New York Street Art: Fourth in a series of four images showing the street frontage to New Museum of Contemporary Art on the Bowery, Lower East Side, New York City.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

New York Street Art: Third in a series of four images showing the street frontage to New Museum of Contemporary Art on the Bowery, Lower East Side, New York City.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

New York Street Art: Second in a series of four shots showing the front entrance and beautiful minimalist lobby of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Lower East Side, NYC.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

New York Street Art: The front entrance and lobby of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Lower East Side, NYC.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

New York Places: Another interior image of Apotheke, a new mixology cocktail bar on Doyers Street, in the heart of old Chinatown, downtown NYC, in a space that was an opium den way, way, way back in the day of ol' New York. - Supercore

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

New York Places: Exterior shot of Apotheke, a new mixology cocktail bar on Doyers Street, in the heart of old Chinatown, downtown NYC. The bar occupies a space that was formerly a Chinese restaurant (the sign still hangs in front) and once an opium den way, way, way back in the day of ol' New York. - Supercore

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

New York Places: Apotheke is a new mixology cocktail bar on Doyers Street, in the heart of old Chinatown, downtown NYC. The bar occupies a space that was formerly a Chinese restaurant (the sign still hangs in front) and once an opium den way, way, way back in the day of ol' New York. In any case, Apotheke is a dark, gorgeous space. The bar looks like an ancient pharmacists lab stuck in a Belle-Epoque-era central-European brothel. (The name Apotheke means apothecary or chemists.) Instead of drugs and synthetic chemicals, jars and beakers are filled with a dizzying multitude of various types of cocktail ingredients: herbs, spices, bits of fruits, powders, leaves, and exotic fluids, alcoholic and otherwise. The atmosphere, to be real, is an obvious yet beautiful trick of affluent, faux-bohemian hipster luxe, coolly hidden behind a cheap, plastic restaurant facade and tucked snuggly under a veneer of authentic downtown grit that has virtually all but vanished from lower Manhattan. - Supercore

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

New York Places: Exterior shot of Doyers Vietnamese Restaurant in the heart of old NYC Chinatown. The restaurant sits two doors down from the hidden entrance to the bar Apotheke on Doyers Street.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

New York Street Art: Cool, mysterious frontage of recently closed bar-restaurant (the name of which escapes us) on Spring Street between the Bowery and Elizabeth in Nolita. Love the reflective black window and red neon light. Your humble photographer is reflected in the window image.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

Massive raw space on the ground level at the rear, Orchard Street side of the sexy new Thompson Hotel Lower East Side, which occupies a recently built skyscraper that faces Allen Street.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

Miami Street Art; And yet another exterior shot of the influential Miami street art venue East Village Gallery, in the city's Design District / Wynwood neighborhood.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

Miami Street Art; Another exterior shot of the influential Miami street art venue East Village Gallery, in the city's Design District / Wynwood neighborhood.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

Miami Street Art; Exterior shot of the influential Miami street art venue East Village Gallery, in the city's Design District / Wynwood neighborhood.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

New York City: Chinatown night street scene.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

In this series of images, the name of the recent exhibition "Sedition" at the White Box Gallery can be seen painted on the front of the art space as people stroll by.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

The White Box Gallery in the Lower East Side, New York City during the recent "Sedition" exhibition.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

The White Box Gallery has new home on Broome Street and is a newcomer to the hyper-accelerating presence of "serious" art venues in the Lower East Side, New York City. For each of the White Box exhibitions, the title of the show is painted on the front of the gallery. In this series of images, the name of the recent exhibition "Sedition" appears.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

Reykjavik architecture and signage: A closer shot of the wonderfully named James Bond video rental shop in Reykjavik, Iceland.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

Reykjavik architecture and signage: Gotta love this -- a video rental shop (or is it a tiny cinema?) called James Bond, complete with Coca-Cola sponsored sign, in Reykjavik, Iceland.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

From the City Life file: Standing crowd up front near the stage during the recent Wolf Parade concert at Terminal 5 in New York City. Great show. (Thanks for the ticket, Jess!)

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

From the City Life file: After the recent Wolf Parade concert at Terminal 5, NYC.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

More images of awesome street art on Ludlow Street: Painted pink-and-blue-ish shapes on the wall of building behind the row of cars in the adjacent parking lot at Ludlow Street and Broome Street in the LES, NYC.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

We're fascinated with the exterior design and the ephemeral video imagery on the "Water Cube" building, the venue for the swimming competitions at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. This short clip shows the building changing colors.

This is a great little video clip -- a mini-documentary -- on Os Gemeos, the twin brothers from Sao Paulo who are the international superstars of Brazilian street art. The video has a short interview with the Os Gemeos bros while they were in New York for a big gallery show. There is also an appearance in the clip from Jeffrey Deitch, the influential art-world impressario and owner of the New York gallery showing the work, Deitch Projects.

Musician playing a keyboard integrated into the architecture of an unused part of the Battery Maritime Building (an old ferry terminal) in downtown Manhattan. Various structural elements of the building emit sounds corresponding to the keys. The keyboardist performed as part of an ensemble. "Playing the Building" is the name of the keyboard-building art installation (and thus the unique venue), which was created by former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne .

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

"Playing the Building" art installation by David Byrne in Lower Manhattan, NYC.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

"Playing the Building" art installation by David Byrne .

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

Musician playing the keyboard during ensemble concert at the "Playing the Building" art installation by David Byrne .

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

Musician playing during ensemble concert at the Battery Maritime Building in New York City as part of the current "Playing the Building" art installation by David Byrne .

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

"Playing the Building" art installation by David Byrne during ensemble concert at the Battery Maritime Building in New York City.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

Love this painted street art work on what appears to be an electric or phone utility box across from beautiful, ultra-chic Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The cartoon-like style of this work is vaguely reminiscent of the work British illustrator Jamie Hewlett did for the band Gorillaz and the comic book Tank Girl.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

Fresh Keith Haring homage on Houston Street, New York City. Love it.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

Fresh Keith Haring homage under the massive Grand Theft Auto IV billboard on Houston Street, New York City.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Images

Massive-hot Grand Theft Auto IV billboard on Houston Street near The Bowery, in the Nolita / NoHo / East Village nexus area, downtown New York City.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Photos

We recently revisited the public art works of the Barnstormers, an artists collective of New York- and Tokyo-based creators. For anybody unfamiliar with the group, it's worth your time to check out some of their work on its website. Part of what makes the Barnstormers' work unique is the context and setting of many of their street art-like paintings on barns in the rural area around the tiny town of Cameron, North Carolina.

"Stoned Crew" in the Gavea area of Rio de Janeiro.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Photos

Designy "Stoned Crew" graff along the canal in Gavea, Rio de Janeiro.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Photos

It's a bit of a surprise that the Tate Modern, the globally esteemed London art museum, has recently opened an exhibition of street art. But with the international explosion of street art in recent years, the countless number of books on the subject recently published, broader mainstream appeal and adoption of the aesthetic by a growing cadre of designers and the media, it should not be a surprise at all.

The Tate is a massive sign of recognition of street art's place in the wider culture. The show has created space in its galleries (and fittingly on the exterior of the museum itself) for works by an international group of street artists. Two of our favorites, New York collective Faile and Brazilian brothers Os Gemeos, have work at the Tate exhibition, which runs until August 25.

