New York, New York

I have been working on this New York Book for a really long time. I visited the city back in February and now it is May. I worked solidly on it for a couple of weeks but did not enjoy it. Recently, after going back to it, I made a decision to just finish it and get it printed, ready for hand in. I did not like the project at all as I had spent too much time on it but when it came to printing it, I began to like it again.

The main thing I like about it is the scale when the pages fold out. These pages are 420 x 500 mm, which is quite large for a book which is 250 x210 when it is closed. I think it reflects the subject of the book. I bound the book with a black, hard cover, and embossed the title, “NEW YORK NEW YORK” in gold. The gold on black represents New York at night and all the lights, which ties in with the New York Lights project.

Here are some photos of the final book:

New York Book

After editing which images to use with which quotes I have started experimenting around with layout. I am finding it a bit more difficult that I had initially thought. The book will not open from right to left, but from bottom to top so it has much more of a vertical feel – to reflect the feel of New York City. I have been experimenting with both the images and the typography, playing around with the size and positioning of the content of each page trying to make it work as an individual page and as part of a book. I’ve also tried to keep each page relatively constant without making it too monotonous. I’ve been working on it for two weeks now, each day printing out a mock up to see what needs to be changed.

I’d like to make a wooden front cover for the book to make it relate to my other New York project. I still really like the idea of drilling holes, perhaps of where i took each photo in the book.

Photos/Quotes

I have been playing around with photos from New York and matching them up to a quote. I have conducted a fair bit of research into quotes about New York. I have decided on a 24 page book, with a double page spread designated for one photo and one quote. The photo could appear as a full bleed/filling part of the page, a full/cropped photo. My next step is playing around with the composition. Here are the quotes and images I have matched together, in no particular order.

[Front/back wrap around]

“A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: It is a beautiful catastrophe.”
-Le Corbusier

“This corner — it is said — became notorious as an especially windy spot, partly due to the shape of the building. Young men would gather in the hope that a gust would blow a woman’s skirt up to provide them with a momentary voyeuristic thrill.”

“When I arrived at Ellis Island they served us coffee and doughnuts. That was the first time that I ever saw or ate a doughnut and I thought it was great! It tasted so good. Of course at home we didn’t have anything like that!”
Signe Bergman, a Swedish immigrant in 1916, interviewed in 1987.

“You can’t throw a stick in New York City without hitting a Starbucks. They are on every other street corner for heavens sake.”
-David Stephens

“They asked us questions. ‘How much is two and one? How much is two and two?’ But the next young girl also from our city, went and they asked her, ‘How do you wash stairs, from the top or from the bottom?’ She says, ‘I don’t go to America to wash stairs.’”

Pauline Notkoff, a Polish Jewish immigrant in 1917, interviewed in 1985.

“You have a lot of truly tacky souvenir shops in New York.”
-Judith Larcombe, tourist

The last time I was inside a woman was when I was inside the Statue of Liberty.”
-Woody Allen

Most of the people living in New York have come here to make enough money to go back to the farm.
-Don Marquis

“And one woman, so the story goes, purposely abandoned her late husband’s ashes to repay him for the nights he claimed to have fallen asleep on the last train home when, in fact, he was with his mistress. They [Grand Central Terminal Lost and Found] learned this months later when a woman called to confess.”
-Ken Belson

“New York Taxi Rules:
1. Driver speaks no English.
2. Driver just got here two days ago from someplace like Segal.
3. Driver hates you.”
– Dave Barry

“It is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal. Its politics are used to frighten children. Its traffic is madness. Its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it – once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no other place is good enough.”
-John Steinbeck

New York Photos

A collection of photos from my recent visit to New York. I would like to make these into a publication as I have not made one so far this year. I also think it is as aspect of my work which I would like to improve on and gain more experience in. I wanted to decide on the content before deciding on a format. I would quite like to have a combination of image and text, perhaps some quotes or stories about New York. I have already found some quotes which I wrote about in an earlier post. I need to match up these quotes to images. Here are my images.

Quotes

I have found some quotes that I find really interesting and could be useful to this project:

‘The grid is above all, a conceptual speculation.’

‘The grid makes the history of architecture and all previous lessons of urbanism irrelevant. It forces Manhattan’s builders to develop a new system of formal values, to invent strategies for the distinction from one block to the other.’

‘The grids two dimensional discipline also creates undreamt-of freedom for three dimensional anarchy.’

‘Since there is no hope that larger parts of the island can be dominated by one single client or architect, each intention – each architectural ideology has to be realised fully within the limitations of one block.’

New York Research

To draw comparisons between the new york grid and the typographic grid I have been researching into both subjects.

A book that I have found particularly interesting is ‘Delirious New York’ by Rem Koolhaas. The book begins by giving a brief history of urbanisation within the island of Manhattan and the creation of the grid.

– Manhattan was ‘discovered’ by Henry Hudson whilst in search of a ‘new route to the West Indies’ for the Dutch East India Company.

– In 1623, 30 families sail from Holland to plant a colony to be called New Amsterdam. Amongst them is Cryn Frederickz, who carried instructions on how the town should be laid out. They settled in what is now known as ‘Downtown’. However, “This neat symmetrical pattern conceived in the security and comfort of the company’s offices in Amsterdam, proved unsuitable to the site on the tip of Manhattan…” So the town is laid out in an unstructured and disorderly manner, as shown:

-1807, Simeon deWitt, Gouverneur Morris and John Rutherford commissioned to design model to define the ‘final and conclusive’ habitation of the Island of Manhattan. 1811 sees their proposal of the basis of the current Manhattan grid. 12 avenues running north/south, 155 streets running east/west. Therefore, 13 x 156 = 2028. Manhattan was to become a city of 2028 blocks (excluding topographical accidents). After all, rectilinear streets, and straight sided, right angled housed are the most cost effective to build and also the most convenient to live in. Most streets were 60ft wide, placed 200ft apart. The twelve numbered avenues were usually 100ft wide with a variable distance from 600-900ft apart. This meant that each block size varied but to was usually divided into standard 25x100ft building lots.

Official remarks for the commissioners plan of 1811 can be found here.

-1845, a model of the new Manhattan is exhibited. “Architecture is Manhattan’s new religion.”

-1850, urgent plans to preserve space in the city for parks as the plans for the urbanisation begins to seem realistic. Space between fifth and eighth avenues and 59th and 104th (later 110th) streets is designated for Central Park for a preservation of nature and a recreational ground. “Central Park is a synthetic Arcadian Carpet.”

-1853 sees a fair inspired by London’s International Exhibition in Crystal Palace. The fair conststs of two structures, both constructed to demonstrate the new scale of architecture of Manhattan. One is a version of Crystal Palace itself, however, limitations were applied to fit the shape into one of the blocks in the grid. The second was the Latting Observatory, standing at 350 feet tall and containing an elevator to transport people to the two available floor landings. “If we except the Tower of Babel, the may perhaps be called the worlds first skyscraper”. Both structures burned down in 1856.

-1880, the elevator meets steel, enabling it to be incorporated into the frame of the building, hiding it from immediate view.

New York; a Typographic Journal

I have decided to design my own version of the Tomato Group book, ‘A Typographic Journal of New York’ as I could not relate to it. I want to create a more gridlike and systematic journal to represent the architecture as opposed to the atmosphere.

I have got several books to look at over Christmas

I have designed the front cover, which I also like as a poster.

Mmm… Skyscraper; A typographic journal of New York City.

I am not sure I like it.

It certainly does not remind me of New York City. However, it is a typographic journal, and a journal is a very personal thing specific to the creator.