks like the words say "Palace Casino" so it could be that they haven't unveiled the new billboard yet, but my suspicion is that it's connected to the movie they're shooting there this week.

The signs say the movie is called "Enchanted." There's one by that named listed at IMDB that says it's one of those movies where the cartoon character gets kicked out of the animated world and roams NYC. Sounds like the kind of thing that would use a pink castle.

FDNY memorial at Ten House

I was wrong on the date, but my sneak peek was legit.

Overlap

Rector & Broadway

Compressed

There's a reflective black window somewhere around Houston and Hudson. It took me a few shots to get the light right, but the bend around the corner has a cool way of distorting everything. I like how it's broken into panes too. Might be worth going back at rush hour or something when there's more stuff being reflected.

Hangin' with the girls

Nassau St.

Purse-alanche

Street's end

Brooklyn

Shore leave

All through Fleet Week I looked for something that showed visiting New York City for the first time. This series is the closest I got I think.

Up and down

Red rider

New NSA domestic security program

If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.

Up and down

This is part of a series I'm working on of people over and under each other. It's not uncommon to see in photos of apartments, but at the street level it has a different quality. This is Port Authority bus terminal.

Ferry passes

Williamsburg

Day and night

I thought the reflection would be much more dramatic. My angle was too low.

Motivated owner

This person has been freaking out on these signs for a few weeks in Battery Park City. Yesterday was the open house, I wonder how it went. I'm pretty sure the earlier price was 750k.

Triangle

Front St.

City Solstice (missed)

This is my shot from last week, the city solstice. The sun was supposed to set at 8:17 and I got on a 2 train that was running local (of course, it was the weekend) so I didn't get to a good spot until 8:20 (see the clock on the left) so all I got was a pink sunset.
Below is the same shot with the light metered on the people instead of the sky. I love the crowds on 34th Street.

New York Sightseeing

I had thought of cropping this tighter so it was just the sailors and the buildings in the background, but there's all that good city stuff down below and I couldn't bear cutting it.
Broadway in Soho by the way.

Holding up the tree

(Not really.)
Morris & Greenwich

Hello sailors

Seconds later they waved at the sailors. Seconds after that there was one group instead of two. It was dark on Cedar Street and I only had the little camera, so you have to imagine the rest.

Fenced in

Is it just me or does it look like the trees are trying to get out?

Rainy night delivery

Park in the dark

Have you seen the new Liberty Park at night? It's like a giant Michael Jackson video!

Splash

N-94K, a kiosk booth

Red stripe

NYC Photobloggers 7

Jake and Matt Weber look at a moving photo of the birth of Weber's daughter. Another stellar event.

Powerwash

A damn fine park

Liberty Park opened today. Look really nice.













My understanding was that the sculpture would be recast to include all the memorial items placed on it (candles, construction helmet, peace crane strings, etc.). I wonder what happened to that idea.


Regular readers of A Test of Will have seen me blog the various stages of this park, but here's on "before" picture I never got around to publishing.

Spot of shade at Arturo's

Gelotto

Washington Square Park

Under the FDR

For some reason I like it better with the kid in it. Though I think the dog is the most expressive.
I wish I'd been better prepared for the shot. I had everything set for bright sunshine.

Bike repair

Off Bedford Ave.

7 Reflected

Still working that balloon animal.
Bit of a self portrait in there too.