Detail of work from graff by the harborside parking lot off Tryggvagata street in Reykjavik, Iceland.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Photos

More work from the harborside parking lot off Tryggvagata street in Reykjavik, Iceland. After consulting the excellent journal-like book "Icepick: Icelandic Street Art" by Thordis Claessen, it looks like the writers of t the work pictured above are Entyk, Noak, Anec, Rus, Scage, Mauze, Leifur, Dolli.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Photos

Our minimalist workspace as it is now in '08 in downtown Manhattan, New York City, where all the magic still happens. Compare the images in this post and the previous post and it's interesting to see what's changed: artwork on the wall, newer smartphone, earbuds instead of headphones, different books and magazines, coffee cup has a proper saucer, etc.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Photos

Our minimalist workspace as it was circa summer 2006 in downtown Manhattan, New York City, where all the magic happens.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Photos

Close-up of the "No Graffiti" warning sign near the corner of Broome Street and The Bowery in Chinatown / Lower East Side.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Photos

This "No Graffiti" warning sign is explicit. It's on a building near the corner of Broome Street and The Bowery in Chinatown / Lower East Side. The sign is apparently effective because there wasn't a lick of graff on the property the last time we checked.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Photos

Good, long video clip of graffiti artists Difre and TiTo working on a massive throw-up ad mural art in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Photos

Photography gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
Music on our iPod: Jay Z - "99 Problems"
Sneakers of the Day: A Bathing Ape "BAPESTAS"

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On our iPod: Lily Allen - "LDN"
Classic kicks on our feet: Adidas "Stan Smith"

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On our iPod: Lily Allen - "LDN"
Classic kicks on our feet: Adidas "Stan Smith"

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On our iPod: Lily Allen - "LDN"
Classic kicks on our feet: Adidas "Stan Smith"

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On our iPod: Deerhoof - "+81"
Classic kicks on our feet: Adidas Gazelle

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On our iPod: Deerhoof - "+81"
Classic kicks on our feet: Adidas Gazelle

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On our iPod: Deerhoof - "+81"
Classic kicks on our feet: Adidas Gazelle

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On our iPod: Deerhoof - "+81"
Classic kicks on our feet: Adidas Gazelle

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Manu Chao - "Papito"
Kicks on our feet: Converse All-Stars

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Manu Chao - "Papito"
Kicks on our feet: Converse All-Stars

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Manu Chao - "Papito"
Kicks on our feet: Converse All-Stars

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Manu Chao - "Papito"
Kicks on our feet: Converse All-Stars

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Manu Chao - "Papito"
Kicks on our feet: Converse All-Stars

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Manu Chao - "Papito"
Kicks on our feet: Converse All-Stars

Street Art / Graffiti Websites

Street Artist Websites

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Havaianas "England" Flip-Flops

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Havaianas "England" Flip-Flops

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Havaianas "England" Flip-Flops

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Kasabian- "LSF"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

More wheate-paste work from Billi Kid in dowtown NYC.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Kasabian - "LSF"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Keane - "Nothing in My Way"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Keane - "Nothing in My Way"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Keane - "Nothing in My Way"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Keane - "Nothing in My Way"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Keane - "Nothing in My Way"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Keane - "Nothing in My Way"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Keane - "Nothing in My Way"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: The Rakes - "22 Grand Job"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Air - "Mer du Japon"
Kicks on our feet: Vans "Plaid" Slip-ons

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Mando Diao - "Before Rock ad Roll"
Kicks on our feet: Vans "Plaid" Slip-ons

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Mando Diao - "Before Rock ad Roll"
Kicks on our feet: Vans "Plaid" Slip-ons

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Mando Diao - "Before Rock ad Roll"
Kicks on our feet: Vans "Plaid" Slip-ons

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Cornelius - "Point"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun" Original Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Cornelius - "Point"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun" Original Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Amy Winehouse - "Rehab"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Beckenbauer" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Amy Winehouse - "Rehab"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Beckenbauer" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Amy Winehouse - "Rehab"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Beckenbauer" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Amy Winehouse - "Rehab"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Beckenbauer" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Babyshambles - "Pipedown"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Beckenbauer" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: LCD Soundsystem - "Yeah (Pretentious Mix)"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: LCD Soundsystem - "Yeah (Pretentious Mix)"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: LCD Soundsystem - "Yeah (Pretentious Mix)"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: LCD Soundsystem - "Daft Punk is Playing in My House"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

New York City bike messengers mass at a Chinatown park for a game of bicycle polo on the Lower East Side.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: LCD Soundsystem - "Daft Punk is Playing in My House"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

New York City bike messengers mass at a Chinatown park for a game of bicycle polo on the Lower East Side.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: LCD Soundsystem - "Daft Punk is Playing in My House"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: El Perro Del Mar - "Dog"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: El Perro Del Mar - "Dog"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: East Star All-Stars Featuring Junior Jazz - "Subterranean Homesick Alien"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Fela Kuti - "Water No Get Enemy"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

A work by he U.K.-based street-art superstar Banksy has recently put the city council of Bristol, England between the horns of of dilemma. The "graffiti" artwork was put up on the side of a public building, the city council itself. Recently, the council has tasked itself with enforcing a general policy of stopping and erasing graffiti across Bristol, but it recognizes that the work of Banksy is of an altogether different order -- Banksy himself has, during the past several years, risen to become in the eyes of the art world (and much of the public) a genuine artist ,who recieves well-paid commissions to put the same kind of art works in other places. Does the city council remove the work from the building or keep it, setting a precedent for graffiti vandals. This is the issue that the council is wrestling with. In the meantime, they made an exception and have allowed Banksy's art work to stay.

Nice, longish clip of some graf writers putting up massive pieces at Venice Beach, LA.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Beck - "Hell Yes"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Beck - "Hell Yes"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Detail from the massive "Obey" ("Giant has a posse") Wheat-Paste Mural by Shephard Fairey at 11 Spring St., in Nolita New York City.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Deerhoof - "Wrong Time Capsule"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Goldfrapp - "Utopia"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Goldfrapp - "Utopia"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Large photo paste-up on the first floor, inside the building at 11 Spring Street in Nolita, New York City. This guy looks like a middle aged bad-ass mafioso type. This picture, like all the images of art work created and displayed inside the Building at 11 Spring Street, was taken during the two-day exhibition there in December 2006.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Goldfrapp - "Utopia"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

The folks at the ever ingenious and creative Graffiti Research Lab have made a clip of their recent anti-advertising campaign. The guerilla effort exploits video panels that display commercials outside subway entrances around New York City. The point is that the thousands of marketing messages we are exposed to on a daily basis is the true graf problem urban dwellers face.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Beck - "Hell Yes"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Beck - "Hell Yes"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Peter Tosh - "Legalize It"
Kicks on our feet: Converse "John Varvatos" Laceless Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Peter Tosh - "Legalize It"
Kicks on our feet: Converse "John Varvatos" Laceless Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Peter Tosh - "Legalize It"
Kicks on our feet: Converse "John Varvatos" Laceless Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Tosca - "Orozco"
Kicks on our feet: Converse "John Varvatos" Laceless Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Tosca - "Orozco"
Kicks on our feet: Converse "John Varvatos" Laceless Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Tosca - "Orozco"
Kicks on our feet: Converse "John Varvatos" Laceless Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Deerhoof - "Koneko"
Kicks on our feet: Converse "John Varvatos" Laceless Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Deerhoof - "Koneko"
Kicks on our feet: Converse "John Varvatos" Laceless Sneakers

And here's a shot of the left side of a massive mural on the support structure under the expressway west of Shinsaibashi in central Osaka.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Boredoms - "Chocolate Synthesizer"
Kicks on our feet: Converse "John Varvatos" Laceless Sneakers

The right side of a massive mural on the support structure under the expressway west of Shinsaibashi in central Osaka.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Boredoms - "Chocolate Synthesizer"
Kicks on our feet: Converse "John Varvatos" Laceless Sneakers

We're back from a week off during the holidays. Hope everybody had a great winter break and a happy New Year! Big up on 2007! The new year sees Global Graphica in Osaka, Japan for a couple of weeks. Here 2007 is celebrated as the Year of the Boar in accordance with the adopted Chinese zodiac calendar. Look for postings of images from Japan in the coming weeks. The picture above is of an annual New Year's fire ritual at Hozenji Temple in Osaka.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Public Image Limited - "This is Not a Love Song"
Kicks on our feet: Vans Camoflage Slip-Ons

