ma bell and safety vests

I think this Chevy van once had a life as a Bell Telephone utility vehicle but now it’s being used by a hip Williamsburg resident. I watched and waited as he parked in this spot. I knew I had a good shot but the oncoming traffic was tricky even on this slow morning. I carefully stepped into the street and made my shot. Maybe I should start wearing an orange safety vest like Bill Cunnningham. I came across this same van before in Greenpoint, Brooklyn near where they built the set of HBO‘s Boardwalk Empire but it lacked this nice brick background. I often pass up nice looking cars because the surroundings aren’t quite right. Note: Bell also used Corvair Rampsides and Ford Econolines. See below.

suckers to the side I know you hate…

…my 98. Well it’s not really mine but Chuck D of Public Enemy sang about his 98 in the song “You Gonna Get Yours”. Here’s a nice Oldsmobile 98 that the owner is in the process of restoring. I’ve been waiting for him to park against that newly painted wall. This photo is a little too dark for me but I still love it.

helsinki helsingfors

Since we’re on the topic of Helsinki, here are a few more photos for you of interesting architecture and surroundings from this great city.

michael caine, johann and bears

For my car series I don’t like streets with even the slightest bit of a grade to them but I made an exception here. I couldn’t pass up this late 60’s VW Beetle against that yellow background. Note the optional mudflaps and fender splash guards for protecting the finish from the harsh winter rain and snow.  I noticed that the Finns like to paint their buildings in warm tones to remind them of the sun. It’s a nice touch that you immediately notice walking around the city. I visited Helsinki during their warmer months and loved it but I can’t imagine what its like during the winter with extreme temperature drops and a handful of daylight hours. No wonder bears hibernate. For a look at what Helsinki looks like during the winter  (of 1966-67) check out the Michael Caine film Billion Dollar Brain. Helsinki is also used as the location for many films set during the Cold War-era and doubled for Moscow in Gorky Park.

Finnish Lesson #1: The street signs in Helsinki (and most other signage) can get quite confusing because they display the names in both Finnish and Swedish. One street was marked Johanneksenrinne/Johanneksentie/Johannesvägen. Quite amusing. I’m sure Johann (John) is happy though. 

i coulda been a contender…and had a muffuletta.

It is easy to see why I like this setting in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The fantastic green color from the fence and doors to the dark blue of this 1976 Mercury Cougar XR-7. The building behind the car houses the Red Hook Neighborhood School mostly for kids from the nearby housing project. During the 90’s LIFE magazine named Red Hook one of the worst neighborhoods in America. Now it has an Ikea which as you know is the yardstick by which all neighborhoods are measured. Either that or having your neighborhood depicted in Grand Theft Auto IV (renamed “East Hook” in the popular video game.)
I take a lot of photographs in this half-residential, half-industrial neighborhood and usually stop by Fort Defiance restaurant for a sandwich. They once broke my heart when I was denied a reverse-engineered Central Grocery-style muffuletta. Got there too late! They also make great cocktails and use perfectly shaped KOLD-DRAFT® ice cubes. Leave it to Brooklyn to fetishize ice.
Interesting note: Red Hook was the setting for the Marlon Brando movie, On The Waterfront although it was filmed in Hoboken, NJ. In that film you can see the ill-fated Andrea Doria cruising down the Hudson River. Another famous ship, the Queen Mary 2 docks in Red Hook. So there.

your teddy bear and mr. jimmy

This Lincoln Town Car is owned by Mr. Jimmy Leary who owns the candy store on Tompkins Avenue in Bed-Stuy. Officially called Jimmy’s Candy Store, this place is more of a museum of curiosities and old candies like Squirrel Nut Zippers, Mary Jane and Black Cow. There are two wooden phone booths in the front of the store that have had the payphones removed but now provide a nice perch for the official store cat. Most Sunday mornings I get the paper here and have chats with Mr. Jimmy about his car and the neighborhood. He’s been in the same spot for over 30 years. I’ll never forget the smile on his face when I showed him this photo which is now framed and sitting behind his vintage wooden display cases. Next door at 404 Tompkins was another candy and novelty shop that back in the day was the birthplace of the original Teddy Bear. You can read about it and this store in James T. & Karla Murray‘s excellent book that I mentioned last week, Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York. Waddaya mean you haven’t bought it yet!?!

