building blocks

A BUTCHER'S #25

A BUTCHER’S hook/look (Cockney rhyming slang)

up there

downtown mix©SteveButcher2024

Thousands of people living and working in New York have a great view available to them every day - and then there are many that don’t. After all these years in New York, I sometimes find myself in a place with the kind of view that takes my breath away. A view that reminds me in a dramatic way that this is the city where I live and it’s pretty amazing!

underfoot

SoHo materials #1 - Nearly wiped out under the directive of Robert Moses in the ‘60s to make way for a super-highway across Lower Manhattan, SoHo (first named as such in 1963 by a city planner) now survives, protected.

SoHo these days is packed with tourists & visitors who are basically shopping at the same shops they have at home - few are noticing what they are walking on, in and amongst. Many of the original elements survive and I’ll go into them in following posts, but I’ll start with the amazing granite slab sidewalks. I cannot believe there are those who think they are ‘unsafe’ and want them replaced with boring poured concrete sidewalk. What are they thinking?!

These massive rectangular slabs of granite were mostly quarried upstate and brought down the Hudson on barges. As large as 10 by 8 feet and up to 8 inches thick, these pieces were used in industrial and manufacturing neighborhoods - still bearing the marks and scars of their history dating back to the 1890s

monumental installation

In 2013 I began a series of very small ‘monumental’ pieces - in many ways, the complete opposite of Richard Serra, whose work had sparked the idea. ‘Massive’ 4 by 6 inch paintings.

concrete jumble

(it’s a jumble out there)

piling it on

I picked up this postcard recently (it was mailed in 1909). It’s of the Pont du Gard - a fantastic Roman aqueduct in the south of France, that I remember walking across the top as a kid (nothing to stop you falling off - I don’t think you’re allowed to do that now) Built in 1AD, mostly without using mortar or clamps, it conveyed 11 million gallons a day to the people in Nîmes - incredible really.

But the reason I really wanted it was as an example of two directional writing, or cross-hatched on the back

For economical reasons, it made perfect sense to continue writing with a 90° turn. It’s pretty wild but if you focus on the horizontal line you’re reading, the verticals fade. Unfortunately this one’s in German, otherwise I’d have a crack at deciphering it.