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: M83 - "Unrecorded"
Kicks on our feet: Vans Camoflage Slip-Ons

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: M83 - "Unrecorded"
Kicks on our feet: Vans Camoflage Slip-Ons

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: M83 - "Unrecorded"
Kicks on our feet: Vans Camoflage Slip-Ons

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Nikon Coolpix 3200 digital camera
Kicks on our feet: Puma Miele
On the iPod: Sway - "This is My Demo"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Ivan Corsa Photo

Who or what is "Bunana"? This characiture and typographic illiustration is an intriging bit of paste-up in NoLIta, in the area between the Lower East Side and Soho of downtown Manhattan. The pastel, crayon-like coloring give it a child-like quality. Yet, the subtextual shape is suggestive of something un-childlike

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's another detail shot of Justink's street art sponsored by the Rheingold Beer Company. The art work can be found on Orchard Steet, between Delancey and Rivington streets, in the hipster haven of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, NYC.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's another view of the Nicole duFresne shrine at the southwest corner of Clinton and Rivington streets in downtown Manhattan.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a close up of the shrine marking the site of Nicole duFresne's murder in the Lower East Side of Manhattan last year. A photo of the slain actress has been placed at the center of the shrine.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's the same graf shot from another angle.

Background Note
We were out of town visiting Washington, DC last weekend and snapped this series of images in the Adams Morgan district of the American capital. Washington is a famously clean, well-groomed and orderly city (or, at least, it is in most of the city, that is, in those areas where the well-heeled work, live and play). While in Adams Morgan, the only graff we saw was hidden in narrow back alleys. Most of it was aesthetically insiginificant, but some, like the throw-ups we found in this alley off 18th Street, across from the Caribou Coffee, was really good, first-rate stuff.

Ivan Corsa Photo

The view looking out toward 18th Street from the alley that runs past Caribou Coffee in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of the American capital.

Background Note
We were out of town visiting Washington, DC last weekend and snapped this series of images in the Adams Morgan district of the Amercian capital. Washington is a famously clean, well-groomed and orderly city (or, at least, it is in most of the city, that is, in those areas where the well-heeled work, live and play). While in Adams Morgan, the only graf we saw was hidden in narrow back alleys. Most of it was aesthetically insginificant, but some, like the throw-ups we found in this alley off 18th Street, across from the Caribou Coffee, was really good, first-rate stuff.

Ivan Corsa Photo

NYC Winter Wonderland 2

Sledders are out in force on Cedar Hill in Central Park, New York City, after a massive blizzard dropped approximately 28 inches of snow.

Background Note
A record one-day snowfall in New York City this past weekend turned Central Park into a winter wonderland, replete with sledders and skiiers. Look in one direction and you could think you were standing in the middle of a remote mountain ski resort. Look in the opposite direction and you see the famous high-rise luxury apartments and condos of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Beautiful.

Ivan Corsa Photo

A record one-day snowfall in New York City this past weekend turned Central Park into a winter wonderland, replete with sledders and skiiers. Look in one direction and you could think you were standing in the middle of a remote mountain ski resort. Look in the opposite direction and you see the famous high-rise luxury apartments and condos of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Beautiful.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Richard Gregg is an Englishman living and working near Tokyo, Japan. He took this photo in Havana, Cuba, which is just one of many cities and countries he has visited while on an incredible around-the-world cycling journey that he's undertaken off and on for over a decade. Along the way, Gregg has taken tens of thousands of photos and has exhibited and published his photos along his cycling odyssey. Here is the first in a series of Gregg's photos of street art and urban culture that we will be posting from time to time on Global Graphica. In this image, a huge stencil-like portrait of the late Latin American politcal icon Che Guevara beams above a Lada, an East European car make from the Communist era.

Richard Gregg Photo

Here's another shot, from another angle, of the shark stencils near the 7th Ave. subway stop in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NYC

Background
The well-groomed and excessively gentrified (and real estate crazy) Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope isn't full of the street art and graf so common in other parts of New York's largest borough, such as Williamsburg. But the street art is there, tucked between apartments and brownstones, especially the further down the slope and away Prospect Park one heads. Such is the case of these wonderful stencilled silhouettes of sharks near the 7th Avenue F-Train subway station.

Ivan Corsa Photo

When the Berlin wall fell in 1989, its pieces -- its concerete bits, chunks and slabs -- ended up as so many souvenirs and art objet for collectors, museums and public urban installations all over the world. The Berlin wall was a long, massive canvas for sreet artists and graffiti writers. Covered in layer upon layer of scrawls, imagery, paint and political messages, the wall was like lonr-running (literally) communal, open-source work of of public art on the West Berlin side. Viewed out of its context far away from Berlin, a slab of the wall functions as a stand-alone piece of art that is a legitimate subject of aesthetic consideration. And it also functions as a historical artifact that reminds viewers of one of the uglier 20 geo-political events of the 20th Century.

New Yorkers have their own slab of the Berlin wall in Midtown Manhattan. This image shows an actual segment of the Cold War barrier on public view behind real-estate developer Jerry Speyer's office building at 520 Madison Avenue. To get to it, you need to access a small, open plaza on the north side of 53rd Street between 5th and Madison avenues. Check it.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a detail shot of the Belrin wall sgement in Midtown, New York City. The most prominent imagery is that of an illustrated face.

Background

When the Berlin wall fell in 1989, its pieces -- its concerete bits, chunks and slabs -- ended up as so many souvenirs and art objet for collectors, museums and public urban installations all over the world. The Berlin wall was a long, massive canvas for sreet artists and graffiti writers. Covered in layer upon layer of scrawls, imagery, paint and political messages, the wall was like lonr-running (literally) communal, open-source work of of public art on the West Berlin side. Viewed out of its context far away from Berlin, a slab of the wall functions as a stand-alone piece of art that is a legitimate subject of aesthetic consideration. And it also functions as a historical artifact that reminds viewers of one of the uglier 20 geo-political events of the 20th Century.

New Yorkers have their own slab of the Berlin wall in Midtown Manhattan. This image shows an actual segment of the Cold War barrier on public view behind real-estate developer Jerry Speyer's office building at 520 Madison Avenue. To get to it, you need to access a small, open plaza on the north side of E. 53rd Street between 5th and Madison avenues. Check it.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's another shot of the Berlin wall slab in NewYork that shows a tourist inspecting the wall. This image was taken from an angle and looks out toward E. 53rd Street.

Background

When the Berlin wall fell in 1989, its pieces -- its concerete bits, chunks and slabs -- ended up as so many souvenirs and art objet for collectors, museums and public urban installations all over the world. The Berlin wall was a long, massive canvas for sreet artists and graffiti writers. Covered in layer upon layer of scrawls, imagery, paint and political messages, the wall was like lonr-running (literally) communal, open-source work of of public art on the West Berlin side. Viewed out of its context far away from Berlin, a slab of the wall functions as a stand-alone piece of art that is a legitimate subject of aesthetic consideration. And it also functions as a historical artifact that reminds viewers of one of the uglier 20 geo-political events of the 20th Century.

New Yorkers have their own slab of the Berlin wall in Midtown Manhattan. This image shows an actual segment of the Cold War barrier on public view behind real-estate developer Jerry Speyer's office building at 520 Madison Avenue. To get to it, you need to access a small, open plaza on the north side of E. 53rd Street between 5th and Madison avenues. Check it.

