A museum exhibit you won't want to miss if you're in New York! Museum of the City of New York "Cars, Culture, and the City" symbiotic influencing

http://www.mcny.org/ is the website to get more info on the other events they have

This exhibit explores how New York City played a pivotal role in creating American car culture, and how the car has helped, in turn, to shape modern New York.

The exhibition features visionary drawings and models; historic photographs, films and advertisements; and a wealth of car memorabilia to tell this fascinating, largely unknown, story.

The exhibition is on view from March 25 to August 8th 2010 and is augmented by some exciting public programs:
Cars, Culture and the City: Gallery Tour - Saturday, March 27th, 1 PM
Speedy: Silent Film Screening - Saturday, April 3rd, 2 PM
Cars, Culture and the City: Educator Open House - Wednesday, April 14th, 4:30 PM
The Car of the Future: Family Workshop - Saturday, April 17th, 2 PM
Speed and Glamour: Early Automobiles and NYC - Tuesday, April 20th, 6:30 PM

Traffic Tower , 5th Ave. and 42nd St. , Looking North, New York City , c. 1920 Postcard Museum of the City of New York , Gift of Dale E. Jenkins

Model of a Traffic Tower for Fifth Avenue , designed by Joseph H. Freedlander, c. 1922 Photograph by Ali Elai Museum of the City of New York

Untitled [Brooklyn Battery Tunnel looking South], c. 1950 Photograph by Andreas Feininger Museum of the City of New York , Gift of the Photographer

Chrysler Building showroom, 1936 Photograph by Samuel H. Gottscho Museum of the City of New York , Gottscho-Schleisner Collection

Crow Motor Sales Co., 1918

Museum of the City of New York , Byron Collection

Crow-Elkhart Motor Company, 1920
Museum of the City of New York , Byron Collection

Warren Nash Motor Company showroom, Broadway and 58th Street , 1925
Museum of the City of New York , Byron Collection

Packard Dealership, designed by Albert Kahn, Broadway and Sherman , Manhattan ,
Courtesy Albert Kahn Associates Inc.

Packard Dealership, rendering, designed by Albert Kahn, 11th Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets, circa 1928
Courtesy Albert Kahn Associates Inc.

Ford New York Service building, designed by Albert Kahn, 1788-22 Broadway, circa 1917
Courtesy Albert Kahn Associates Inc.

South and DePeyster Streets (near Wall Street), 1935-39
Photograph by Berenice Abbott
Museum of the City of New York

Columbus Circle with General Motors Building, 1908-09
Photograph by Samuel H. Gottscho
Museum of the City of New York , Gottscho-Schleisner Collection

Park Avenue and 51st Street , 1921
Museum of the City of New York , Byron Collection

Exterior, Ford Pavillion, 1939/40 New York World's Fair
Photograph by Samuel H. GottschoMuseum of the City of New York , Gottscho-Schleisner Collection

Grand Central Terminal, 1944
Museum of the City of New York , Gift of the Department of Local Government, Public Record Office of South Australia
(now this blows my mind.. .. what a layout, I'd be too distracted by the enormous stately building to make the turn!)

Exterior, GM Building, 1939/40 New York World's Fair
Photograph by Samuel H. Gottscho
Museum of the City of New York , Gottscho-Schleisner Collection

National Automobile Show program, 1935
Courtesy Automobile Reference Collection, Free Library Philadelphia

Experimental cars displayed at the General Motors pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair
Courtesy Automobile Reference Collection, Free Library Philadelphia

Experimental car displayed at the General Motors Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair
Courtesy Queens Museum of Art

US Royal Tires Ferris Wheel at the 1964 New York World’s Fair
Courtesy Queens Museum of Art

UW “The up-way,” designed by Rafael Viñoly, 2009
Courtesy Rafael Viñoly Architects

Reproduction of images is permitted for the sole purpose of editorial publicity for Cars, Culture, and the City, an exhibition on view at the Museum of the City of New York from March 25 through August 8, 2010. http://www.mcny.org/

Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd St.
New York, NY 10029
212.534.1672 Phone212.423.0758 Faxinfo@mcny.org E-mail

Museum Hours
Tuesday - Sunday: 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
Closed Mondays (except holiday Mondays)

Suggested Admission (as of April 15, 2009)
Adults: $10
Seniors, students: $6
Families: $20 (max. 2 adults)
Children 12 and under: free
Members: free

I'm a Neighbor
If you live or work in East Harlem above 103rd Street, visit the Museum free of charge. Mention “I’m a neighbor,” and the suggested admission charge will be waived.

Directions
By bus:
M1, M3, M4 or M106 to 104th Street, M2 to 101st Street.
By subway:
#6 Lexington Avenue train to 103rd Street, walk three blocks west, or #2 or #3 train to Central Park North (110th Street), walk one block east to Fifth Avenue, then south to 103rd Street.
Ramp access is available at the 104th Street entrance.

