stephanieNY

We got access to our new apartment tonight.  Here's a sneak peak to its awesomeness:

I just ate the most delicious stuffed eggplant...brought to me by Meridian Market in East Boston.  They're set up at St. Anthony's Feast this weekend, which at 9:30 on a Sunday, is showing zero signs of ending.  There's an all-out party in 1/2 the North End tonight and it's about 10 degrees warmer than the rest of the neighborhood.

Jill sent me a link to these photos that she was reminded of by the last post.  Small town America from 1939 - 1943. Can't get enough of these either.  Check out the link for all of them.  

The caption on this one was "children asleep on bed during square dance":

Brockton, MA:

Boston.com posted an article the other day with some of these photographs.  They were taken by a Russian photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, in the early 20th century of people, architecture, industry, etc. of the Russian Empire.  That makes them 100 years old!!  Incredible.  The article describes the technique: "He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images."  

I can't get enough.  It's fascinating to look at these people without the filter of the photographic quality of the camera/film used at the time.  I like that the article pointed out that neither the Russian Revolution nor World War I had happened at the time these were taken.

The Library of Congress has the entire collection here.

1910:

She was standing in this grassy knoll back in 1910 for this picture:

A steel truss bridge in 1910:

Ah-mazing:

This is an amazing thought for about 4 1/2 seconds.  Mmmmmm:

Dreamy thoughts of soft sand on your feet quickly squashed by uncomfortable thoughts of sand in your couch.  

Adam went to Illinois last week and brought back some midwest corn, so we sat down to a meal of two ears each on Saturday. The ears were about twice as long as east coast corn and twice as yum.

In my internet searches on the BC/BS building in Boston (from my previous post), I came across these drawings of Rudolf's... 

mmmm....

I'm completely envious and enamored.  As I started paying off my mega-loans this week and have exercised very very minimal amounts of actual design and creativity at work, I've been a bit (and temporarily) irritated by the course of the architecture profession (and education).  I want to make drawings like this, real DRAWings...and make buildings like 133 Federal.  But I can't, because it's not 1960.  Ho-hum.

...so how did I miss this building all these years?  

I took a wrong turn today and walked right into this beaut, 133 Federal Street.  Some google research revealed that it's the original Blue Cross/Blue Shield building by Paul Rudolph in 1957.  Even though it's a bit tucked away among the newer, taller buildings of the Financial District, I can't believe I've never seen it before.  

1957-ish:

For reference, Paul designed the more salient Government Service Center in Boston years later:

Boston's modernist and brutalist buildings always seem to be in danger of destruction, I'm sure due to their sticky public reception.  According to this NYT article, the BC/BS building was slated for demolition in 2007.  Since I saw it standing there today, three years later, I'm hoping they've since decided get off its back.

This week, I covet:

this:

this:

and these:

[Things will remain "coveted" until I am ready to stop window shopping.]  

Pantone color mugs at a shop in the North End. 

Honey, how do you want your coffee?

Uhhh...dark, one sugar, and I'll take it in Pantone 19-1557.  Thanks.