Ivan Corsa Photo

We love this massive "X" on these freight doors outside the Swiss Cultural Center in the trendy Les Marais district of Paris. The Swiss Cultural Center is kind of a hidden gem; the center is in a beautiful, post-modern multi-level exhibition space at the end of a narrow alley. The cneter is home to frequently changing art shows featuring work by young artists and designers. The alley, through which one pust pass to reach the center, is filled with great street art and graf.

Ivan Corsa Photo

This phrase has greater resonance in light of recent riots in the suburbs of Paris and other cities throughout France, as well as ongoing events in Iraq. We found this phrase sprayed in English and Arabic on the asphalt outside the entrance to the Swiss cutural center's art gallery in Les Marais in Paris.

Ivan Corsa Photo

While we're on the subject of spaces and places in downtown Manhattan that are no more, here's a shot of the recently torn down Gaseteria gas station at the corner of Houston and Lafayette streets in Soho, New York City. More precisely, it's a picture of a billboard advertisement of the station at the station. We've always loved this sign because it's so obviously from a different stylistic era of advertising and retail signage. Even the messaging is quaint: "Thank you for making us #1" and "New York's 'House Brand'" are presented in an almost laughable, but endearing, way. Most of all, we love the design aesthetic and the illustration of the station itself, with bright yellow NYC taxis sitting at all the pumps. It's a big surprise that Gaseteria wasn't demolished to make room for new luxury apartments and condos (given the location, the land and air-rights alone are worth potentially tens of millions of dollars.) No, what replaced this old petrol stop was a new, shiny, modern service station of a well-known brand franchise.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a closer view of the facade of 295 Bowery and the iconic, ironic and grim skull and cell phone wheat-paste poster and skull-and-bones graf.

Background
The building pictured above no longer exists. The tenement at 295 Bowery was torn down earlier this year by Avalon Bay Partners, a real-estate investment trust, as part of their multi-building Avalon Chrystie condo development that straddles Houston St. and the Bowery on the border of the East Village and Soho. The building was a haven for lots of graf and street art, none more symbolic than that the wheat-paste poster of a skull talking into a cell phone on the facade. The 295 Bowery building had been a decrepit structure for decades, but was actually still home to a few artists who were paying extremely low rents on what had become extremely valuable real estate. The building is also known as "McGurk's Suicide Hall" because about a hundred years ago it was home to McGurk's Saloon, which was often frequented by hookers and their customers. The saloon was the scene of many suicides by desperate prostitutes looking to escape the misery of the Bowery.

Ivan Corsa Photo

The building pictured above no longer exists. The tenement at 295 Bowery was torn down earlier this year by Avalon Bay Partners, a real-estate investment trust, as part of their multi-building Avalon Chrystie condo development that straddles Houston St. and the Bowery on the border of the East Village and Soho. The building was a haven for lots of graf and street art, none more symbolic than that the wheat-paste poster of a skull talking into a cell phone on the facade. The 295 Bowery building had been a decrepit structure for decades, but was actually still home to a few artists who were paying extremely low rents on what had become extremely valuable real estate. The building is also known as "McGurk's Suicide Hall" because about a hundred years ago it was home to McGurk's Saloon, which was often frequented by hookers and their customers. The saloon was the scene of many suicides by desperate prostitutes looking to escape the misery of the Bowery.

Ivan Corsa Photo

We want to take moment to give a big shout-out to Cassidy Curtis at the Graffiti Archaeology Project. Cassidy correctly identified for the us the writer of some graf we posted about here at Global Graphica a couple of weeks ago (see BK with Skulls, East Village, NYC) . We were unable to identify the graf by "Booker" (a.k.a, "Readmore"), and at the time had speculated that the writer may have been "Beke" or "Beko." Of course, on hindsight inspection of the image, we spotted a second, unstylized tag that clearly says "Booker" in the upper right of the image. Somehow we failed to connect the dots the first time. Anyway, a big Global Graphica "Thank you" to Cassidy. If you have a second, we highly recommend you check out Cassidy's Grafarc.org website -- it's a very cool project.

Linkage
BK with Skulls, East Village, NYC [Global Graphica]
Graffiti Archaeology - Grapharc.org

Loving this "BK" tag we found behind the clump of buildings where the legendary club CBGBs is housed on the Bowery in the East Village, NYC. BK is punctuated with a couple of skulls worked into the tag. Maybe the skulls could be substitutes for actual letters. So maybe this is really "BeKe" or "BeKo." No matter. This writer has a great sense of style and technique. Find this one while you can along that decrepit, abandoned and razed stretch of E. 1st Street between Bowery and 2nd Avenue. As we post this, several recently bulldozed plots of land are being developed into fashionable, luxury apartments, condos and lofts. In New York, whether it's writin' space or living space, it all comes down to real estate.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Gear: Nikon Coolpix 3600 digital camera
On the iPod: Fiery Furnaces - "EP"
Kicks on our Feet: Adidas Y3

The New York City Apple Store in Soho resides in a former US Post Office building formerly called "Station A" in Soho. It's located in the heart of downtown Manhattan amid multi-million-dollar real estate in the form of lofts, apartments, retail spaces, creative offices and historic cast-iron architecture. Like those lofts that have been converted from former factory space, the Apple Store is an excellent example of the re-development and re-purposing of existing structure as new, mixed-use space.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Another shot of the Apple Store, Soho.

The New York City Apple Store in Soho resides in a former US Post Office building formerly called "Station A" in Soho. It's located in the heart of downtown Manhattan amid multi-million-dollar real estate in the form of lofts, apartments, retail spaces, creative offices and historic cast-iron architecture. Like those lofts that have been converted from former factory space, the Apple Store is an excellent example of the re-development and re-purposing of existing structure as new, mixed-use space.

Ivan Corsa Photo

The Bloomingdales Soho store in New York City has an interior design that reflects its downtown setting. The department store's lower Manhattan outpost is in a quintessential Soho lofts building in the heart of what was once one of the city's artiest neighborhoods. The interior is filled with original art with more of a downtown feel that that of its uptown flagship store. This shot shows an artwork made of portaits.

Typhoon Photo

Love this shot of central Tokyo with the Tokyo Tower smack in the middle. The Japanese capital is one of our favorite places on earth. We love visiting Tokyo -- and travel to and around Japan, in general. There's so much human activity at street level in Tokyo and so many interesting urban spaces. Once one steps out of the hotel, one could walk for hours and hours just exploring. And in recent years, there's a lot to explore in terms of great street art by Japanese and foreign artists -- some obscure, some well-known -- in the backstreets of the Harajuku, Ura-Harujuku, Naka-meguro and Daikanyama neighborhoods. Book that flight now, Speed Racer.

D. Carter Witt Photo

Surface To Air (or Surface 2 Air) is an underground-ish creator's atelier, art gallery, event space and boutique all wrapped up into one at very central Paris address in a right-bank neighborhood near Les Halles. Here is a shot of the iron-shuttered, graf-scrawled storefront from across the lane. Like Colette a couple of kilometers away, Surface To Air is a small mecca of under-the-radar creative cool.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a shot of some graphic design in the form of cool logo/symbols painted on the storefront of Surface To Air in Paris.

Surface To Air (or Surface 2 Air) is an underground-ish creator's atelier, art gallery, event space and boutique all wrapped up into one at very central Paris address in a right-bank neighborhood near Les Halles. Here is a shot of the iron-shuttered, graf-scrawled storefront from across the lane. Like Colette a couple of kilometers away, Surface To Air is a small mecca of under-the-radar creative cool.

Ivan Corsa Photo

This is a shot of the Surface To Air signage, a non-descript, sterile sans-serif logotype.

Surface To Air (or Surface 2 Air) is an underground-ish creator's atelier, art gallery, event space and boutique all wrapped up into one at very central Paris address in a right-bank neighborhood near Les Halles. Here is a shot of the iron-shuttered, graf-scrawled storefront from across the lane. Like Colette a couple of kilometers away, Surface To Air is a small mecca of under-the-radar creative cool.