Nearby Public Parking Garages
105th and Madison Avenue
97th Street and Third Avenue
95th Street and Third Avenue
95th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues
88th Street between Park and Madison Avenues
89th Street between Park and Madison Avenues
90th Street between Park and Madison Avenues
94th Street between Park and Madison Avenues

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Had you heard about the Peter Max collection of Corvettes?

above photos Tony Cenicola / nytimes.com

Above photo David Allee / nymag.com

36 vintage Corvettes in a parking garage in Brooklyn.

One Corvette for each year they were made, starting with a pearl-white ’53 (one of only 300) and ending with a red 1989, they were the prize in a contest sponsored by VH1, the cable music channel, in 1989. The contest awarded the whole lot to one winner, Dennis Amodeo, a carpenter from Long Island. HE sold the whole bunch for $500,000 to Peter Max who intended to paint them all as rolling art, but never got around to it. So the Vettes sat and gathered dust for about 20 years. They recieved a lot of publicity... but no love or interest from Peter.

The collection was a promotion envisioned by Jim Cahill who realized the VH1 audience was a good target demographic for any year Corvette and the contest would boost ratings. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/automobiles/collectibles/14corvette.html and http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/11902/

If you want to see more Corvette collections: http://www.corvetteblogger.com/index.cfm?mode=cat&catid=0858DC6A-96E9-F603-0D61AE51B9511412

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NYPD detectives parking illegally, and getting towed!

Dozens of detectives say they have had their department cars towed — by their own department.

On at least 35 occasions, have walked outside to find their cars hooked by a special detail of the Internal Affairs Bureau that hunts for illegally parked cop cars.

From http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/detectives_getting_tow_nailed_KmuIlC8eJkI9k1WDyHFOcJ
Via: http://gothamist.com/2010/03/09/detectives_say_their_cars_shouldnt.php

Comments in this news article point out that the cops took overtime pay to get the cars out of the tow yard. Further endearing is that the city cars, were being locked up... by... the city. So, stupidity abounds, NYPD cops are hypocrites and not aware of the oath of office they swore (and that pisses me off) and then complained about Internal Affairs busting them for being parking a-holes. Int he word of the great Walter Matthau "Putz!"

But when their former leader New York City police commissioner Kerik just plead guilty to no less that 8 Ferderal Felony Charges, what can you expect of leaderless NYPD? That their integrity would be scupulous? http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/bernard_b_kerik/index.html?inline=nyt-per

not that I'm on a roll, but everywhere you look at New York news the cops are hypocrits and worse http://queenscrap.blogspot.com/2010/03/another-cop-claims-he-was-pressured-to.html

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton's dictum, April 1887
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton

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New York streetcars from decades ago, among the warehouses along the waterfront

notice the 150 year old (or so) warehouses that were built to last, and with full hurrucane shutters... amazing. The streetcars still have the power lines above them, and with so many open windows they surely won't last for asvmany more years as they've had, before the weather just detriorates them from the inside out. The last of their kind? Probably, can you imaging any others that were saved from scrap, allowed to keep their peice of track, and weren't buearacratically removed from public enjoyment? I suppose very very few people looking at them feel any nostalgia, and maybe I'm one of a handful that is glad they are still around just to look at.

Via an awesome website that focuses on New York City historical bits of architecture and history that is everywhere but seldom noticed, like gargoyes, statuary on buldings (even in Times Square) and is all noticed and posted by a wonderful writer who swears very well at the destruction of the cool old buildings that developers are quickly making disappear to be replaced with glass and steel nondescript high rise condos.

http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=12 has these street cars and his jaunt to a neighborhood called Red Hook, where the warehouses are great, and their is a perfect front view of the Statue of Liberty

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Studebaker buildings in New York

Above once had a 2 story glass windowed showroom. It was designed in 1920, but was past its glory days in 1929 when the stockmarket imploded and they started selling used cars here. Now it's a low rent apartment building. http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2009/04/walkabout_with_1.php?gallery1416Pic=2#gallery-1416 for an interesting historical perspective of it and the "Automobile Row" of New York
Photo via:http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=802

The above was an automobile finishing building for Studebaker during the 1920's. The same stock market crash killed it too. http://www.cuf.columbia.edu/workinginstudebaker/docs/Studebaker/history.html

Beautiful advertising from 1924, found in Sevilla Spain also via: http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=802

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Bedford Avenue and Manhattan Avenue in New York, 1928 photo with a lot going on

on the far right is a street sweepers push cart, at the far end of that building is the streetcar. On the left is a car with a grill I don't recognize at all! via: http://roughingitblog.tumblr.com/page/3

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