christopher walken and ebony and ivory

I found this ‘77 Ford LTD II (based on the Torino) one day walking down Broadway in Astoria, Queens. Its another one of my photos that could have been taken thirty years ago and you would never know the difference. A great shot of these same storefronts is also featured in the excellent book entitled Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York by James T. & Karla L. Murray. A great source of inspiration for me. Broadway alone in Queens has enough history to fill volumes of books but I’ll just say a few things and let it wash over you. First of all the demographics of Queens is the most diverse in all of the United States. That makes for great food and interesting people. Within a few short blocks you can find award-winning Middle Eastern street food, a Japanese grocery store; authentic Mexican food at El Mariachi; an old Italian deli (see D & F above) serving freshly made pasta and Christopher Walken’s favorite hardware store, Walter’s. Walken’s parents owned a bakery and employed a certain Lidia Bastianich. Astoria is famous for once being the home of Steinway Village, a company town for Steinway and Sons, the piano maker. Also nearby is Kaufman-Astoria Studios, home of Sesame Street and tons of films from the 20’s and 30’s. Had enough?

fabrications and appropriations

This is a later model Volkswagen Vanagon. I’ve always wanted one of the early VW Type 2 Transporter or Kombi models or more affectionately known as the “hippie van.” My friend Steve had one. He played S-T-E-V-E with a Van in the movie Slacker. After his role in that film he went on to become very famous and is now living in Mexico somewhere working on a boat with Morgan Freeman. I must admit I didn’t think much of Steve the first time I laid eyes on him; looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over. That was my first impression of the man. Some of the details of this story are fabrications and appropriations of movie quotes much like in my real life.

on pickups and occurences

Continuing on the old pickup theme this week with a fine mid-60s Chevrolet C10 Stepside. I shot this photograph a day before the ‘66 Dodge Charger (see earlier post) in the Irish Channel neighborhood in New Orleans. I actually spotted this truck as I was driving in a car. As you may know I usually scout out my locations on foot but this was a rare exception. There aren’t too many anachronistic clues that would be a dead giveaway that this shot wasn’t taken 30 or 40 years ago. I suppose this is one section of this neighborhood that doesn’t seem to change. Check out the herringbone brick sidewalk.
There is a strange phenomenon that I’ve only witnessed in the South and it involves two people in the cab of a truck who are dating or married or just having fun. When one person is driving and the other person gets in the passenger side he or she scoots over to the middle of the seat so that they are in close proximity to the other. Now I guess this little scoot ’em over move only works comfortably with an older style bench seat as opposed to a bucket seat.
In my dad’s hometown there is also another phenomenon called the one-finger wave. As you drive down the winding roads of Pointe Coupee Parish and a car or truck is coming toward you, you keep your hand(s) on the wheel and just raise your index finger to acknowledge your fellow passerby. What usually follows is someone saying, “That’s about the craziest ?#&^@%# I ever laid eyes on.”

know where your muzzle is before you squeeze the trigger

My beloved football club Chelsea lost over the weekend to Liverpool. Two great teams that I love to watch even when they aren’t playing each other. Their respective colors are blue and red so this recent photograph seemed a perfect choice for this week’s offering.
This I believe is a 1956 Ford F-100 distinguished by the large wraparound windshield and hulking mass of a front end. My father drove a similar 1965 model only his had a custom bullet hole in the front hood. The story goes that he laid his rifle on the hood to steady his aim through the scope to shoot an armadillo not realizing that the barrel was pointed right into the bump of the hood. The truck took a hit and the armadillo lived to fight another redneck day. I loved that old truck. It had two gun racks; one on the back window and the other mounted on the floor near the gearshift for easy access. The old man has always driven trucks and even when he traded the ’65 truck for a car it was really a truck…a ’77 Ford Ranchero. Stubborn is just another word for consistent.