Ivan Corsa Photo

A close-up shot of the awning and signage of the recently closed Pop Shop. The Shop, on Lafayette Street in Soho, New York City, was part of the legacy of late downtown artist Keith Haring. The shop was an emporium of all things Haring and an example of how licensing and merchandising of an artists body of work could be lucrative and continue to promote a the artist's work long after his death. In fact, Haring's iconic graffiti-inspired imagery was virtually a brand in and of itself. As is often the case with Manhattan real estate in neighborhoods that have changed dramatically through gentrification, leases property prices and rents skyrocket. The Pop Shop can no longer afford the landlord's new asking price on the lease of the current retail space. So long, Pop Shop.

Ivan Corsa Photo

The Pop Shop on Lafayette Street in Soho, New York City, was part of the legacy of late downtown artist Keith Haring. The shop was an emporium of all things Haring and an example of how licensing and merchandising of an artists body of work could be lucrative and continue to promote a the artist's work long after his death. In fact, Haring's iconic graffiti-inspired imagery was virtually a brand in and of itself. As is often the case with Manhattan real estate in neighborhoods that have changed dramatically through gentrification, leases property prices and rents skyrocket. The Pop Shop can no longer afford the landlord's new asking price on the lease of the current retail space. So long, Pop Shop.

Ivan Corsa Photo

This "secret" SoHo restaurant was outted this past summer by the New York times in a Style section article. Appearances can be misleading. The photo shows a small, no-frills Mexican diner and bdeli/bodega called The Corner La Esquina, but the real restaurant is behind and below the diner "front." To ge to the real La Esquina you must pass through an unmarked, non-descript door that looks like an employees-only portal to a storage room. Once past, you enter a totally different space, a quintessentially chic downtown restaurant and boite. La Esquina is at the interesection of Cleveland Place and Kenmare and Lafayette streets, a block south of Spring Street.

Ivan Corsa Photo

This is an awesome piece of work: The words "FAME GAME" spelled out with a wood frame and affixed to the side of that cynosure of downtown Manhattan street art, the building at 11 Spring Street, in Nolita. This work is on the Elizabeth Street side of the building. The unoccupied 19th-century apartment house was, until recently, undergoing interior renovations by its owner, NY Post scion Lachlan Murdoch. The transformation of the building into a piece of large, luxury residential real estate for Murdoch all but guaranteed that the end was near for 11 Spring's place as a venue for street artists. But Murdoch recently shocked the media world by announcing his resignation as publisher of his father's, Rupert's, newspaper. He also announced that he would move to Australia. The renovation work came to a sudden halt at 11 Spring, so for now expect it to remain a home for street-smart visual culture. See more shots of Fame Game below.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Another shot of "FAME GAME" at 11 Spring Street, in Nolita, NYC.

Ivan Corsa Photo

One more shot of "FAME GAME" at 11 Spring Street (on Elizabeth Street) in downtown Manhattan.

Here's a beter view of the interior (as well as the collection of sneakers and other merch) through the front window of the Adidas sneaker concept store in Soho, in New York City. Note the way the interior space is lit.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Another shot of the front of the Adidas sneaker concept store in Soho, in New York City.

Ivna Corsa Photo

German shoemaker Adidas has a fashion-forward concept store for its designer sneakers on cobblestoned Wooster Street in Soho, in New York City. The shop is a well-designed groundfloor and cavernous space surrounded by loft apartment buildings and shops like Stussy and Head Porter. Here we see the front of the space, which boasts large windows and a minimalist, garage-door facade.The iconic Adidas brand of three stripes and lift-blue can be found echoed on the collection of garbage and the upturned pallet resting curbside in front of the sneaker emporium.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Previously we reported on the Time magazine billboard at Houston and Wooster streets in Soho, NYC, where large colorful tags have appeared by NYC graf writer Cope2 ("CopeII"). The idea is that each week, more aerosol art will go up on the billboard screen, which hangs from the north face of a loft apartment building, until eventually the Time magazine logo and trademark red-border will go up in the space and frame the Krylon work. In this second installment of photos from Week 2, you can seen the updated billboard with new, additional layers of graf. Week 3 images to be uploaded here soon.

Notes:
Sneakers on our feet: Puma 5000M
Tunes in ours ears: M.I.A. "Galang"

Ivan Corsa Photo

A detail shot of the Time magazine "graf" billboard that hangs on a lofts apartment building at the corner of Houston and Wooster streets in Soho, NYC.

Notes:
Sneakers on our feet: Puma 5000M
Tunes in ours ears: M.I.A. "Galang"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Another (slightly wider) detail shot of the Time magazine Cope2 graffiti billboard at Houston and Wooster streets in Soho, New York City.

Notes:
Sneakers on our feet: Puma 5000M
Tunes in ours ears: M.I.A. "Galang"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Another wider, zoom shot of the Time magazine Cope2 graffiti billboard in Soho, New York City.

Notes:
Sneakers on our feet: Puma 5000M
Tunes in ours ears: M.I.A. "Galang"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Another distant zoom of the Time magazine Cope2 graffiti billboard in Soho, New York City.

Notes:
Sneakers on our feet: Puma 5000M
Tunes in ours ears: M.I.A. "Galang"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Another contextual shot of the Time magazine Cope2 graffiti billboard in Soho, New York City.

Notes:
Sneakers on our feet: Puma 5000M
Tunes in ours ears: M.I.A. "Galang"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a more contextual skyline shot of the Time magazine Cope2 graffiti billboard in Soho, New York City.

Notes:
Sneakers on our feet: Puma 5000M
Tunes in ours ears: M.I.A. "Galang"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a nice up by "Dr. Sex," whose tag is no stranger to the Lower East Side, in New York City. We found this tag on Orchard St. at Stanton on the front shutter of the popular bar and cabaret club the Slipper Room. The club was opened at the height of the dotcom boom by the founders of Razorfish, the biggest web design agency, that is, until the tech bubble burst a few years ago and the company was swallowed up in a merger. Anyway, the Irish rock band U2 filmed a music video on location at the Slipper Room a few weeks ago.

Style Notes:
Currently listening to: Iggy & the Stooges' "Search and Destroy"
Sneakers on my feet: Puma "California" (w/ Velcro strapping)

Ivan Corsa Photo

A closer view of the Nomadic Museum by architect Shigeru Ban at Pier 54 on the Hudson River, New York City.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here a close-up of the north wall of the Nomadic Museum by Shigeru Ban. The walls are made of recycled shipping containers.

Ivan Corsa Photo

A view of the face and entrance of the Nomadic Museum by experimental Japanese architect Shigeru Ban at Pier 54 in New York City. The Nomadic Museum was designed for a massive exhbition of photos and film by the artist Gregory Colbert.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a close-up shot of the underside and roof structure at the east face and entrance of the Nomadic Museum at Pier 54 in New York City.

Ivan Corsa Photo

A stack of shipping containers make up the walls and basic structure of Nomadic Museum by architect Shigeru Ban.

Ivan Corsa Photo

In this image, the ticket office to the Nomadic Museum, in New York City, is seen tucked in a space between shipping containers on the right flank of the structure.

Ivan Corsa Photo

The exterior gateway on Pier 54 near the entrance of the Nomadic Museum.

Ivan Corsa Photo

The top of old the ironwork above the exterior gateway on Pier 54 near the entrance of the Nomadic Museum.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Well-designed Hudson River Park Map sign outside the gateway to Pier 54 in Manhattan, NYC, site of the Nomadic Museum by Shigeru Ban.

