Global Graphica

Last week, Bloomingdales, the grand, old New York City department store, went downtown–way downtown–to lower Broadway in SoHo, where it opened a second Manhattan store in a cast-iron, loft-style building. The decor of the new retail-fashion palace is a mix of Bloomingdales’s dependable uptown restraint and high-style downtown chic. One of the new store’s two cafes, pictured here, exemplifies the style. Note the design patterns on the wall.

Ivan Corsa Photo

There seems to always be some kind of major building renovation in progress in Lower Manhattan, where today’s sweat shop is being gutted and turned into tomorrow’s luxury condo. The result is that all sorts of junk from the turned-out or torned-down structures end up on the street like these burned-out clothes dryers we came across on Delancey St. near the intersection with Chrystie St. But even the most beat-up junk has a use for someone. Discarded objects and furniture quickly disappear from the streets.

Ivan Corsa Photo

The first truly, properly mild and flower-blooming day of spring arrives and New Yorkers and tourists take to Central park like they’ve never seen a park before. The area pictured here is at the foot of Cedar Hill, on the park’s east side just off 5th Ave. The slope here is ideal for sunbathers and reclining with a good book or the paper because the slope has a kind of natural recliner effect and forms a amphitheater. A couple of blocks to north and south of this location are the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Loeb Boat House, respectively.

Ivan Corsa Photo

We were walking down Orchard Street on the Lower East Side the other day around twilight and snapped this picture of the Breakbeat Science storefront. (Breakbeat Science is a record store.) Something about the shop at this time of day was so beautiful, especially with the many colored lights in the window and the way the white light poured out from the shop into the street and the slowly fading daylight.

Ivan Corsa Photo

APT. (as in apartment) is a club and lounge in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan. The club’s interior design and lighting are amazing. The first-floor bar and lounge are like some beautiful high-rise dwelling (complete with a queen-size bed), but on a giant scale. The DJ booth and dancefloor are downstairs in the basement, where the decor is very un-apartment-like–a dark minimalist space illuminated by a wall of light. This image was taken in the basement, where DJ Spinna was doing a set at a CD-release party.

Ivan Corsa Photo