these circles, leading me back to you

One block away from where I took this shot is a sculpture garden and gallery designed by Isamu Noguchi. It helped to establish an arts community in Long Island City, Queens right in the middle of a neighborhood filled with warehouses and factories. You can’t help but feel very calm inside the garden even though there is constant noise from trucks and construction nearby.
I passed by this Oldsmobile Delta 88 several times waiting for the other cars to move away. I didn’t want to leave the area without capturing this one. I love the circles of the whitewall tires and the straight double traffic lines. The origin of those double lines comes from a Yorkshire farmer in the 1800’s named George Barber. He used the lines to designate the route and boundaries of his farm as well as to identify his sheep. However, in New York City it designates a no passing zone with the exception being emergency maneuvers or during road work. Regardless of barriers and boundaries I hope that you don’t let anything get in your way of seeing the Noguchi Museum. It is a wonderful place that deserves as much patronage as those other NYC icons like the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and the Times Square Olive Garden.

mostly neutral in color, plump and limbless

This setting has everything I could possibly want in my photographs. There is absolutely nothing missing except for maybe a piece or two of plywood.
It’s not hard to see what I’m talking about: the color of the car, the wood background, and the two-tone asphalt. And you thought I was just about old, cool cars. This Volkswagen Jetta works just fine.

If you peek just over the top of the car and above the ant, the text of the graffiti on the wall seems a bit confusing. But if you’ve read The Manufacture Of Non-Bleeding Maraschino Cherries by Jillian Ciaccia then you’ll know that it’s a part of the sentence, “The fruit, mostly neutral in color, plump and limbless is easily harvested with an extended reach.”

*If you know the name of the “ant” street artist please contact me.

the driver and the pink jaguar

In the Fall of 2009 The Correspondent® asked me to be her chauffeur in San Francisco for a few days while she conducted business. I agreed but first I had to renew my driver’s license. Mine had been expired for so long that I had to go through the whole DMV process all over again. That meant long lines, driving school, horrible police videos, eye exams, body cavity searches and finally, the road test. My driving instructor was from Kingston, Jamaica and spoke with the most wonderful accent. I barely knew what he was saying half of the time but despite that thick Jamaican patois, I learned to yield, merge and control my road rage all while doing a three-point turn. I passed all of the tests and got my license.

Once in California, a couple of days were spent driving the highways from San Jose to Santa Cruz then down to Monterey and Carmel. In San Francisco we acquired vertigo via the Golden Gate Bridge and negotiated the hairpin turns of Lombardi Street nearly taking out a couple of tourists. There is footage of this somewhere. The rest of the time in the city I set out on foot to soak up some of the unique architecture and neighborhoods and possibly shoot some cars. Most of my photographs require the streets to be pretty flat so I wasn’t sure I would find much in a city known for being steep and hilly but I was optimistic. I had just finished a long walk to the end of Haight Street where it meets Golden Gate Park when I spotted this fantastic pink Jaguar XJ. This is probably the only shot I have where there isn’t a building in the background. I wish I knew who drove this car and the story behind painting the car pink. I think it looks great even if it is slightly beat up. If you look closely you’ll see a small pink ribbon sticker on the rear triangle-shaped side window. Very appropriate for October.

coats, soothes, relieves

Bismuth subsalicylate, also known as pink bismuth is the main ingredient in Pepto-Bismol which has seemed to inform the color of this 1967 Buick Special. The car is supposedly owned by one of The Wau Wau Sisters, a burlesque act from Brooklyn, NY. They dress up like private school studens, talk dirty and dance suggestively. These were the type of women that my mother, a former nun, warned me about. Shake well before use. 1 dose (2 Tbsp or 30 ml) every 1/2 to 1 hour as needed.

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

This old proverb from Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr came to mind on a recent trip to New Orleans. I wandered around the Garden District absorbing the changes that have taken place where I once lived. Natural and man-made disasters are woven into the fabric of New Orleans and with each crisis the city attempts a rebirth. This stretch of Magazine Street has witnessed many changes with new boutique shops and restaurants but it still has the old holdouts like this pawn shop. I wonder if you still have to be buzzed in the front door?