Ivan Corsa Photo

More of the clever Time Magazine adspace with graffiti by Cope2 (CopeII)in downtown Manhattan, at Houston and Wooster streets in Soho. We're trying to remember what was being pushed on this billboard previously -- it was either Altoids or Addidas sneakers. Or maybe it was ...

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's another view of the Time Magazine graf billboard at Houston and Wooster streets in Soho.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Detail of the Time Magazine billboard at Houston and Wooster streets in Soho, New York City. Tag by Cope2.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Another shot of the Time Magazine graffiti billboard by Cope2 (CopeII) at Houston and Wooster streets in Soho, New York City. To think this space could be used to sell Puma sneakers or the new Sony PSP.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Time Magazine is engaged in an unusual billboard advertising stunt. On a white fabric screen hanging from the side of a building at Houston and Wooster streets in Soho, a large colorful tag has been aerosoled. The graffiti is first rate and unhurried (unlike a lot of "ups," which are often written with hasty economy). The artist, or "writer," is Cope2 (or "CopeII"), a well-known veteran of the NYC-graf underground. According to sources, the idea is that each week, more aerosol art will go up on the screen. By the end of a month, Time magazine's branding will go up in the space. Now who said advertising wasn't fun anymore? We'll document the series here on Global Graphica in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Found this faded massive advertisement on the side of a building in the far West Village, where the hood morphs into the Meatpacking District. This sign is really old. The neighborhood must have been quite different back when this ad pushed parking space and a car dealership. The nabe has changed dramatically since the sign was put up and the car dealership -- despite our best search -- no longer exists. Now the area has the most desirable apartments, brownstones and townhouses in New York City and -- per square footage -- the most expensive residential real estate in all Manhattan. That real estate boom and the local trendiness of the Meatpacking Distirtc has fueled the numerous nearby loft conversions.

Ivan Corsa Photo

We're not sure if this is graf "proper," or the sloppy handiwork of the proprietor of whatever is behind this shutter door upon which the Krylon moniker is applied. (A shop called "Ize," perhaps?) At any rate, it's good to see some dirty aerosol work even if it's a third-rate effort in the heart of the Meatpacking District, that stinky and sometimes stanky industrial-commercial zone full of cobblestone streets and sandwiched between Chelsea and the far West Village. The area, as its name implies, is the traditional home to New York City's meat markets and refrigerated meat-packaging warehouses. But gentrification, money and massive disused factory spaces brought a developer-led building-conversion and real estate boom in the late 1990's. Now, next door to massive (and smelly) buildings filled with meat coolers, are million-dollar lofts, apartments and condos. The area is also home to dozens of upscale and truly, amazingly-designed clubs and restaurants. There's naturally a boutique hotel in the hood. It's called the Hotel Gansevoort and it is a beautiful place. Across from the hotel is the celeb-filled British social haunt the Soho Club. The Meatpacking District has become so flooded with new boites, high-end designer stores and food-snob hangouts that it's now a overcrowded Friday and Saturday nightmare destination for the tourist and bridge-and-tunnel crowds (which is the tell-tale sign that the nabe is "so over") looking for "hot" Manhattan. The fact that the character "Samantha" in Sex and the City eventually moved into the area in the show's storyline is both a reflection of what's happened to the real nabe in real life and also a part of why it has become a trendy and (as advertising people say) aspirational locale.

Ivan Corsa Photo

This logo is the boss. When you see your local fire department with a logo and name like Chinatown Dragon Fighters, well, damn, if our apartment building was on fire we'd want this fire company to come to our rescue first. Could there be any team of firemen in the world with a cooler name that this? Did you hear us? DRAGON FIGHTERS! You know what Dragons are, right? Hell, those f**ckers breathe fire. Think about it. This is like calling your local police force the "The All-time Best Psychotic-Murderer Ass-Kickers in the World." So when the roof is on fire in downtown New York City, who ya' gonna call? Dragon Fighters, damn straight, dude!

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a third shot of the Carmine Street Pool mural by the late artist Keith Haring.

Ivan Corsa Photo

This is the second in a series of three shots of a mural by 1980's art star Keith Haring at the landmark Carmine Street Pool in the West Village, in New York City.

Ivan Corsa Photo

The late Keith Haring was one of several art stars to emerge from the downtown New York City art explosion in the 1980's. Haring made a name for himself early in his career for graffiti and street art. After becoming established he was commisioned to create major public art works, including this massive mural at the landmark Carmine Street Pool in the West Village. The mural has a summery aquatic-swim theme and is a perfect compliment to its venue. Note: The pool was the set of the swim scene in the critcally acclaimed 1990's Larry Clark film "Kids" that starred quintessential donwtown indie actress Chloe Sevigny.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a wide shot of the same Chelsea building in New York City where a real estate developer has cleverly built new luxury condos over an existing and intact historic 19th-century building.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Real estate developers looking to maximize use of space, as well as profits, must find creative architectural solutions to create new, larger residential spaces within the constraints of New York City's myriad rules and laws governing zoning, air rights, and historic preservation, not to mention building codes. One work-around and novel way to create new condos is to build on top of an existing tenement building. Sometime the developers will work with an architect that will re-skin a building's exterior with a contemporary shell to match that of the addition. Other times, they just put a contemporary-style rooftop addition while keeping the original (and historic) brick-and-mortar building intact. Here is a shot of a such building on 6th Ave. in New York City in that part of Chelsea that borders the Meatpacking District and West Village. Needless to say, the new residential condos are "luxury" style and not inexpensive.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Hey, "All kinds of alterations done," folks! Gotta the love the Chinese boy and girl characters flanking the message on the left and right, which you see on the doors of various Chinese dry-cleaners/tailors/laundromat shops. The imagery is rooted in a tradition, we imagine. The touch that really makes this signage classic DIY are the adhesive letters. Mom-and-pop all the way! But this signage goes the distance -- look closely and you'll see that that wide cellophane packing tape has been placed over the lettering in strips to keep it from falling off (or being ripped off). This signage rules!

Ivan Corsa Photo

We love the store front to the SSURPlus select clothing shop in New York City. Regular visitors to this site may recall an earlier photo of the SSURPlus boutique many months ago. That shot was taken in the day. But this one-of-a-kind store window with it's etched-glass Bruce Lee motif takes on a whole other look at night when it's illuminated. The backlit glass makes the SSURPlus shop in NoLIta an unmissable presence on the stretch of Spring Street between Elizabeth Street and The Bowery. The shop sells hoodies, graphic tees, jeans and downtown-inspired gear with that certain dollop of hip-hop flava that brings kids here from as far as Tokyo and Stockholm looking for fresh, original style.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Cow Parade was a major public art event to visit several foreign and U.S. cities, including New York City, in the early 2000's. The project entailed the placement of hundreds or thousands of often brightly painted life-size models of cows, each decorated by an artist. This cow was placed in the front garden area of a converted East Village townhouse apartment building.

Ivan Corsa Photo

This truck is the bizzomb!!! Or rather, the graf makes this truck the bizzomb. You can always find this truck parked in SoHo near the intersection of Spring and Greene streets. The "Fred" in this art work is is the Fred Rogers of Mister Roger's Neighborhood fame. Everytime we see this truck, which is almost every day, we smile on the inside (and sometimes on the outside, too). The graf is a work of art and the quality speaks for itself.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Moss is an example of high-end contemporary design at the retail level. The store, on Greene St., in SoHo, is a temple to clever, expensive and beautiful furniture, household goods and decorative objects. All of it for sale. We love the Moss logo and the store's window displays, which change frequently and are worthy of a semi-regular walk-by to check out the latest. At Moss, you'll find a $300.00 pair of silver chopsticks. And someone will buy them. We like to think of Moss as a design museum, but one in which you can buy the object exhbited.

