Today I decided to walk around SoHo. I am beginning to get inspired to start blowing glass again. What brought on this inspiration, NY grafitti\tagging. Something about all this "urban art" is giving me some great ideas that I want to translate into glass. Whenever I see interesting "urban art" I take a picture (if I have a camera with me). I have taken many shots in my Bedsty neighborhood, and have even hit some places in Brooklyn (Williamsbug, Park Slope...).
Today I thought I would walk around SoHo and get a few shots from there. I get on the subway at bedford and the weather is nice and sunny. I get out at Prince and its overcast and minutes away from rain. What the hell happenned. Its not like I was travelling to another state. How did the weather change so damn fast.
I started walking around SoHo until it started to rain, at which point I ducked into the first store I came across. It was the soho Apple store (Dhooo!). I hate Apple stores. They are just sooo cool and hip, and happening, and now, that I want to throw up after 5 minutes. No way I was breaking out my laptop in this spot, I'd be strung up within seconds, or worse yet, branded as someone who has a job.
As soon as the rain started to slacken, I got out of there and continued my search for UA (urban art). Here are a few shots:
Well I wasn't out for more than 10 minutes when the rain started up again. At this point I was on a side street of soho and not many people were around.I then notice some people coming out a door with coffee in their hands. Jackpot! A coffee shop. A place to kick back, dry off, have a nice cup-o-joe and wait out the rain. So I run up, open the door, and run inside to escape the cold, rainy, outdoors.
I was first struck with the fact that it was colder inside than out. I'm not just talking physical warmth, but emotional warmth as well. The shop was called Alessi, which is Italian for "Stark, barren, cold", or at least it should be. I now know Alessi is a super retro urban Italian design store, kind of like Ikea, but with an air of frigidity. The front of the store was a coffee shop, and the back was the small shop that sold odd little pieces for every room of the house. I went to get my coffee and was greeted by a tall, super-thin, euro-flash guy wearing a thin black turtleneck sweater with attitude. I guess a paunchy, wet, underdressed (shorts and tee) pale white guy isn't the kind of cool customer they are looking for.
After getting my coffee (to go, I didn't want to spend another minute more thanI had to in here), I looked for a place to sit (which wasn't to hard to find, since I was the only customer in the place), and realized that even the furniture was designed with a"get the Fuc# out of here" style. Everything was sharp angled and hard. The chairs had no backs to them and the wall benches were as comfortable as flat iron benches stuffed into meat lockers. As I was waiting for the rain to die down, another euro-flash guy came in and started chatting it up with the Italo-barista guy. Nothing like feeling wanted...
One thing of note: The coffee was damn good... You know, being from Seattle I have become a bit snobbish about coffee and coffeehouses. There aren't many places to choose from in NYC, and it seems for consistency, you have to go to Starbucks. As any true Seattlite knows, Starbucks is where you go when you can't find anywhere else to go (coffeeshop oflast resort). Only 2 coffee shops in NYC have left me with any lasting impressions. The Alessi shop, which was described above and can be described as fantastic coffee, horrific space. And Gorilla coffee (in Brooklyn), which has horrific coffee but a great space. If the powers that be ever combined the two places, I would be a frequest visitor of Goressi.
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