I came across this 1966(?)Dodge Charger and made a few shots. The light wasn’t quite right at the time (and my vision was a bit nebulous from the previous evening of Irish Channel merriment) so while I was having a nice breakfast at Slim Goodies across the street, I kept my eye on the car hoping the light would change. It never did but I like the shadows now.

Meaning is always imposed on my photographs after the fact. Either by me or by you. When I’m out shooting I don’t think of “old versus new” or “rebirth” or make any attempt at a theme but when you’re in New Orleans these elements surround you like a hot, humid day. There is no escape but why would you want to?

architecture in queens

I like to think that I have hard-and-fast rules when it comes to these car photos but sometimes something like this comes along and everything goes out the window. This street is mostly warehouses and repair shops (see VW shot on this same street) which makes this apartment building really stand out. I wanted to look away yet I was drawn to the pink brick and marble balustrades. Moth. Flame. Either way this Italian-villa background for me is busy and unbalanced, yet strangely perfect for this old Chevrolet.
Fair play to you, Queens.

Ad for the 1954 Chevrolet 210 4-door sedan

pablo picasso drove an eldorado

This car seemed to be saying, “Look at my tone-on-tone color scheme and matching tan house!” I walked toward it to get a closer look when I noticed a group of men playing cards behind the fake-grass covered fence. A young guy jumped up as I eyed the car. He didn’t look too happy. I was explaining to him that I was a photographer and like to take pictures of cars on the street, when an older gentlemen stood up from the card table and walked over. I could tell right away that he was the boss, and I told him I liked the car. “It’s mine and I have another in the back,” he said, and led me to the gate where he kept a sleek black 60′s era Cadillac hidden under a tarp. “You should shoot this one.” Upon hearing that I immediately had a flashback to the movie Goodfellas where the Robert De Niro character tries to get his friend’s wife to enter a building all alone. Did he really want to shoot me? I was relieved when he gave me permission to shoot the Eldorado. I thanked him and vowed to bring him a print next time I was in the area.

the gold bug

The first car I ever owned was a gold Volkswagen Beetle or “Bug” as it was more commonly known. I had a few minor wrecks but I could easily replace a dented fender or two myself since everything bolted on to the frame.

This image contains everything I like: interesting car, good colors and an uncluttered background.

a sunny for sunnyside

This is one of the first photos I took in this automobile series. I actually lived on this street and passed this car many times until one day I saw it parked all alone. At the time of this shot I was concerned with little else but documenting the car but that green hedgerow would later become an important part of an overall composition element in all of my photographs.

This little car is a Datsun B210, known in Japan as the Nissan Sunny. Fitting since it was shot in Sunnyside. There’s a word in Japanese that I think applies to this car, kawaii, which means “cute” or “adorable” among other things. Look at those at honeycomb hubcaps!

deuce-and-a-quarter

Sometimes I’ll get lucky and meet the owner of a car I’ve photographed. I never know how someone will react when I tell them, “I shot your car.” Most seem okay with it and are more than happy to offer up a story. I met the owner of this Buick and gave him a small print, much to his surprise.

This car is a Buick Electra 225 or as its known on the street, the Deuce-and-a-Quarter. It measures 225 inches bumper-to-bumper.

I took this shot very quickly, not caring too much for the framing.  I didn’t think it would work because the background was too busy. I try to stay away from signs and awnings. But once I looked at it on a larger screen it came to life and became one of my favorites.

the importance of being patient

I visited this spot so many times hoping for the right car to fill the space. I love the corrugated aluminum siding and the small windows of this building that occupies most of this triangular block. It reminds me of the side of a ship.

This blue Lincoln Town Car had been parked in various sections of the street but never on its own against this background. I once sat across the street, waiting and waiting for a large idling truck to move so I could shoot the car properly. The driver decided to take a lunch break so I moved on.

Then one morning it finally happened. There was the car all by itself. I quickly snapped a few shots before the street started filling up.  I unconsciously left a bit of blue sky in the top left corner of the frame. It plays nicely with the Lincoln’s body color, and was one of those nice surprises from reviewing shots at the end of the day.