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SoHo in New York City often conjures images of art galleries, artists and huge lofts. But these days the only artists and art galleries that can call SoHo home must have deep pockets and must be already firmly established. SoHo long ago became a mecca for sleek and chic urban living and expensive real estate, as well as mammoth shopping ground. SoHo is, in essence, lower Manhattan's big unofficial outdoor shopping mall, complete with every brand-name chain store you'd find in just about any major mall in America, albeit with lots of luxury brands thrown into the retail mix. The art galleries moved on to cheaper, bigger spaces in Chelsea a decade ago. The artists got priced out a couple of decades ago. Still, SoHo retains a lot of clues to its past as an active cynosure of the international art world in the form of street art and official commisioned works of public art, as seen in this mural above a playground between Prince and Spring streets.

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It's hard to go wrong by employing repetition. As an aesthetic principle, showing the same image, or a slight variation of an image, in multiples and in an evenly distributed fashion, equally weighted in a grid-like pattern, is a visually compelling technique. Such patterns engage the eyes and draw the viewer in. This picture shows a group of black-and-white images of lips on wheat-pasted paper sheets on a wall. The building is on that famous downtown block that is a shrine to street art and graf, the stretch of buildings between Elizabeth and Bowery streets in Nolita.

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Sushi Ahoy! - Maritime Hotel Building, Chelsea, NYC 02

A shot of the lower and ground levels of the Maritime Hotel in Chelsea where the wave of chic gentrification continues to turn warehouses into multi-million-dollar condos and apartments. This hot piece of Manhattan real estate serves not only as a fashionable boutique hotel, but is also home to Megu, an upscale, buzz-worthy Japanese restaurant.

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The Maritime Hotel in Chelsea has only been around for 39 years, but it already has a storied history. The 12-floor building is now a fashionable boutique hotel and office building catering to the rich and fabulous and celebrity-crowned peeps who haunt the Meatpacking District, West Village and Cheslea. The structure is now one of the hottest pieces of real estate on the west side of lower Manhattan, where the wave of chic gentrification continues, a process that has turned meat warehouses into multi-million-dollar condos and apartments. As an example of the second wave of "international style" architecture popular in the 1960's, the Maritime Hotel has a distinct look. Designed by architect Albert C. Ledner, the structure's obvious and most eclectic feature is the grid of porthole windows, which, like the building's name, hints at its past. When the building was opened in 1966, it housed the National Maritime Union and was home to sailors. Now, in addition to serving as a jet-set hotel, the tower has one of the most recent buzz restaurants of New York City, the upscale Japanese sushi palace called Megu.

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Our favorite piece of graphica from the recent Honolulu series is this example of signage and graphic design at Honolulu International Airport. The standard internationally recognized iconography for Restroom, or Men's Room, has been dressed up with local Hawaiian flavor. Not only has a Polynesian decorative graphic been used in the treatment, but a classic aloha shirt and the Hawaiian word for men, "Kane," have been added. Very cool, if a little kitschy.

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Found this surprisingly excellent up along the King Kamehameha Highway on the east side of Oahu, outside Honolulu. This was one of the best examples of graf we saw on the island.

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A detail shot of the Waikiki Galleria Building office tower in Honolulu.

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We love the style of this building. The Waikiki Galleria Building in Honolulu is an impressive piece of real estate. The architectural design is a fusion of Polynesia and post-modernism. The result of these combined influences is a glass office tower in the international style with a lattice structure or exosleleton reminiscent of Hawaiian or tropical aesthetic motifs.

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We came across this abandoned barn along the the King Kamehameha Highway (or "The Kam," as locals say) outside the Honolulu suburbs on the eastern shore of Oahu. On the side of the barn is an old, faded mural of Hawaiian imagery. Even in its weathered condition, the mural retains a certain beauty. We can only imagine how vibrant its colors were when the painting was fresh and new a long time ago.

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The famous Sheraton Royal Hawaiian hotel on Waikiki Beach, in Honolulu, is a classic, old-school luxury hotel. Its official logo is its venerable seal, pictured above. As design, it builds on the classic imagery and design conventions of both Western and Hawaiian nobility, and in doing suggests a degree of "class" and hence luxury in much the same way that many other products (tobacco packaging especially comes to mind) have used the same types of design motifs to lend a greater versimilitude of quality and appeal to social aspirations of target consumers.

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The most famous hotel in Honolulu, or for that matter Hawaii and all the Pacific, the Sheraton Royal Hawaiian is certainly one of the world's most famous hotels and an icon of beach-resort luxury. Dubbed the Pink Palace of the Pacific for the striking color of its exterior, the Royal Hawaiian sits on one of the most expensive pieces of real estate on Oahu and is still a benchmark in the ever-crowded field of toney Waikiki accomodations, be they apartments, condos or beachfront rooms. The architecture itself appears to be an amalgam of Spanish colonial and art deco. The building complex and ground bear a resemblance to another well-known pink hotel -- the Beverly Hills Hotel, in Los Angeles.

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On the edge of downtown Honolulu is this feeble attempt to write a tag. This unfinished graf is a rarity nonethless in a city that has relatively little graf and street art compared to most large urban cities on the mainland of America. If you look hard enough, however, you'll find graf of all kinds -- crappy, lame and hasty tags that are truly eyesores, as well as complex, innovative skillfully executed tags with depth and artistry. Look under overpasses or along the walls of the H1 Interstate that courses through central Honolulu for better ups.

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This LV store in the Waikiki condos and resorts district, in Honolulu, has an achitectural design influenced by what looks like, at first glance, a fusion of Asian, Polynesian and Western styles.

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This hotel and condo tower in the central Waikiki resort district, in Honolulu, looks like a classic piece of 1960's or 1970's beach-tourist architecture. The feature of this building is the curved UFO-like structure atop the skyscraper. Usually, this type of round, glass-sided architectural crown is a restaurant and bar that offers panoramic views.

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Snapped this shot of a huge, long mural of a tiger stripe motif on the exterior of a high school east of downtown Honolulu. The design treatment fits well with the Oahu environment, and, we speculate, the mural echoes the design of the school's colors and athletic uniforms, especially since the the mural is adjacent to the sports field.

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Delancey Street Station is one of the busier subway train junctions in New York City. Its location in the downtown hipster haven of the Lower East Side makes it the jumping off point for commuters going back and forth between Manhattan and Brooklyn. The F Line and J,M and Z lines pass through the station, which sits under the intersection of Delancey and Essex streets. Recent renovations have brought artistic renewal to the station. Giant mosaics of fish and other sea creatures cover the walls on the Brooklyn-bound F Line platform. Pictured above are a pair of fish that we like.

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Another prime example of a "graf-out" on the Lower East Side of New York City. We love these things. The graf-out has its own aesthetic -- cloud-shaped blobs and swaths of gray paint on metal shutters look like abstract art.

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Graf goes up, graf goes down. Or, rather, graf gets covered with a coat of paint. Often, that coat of paint is in a slightly different hue from the original color of the wall. We call these "graf-outs." Nevertheless, a mismatching of hues is the price one pays in the effort to cover up the graf. The effect of the graf-out is like that of abstract art. The above photo is a prime example of a graf-out on the Lower East Side of New York City.

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The signage is starting to fade atop this paint store on Essex St. off East Broadway in New York City, but its colors still offer a bright touch to an otherwise gray block of Lower East Side lofts, tenements and warehouses.

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Another shot of a paint store front-signage on a Lower East Side block of lofts, tenements and warehouses in New York. This second shot has some added color courtesy of the passersby whose clothing seems to match the color palette of the sign.

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The East Village in New York City could just as handily be called "Little Tokyo" or "Japan Town" given the extraordinary number of Japanese restaurants, sushi bars and supermarkets, as well as Japanese owned-and-operated hair salons, vintage clothing shops and other establishments (from record stores to toy stores) opened and run by expats from Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya who now call New York City home. With the glut of sushi bars comes specialization, such as this Japanese fast-food chain restaurant, Teriyaki Boy, on East 10th St. The exterior design of the storefront and signage is eye-catching and demonstrates a successful use of logo-graphics and lighting elements to create an alluring storefront.

