in order
A BUTCHER'S #49
A BUTCHER’S hook/look (Cockney rhyming slang)
packed
This scene of red & yellows caught my eye in Chinatown - neatly packed and compressed cardboard boxes ready for pick-up (with yellow robot playing harmonica), in front of an outside fruit shop display of pineapples, bananas and mangoes.
and packed up
Ludlow living - Ira Yavarkovsky paper, operating since 1898, was the last paper product distributors in Manhattan and it was just downstairs from us on Ludlow St. This place was really old school and its activity spilled out onto the street with trucks and vans picking up orders stacked up on the sidewalk. Looking in, it did surprise me that there wasn’t even any shelving to keep it all in order - they had four massive rooms in three buildings, piled high.
Closed in 2007 and demolished for a 20 story hotel ‘The Ludlow Hotel’…. of course.
They really were an active part of the life on Ludlow - from a time when there were mostly only wholesale distributors on the street (see A BUTCHER’S #3 for more on the street). Ira’s mother would be standing outside in her fur coat, bright red lipstick, even well into her 80s. I had a chat with Ira before he packed up, selling one single story building for $4.5m(!) in 2006 - I mean, why stay open?
You never know the back stories until you start talking to people…. and you can never predict what you’ll hear. I discovered he donated most of his money founding schools, had a passion for the Hudson River Painters and had quite a collection - who would have guessed?
this too has passed
A ‘system’ to keep things straight, common in many places like this, was just to pin business cards on a noticeboard, alongside those classic dopey sayings like ‘People who believe the dead never come to life, should be here at quitting time’ and ‘this too shall pass’.
keeping it together
Anna used a Rolodex during her time at Thierry Mugler - her contacts actually overflowed into a flat flip variation and of course we kept them. The names in there are an incredible time capsule - all arranged by first name naturally!
A combination of the words rolling and index… Rolodex - first marketed in 1958 by Arnold Neustadter, a Brooklyn based inventor. Even though they are still available today, it really is a throwback into world known only to a few now - which is a shame.
on cardboard
Another piece from the past - this time way way back. This was my first painting aged 2. I don’t think there is a ‘right way up’- it works whichever way. I like the confidence in that painted line! It was strange to find that my Mum really had kept so much of what I had created - she obviously liked this one enough to have it framed.
Coincidentally the first painting I did when I got to New York was on a cardboard box - I’ll bring that one out in a future issue.
installation piece
The red frame is perfect!