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A view from the mezzanine inside the AOL Time Warner Building looking out through the huge glass front onto Columbus Circle in Manhattan. Across the roundabout, at 2 Columbus Circle, is a white skyscraper that is an important piece of 1960's-era architecture, The New York Cultural Center Building. Originally it was an art museum -- or, rather, a very large gallery -- called the Huntington Hartford Gallery of Modern Art, an institution born by the heir to the great A&P Supermarket fortune. Built from 1964-65, this singular skyscraper was designed by architects Edward Durell Stone and Associates expressly for the purpose of housing a world-class art collection. It has been vacant for years and is in serious need of repair and renovation despite the structure being recognized as an architectural gem. Fortunately, in 2004 the building was designated as an "endangered building" by the National Trust and is now the focus of efforts by architecture preservationists to protect the design from being altered in the future.

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Another shot that shows the wall of coffee lids designed by architects Lewis Tsurumaki Lewisat at Ini Ani Espresso Bar in New York City. Here we see mirror slivers embeded in the wall to break up the pattern and to add depth and reflected light to the space.

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Detail image of innovative interior decor feature at Ini Ani Espresso Bar in New York City. The wall pattern is made from impressions of plastic coffee cup lids in plaster. The cafe interior was developed by the NYC architects Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis.

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One of our favorite cafes in the Lower East Side is Ini Ani Espresso Bar on Stanton St. The small cafe has an exquisite interior designed and built by a local architecture firm called Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis. The architects made an innovative use of materials to decorate the walls and create a gentle acoustics and comfortable --if cozy -- environment. This sets Ini Ani Espresso Bar apart as a chill place to sip lattes and mochachinos while whiling away a Sunday afternoon with the New York Times. The most memorable interior feature is a plaster wall surface with a pattern of circular impressions, each circle created from a unique plastic coffee cup lid.

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In New York City, if you're engaged in any kind of construction, whether putting up a new luxury condo or renovating a factory to make way for loft apartments or buidling a new restaurant interior, you'll need city work permits for construction and these permits must be posted in public view on the front of the building or site, as in the picture above. Sometimes, there are multiple renovation or construction projects happening within a single apartment building, which leads to a glut of paperwork and permits.

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We like how the purple of the No. 7 Line circle/graphic symbol on the New York City subway system works well with the silvery stainless steel finish of the subway car itself. The number of arts projects and the amount of graphic design that has gone into decoration and visual communication within the subway system is impressive, diverse and first-class (even if subway service itself isn't) and could easily fill a large museum.

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This series of numbered panes on the side of a Water St. office building is a clock. As a piece of architecture, it is intriging and looks more like a work of post-modern art than a serious, practical -- if novel -- way of keeping time. The historic Wall Street financial district of New York City is home to many examples of large-scale corporate-sponsored public art, most in the form of sculptural pieces in the foyers and plazas in front of office buildings.

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When you see the high-rise Citibank Building in Long Island City, Queens, it looks clearly out of place among the renovated turn-of-the-century industrial buildings (now lofts) and low-rise brick tenement buildings and clap-board townhouses, as if the glass office tower had wandered away from the massive cluster of skyscrapers just across the the East River in Manhattan. Citibank was a real estate pioneer by putting up a towering corporate cathedral in this part of Queens. It was a move encouraged by a larger economic strategy for New York City. Long Island City is being primed as an alternative to Jersey City as a destination by companies in Wall Street and Midtown to set up back-office operations. Rents and costs are lower in these places compared to in Manhattan.

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SSUR Plus is a select shop and exclusive, niche brand (along the lines of A Bathing Ape or Alife) of hip-hop-inspired casual clothing -- hoodies, tees, jeans and gear. The store attracts hipster tourists from as far away as Tokyo and Stockholm. Its front window is the bomb! The Bruce Lee image etched into frosted glass and the electronic ticker at top is a stunner. Check it out on Spring St. in NoLIta.

The soul of the New York City downtown music scene, Tonic is small venue housed in a simple one-storey warehouse on Norfolk St., in the Lower East Side. The influential and down-to-earth club is home to avant-garde and experimental live music, as well as a favorite tour stop for indie-rock, jazz and electronic musicians -- Sonic Youth, Boredoms, Cibo Matto, Arto Lindsay, Sean Lennon and Vincent Gallo are among the artists who have recently played regularly at the club. The venue was started by jazz musician John Zorn. The non-descript structure used to be home to a Kosher winemaker. In the basement is Sub-Tonic, a DJ bar that has refashioned the wine barrels into cozy semi-private booths for patrons. As a stand-alone, low-rise building, Tonic is unusual in the vertical city that is NYC. These qualities also make it an ideal location for live music -- no attached buildings mean no neighbors to disturb and no noise complaints. Tonic is currently raising money to remain at its current home. As the Lower East Side completes its cycle of urban renewal and gentrification with the arrival of luxury apartment buildings, buzz restaurants and boutique hotels, rent has skyrocketed in the nabe and forced out many long-term businesses. Let's hope Tonic can raise all the money it needs to remain part of the LES's fertile creative, cultural scene.

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Popular purveyor of smart, classic handbags and accessories, Kate Spade has a massive and always busy store in the heart of the Soho lofts-and-shops district in New York. Even at a time when there's construction work or renovations being done and scaffolding surrounds the landmarked cast-iron loft building where the store lives, Kate Spade manages to add some color to a drab situation. Here the apparati is covered with a Kate Spade pattern one might find in a design for a bag, wallet, shoe or belt. The vivid colors of the graphic pattern replace the usual store signs, which are sedate and hidden by the scaffolding, and double as billboard advertising.

The glass-Plexi staircase at the center of the Apple Store, Soho, which we think is still one of the best Apple Store spaces of all we've seen. (And we've seen quite of few of them actually.) The home of the iPod and other istuff is located in a former US Post Office building in the main shopping district of SoHo, just around the corner and down the street from other premium and "cool" retailers like A Bathing Ape Busy Work Shop and the Kid Robot. The staircase -- an architectural and interior classic -- has been replicated in various forms at Apple stores around the world and inspired many copies by archictects in private residences and corporate spaces alike.

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Real estate is an obsession for most New Yorkers. Even those not actively in the land development game -- most of us -- or even those not in some way invested in property seem to be conversant in the the current goings-on of New York City real estate, especially its more high-profile and symbolic architectual monuments. Which leads us to another obsession -- the more high-brow and massively visbile idea of architecture and its politics and economics in a place like NYC. Pictured above, is one such piece of architecture and real estate. The buildings known as 171 and 173 Perry Street are almost identical twin towers with "raw" luxury residential lofts inside. They were designed by the influential architect Richard Meier, whose reputation rests mostly on a portfolio of other beautiful, contemporary designs that involve a lot of glass and white space. At any rate, these lofts condos, which are in the semi-industrial far West Village facing the Hudson River, have had a lot media coverage in part because of the A-list celebrities that have bought in to the property before its development was even completed. The apartments, naturally, offer tenants stunning views and are something to view in and of themselves and sell for several millions of dollars each.

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We love the bold, yet weathered, exterior of this car body shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It certainly gets your attention and tells you what they're about with vivid, effecive simplicity: collision work. And it does it with a simple aesthetic -- but an aesthetic nonetheless. Check out the combination of crimson and gold paint and the bold, all-caps typography. When you get in an car accident you might have more important things to worry about than the condition of your car or the exterior colors of an auto body shop's garage--you should probably try to figure out first whether you need medical attention or the use of a good car accident or injury attorney.

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