Urban Neighbourhood

Contemporary Architecture and Christmas Deliveries.

When home designers don’t consider all factors.  Buck Brown brings a a great little cartoon about Santa’s feelings when it comes to delivering Christmas presents to contemporary homes.

Mummy Dance Party at Bryant Park

via one of our new favorite sites: Urban Prankster

Improv Everywhere is a group that we have mentioned before, and it is a driving force behind the flash-mob movement. In one of their latest variations on the flash-mob the folks at Improv Everywhere have started The Mp3 Experiments, wherein they post an Mp3 online for participants to download and listen too simultaneously.  The most recent of these was Experiment 7 that started in the retail stores surrounding Times Square and culminated with a Mummy Dance Party at Bryant Park.

Edited by Keith Haskel / music by Tyler Walker

The Yuppie Door Mat

Adding to our collection of things you can buy to support the urban economy or just generally satisfy your socioeconomic irony, we bring you this delightful doormat available over at The Onion from their home decor series. Its available over at the onion for the low low price of 35$ USD

gen·tri·fi·ca·tion

[jen-truh-fi-key-shuhn] dictionary.com

–noun

1.

the buying and renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighborhoods by upper- or middle-income families or individuals, thus improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses.

2.

an instance of gentrifying; the condition of being gentrified.

The Waffle Shop: Delicious Public Participation.

How about some public participation with that waffle?

The Waffle shop is a neighbourhood restaurant with an interactive component organized by Jon Rubin an artist and professor at Carnegie Mellon University.  Inspired by the Seinfeld episode where Kramer rescues a Merv Griffen set from the garbage and sets it up in his living room, the waffle shop has a seventies style talk show  stage set up in the back of the restaurant.  The idea is that the waffles will lure people inside for food and get to participate in public storytelling. Its an experimental art project and forum for community engagement masquerading as a cafe .

There is a dedicated host sitting at a desk, sometimes a student and sometimes a community member with a mission is to engage that cafe’s clientèle in impromptu conversations about pretty much anything. The conversations run the gambit from Cotton Candy, roofies, and how Tupac is like gravity. The ‘talk show’ is streamed live on the Internet, and the best episodes are archived on the Waffle shop website.

“The shop is a public lab that brings together people from all walks of life to engage in dialogue, experimentation and the co-production of culture.” S

The purpose behind shop is to be a classroom for students from Carnegie Mellon, a business, a TV production studio, and a social catalyst. “Our customers are our funders, audience, and participants as we film during open hours, inviting interested patrons to express their unique opinions and personalities.” S

The restaurant also operates a ‘conflict kitchen’ takeout window that sells street food exclusively from countries that the United States is in conflict with. The take out window features a different country and dish every four months. To enliven the experience the store front changes every four months as well.

The packaging features background information on the represented country with facts about its people and misconceptions about their representation in mainstream media.

Kubideh Kitchen is an Iranian take-out restaurant that serves kubideh in freshly baked barbari bread with onion, mint, and basil. Developed in collaboration with members of the Pittsburgh Iranian community, the sandwich is packaged in a custom-designed wrapper that includes interviews with Iranians both in Pittsburgh and Iran on subjects ranging from Iranian food and poetry to the current political turmoil.

Through food, wrappers, programming, and daily interactions with customers, Conflict Kitchen creates an ongoing platform for first-person discussion of international culture and politics. In addition, the project introduces a rotating venue for culinary and cultural diversity in Pittsburgh, as future iterations will focus on Afghanistan, North Korea, and Venezuela.

The Waffle Shop and Conflict Kitchen can be found at:

124 South Highland Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15206

Your Placemat or Mine?

For the person who can’t stop planning the neighborhood and looking at houses even while they are eating, finally there is a set of placemats that keep the fun going even during dinner time. They come in two sets of four and you can build your own UK city block by lining them up in a row or argue with your friends over who gets the downtown loft and who gets the suburban terrace. The Placemats are made by UK firm people will always need plates.

Standard Exhibitionism

It hasn’t been in the news much lately the standard hotel in New York that straddles The High Line, is relatively infamous.  It captured a lot of attention last summer after opening with its sexually charged advertising campaign.  An early promotional advertisement declared “We’ll put up with your banging if you put up with ours,” and the Hotel’s Facebook page stated the situation a bit more clearly.

“We encourage you to exercise your inner exhibitionist. Please share your intimate, and explicit photos with us — those floor to ceiling windows aren’t just for the views . . .”

Whether you agree with the strategy or not you can’t deny that it was effective.  The campaign and its results generated a lot of press last summer.  Some positive and some negative.

The Standard Hotel New York.

.

“We saw a naked girl jumping up and down on a trampoline right in front of the window,” said Shannon Brickner, who works at a boutique on West 13th Street.

“From the street, I saw a man and a woman. Everyone was looking up at them.

“They were facing outwards, and I could see their backsides pressed up against the window. I thought it was a photo shoot or porn.”

Complained a waitress at the Brass Monkey, “It’s a free porn show.

“You hear the cheering, then you look up and see naked people. You get some people that don’t realize. Then you get the real exhibitionists.”

Some unhappy passers-by were disgusted, too. “Recently, I saw a man masturbating in one of the windows,” said one person who asked not to be identified. “That’s when it left the funny side and moved to the gross, dark side.” S.

Not everyone was surprised, some see it as par for the course for an edgy neighbourhood.

Grandparent Gwen Barrett said “That kind of stuff here is anticipated,”
Still, “I definitely wouldn’t want to bring my grandkids here,” she added.

The controversy over what takes place in front of The Standards windows raise questions of decency, control, and responsibility.  A City Counciler has gone on the attack declaring that “The alleged actions of The Standard are unacceptable.” Of course what exactly is the hotel to do?  Sure the Hotel can tone down the advertising that invites people to stand naked in front of the windows, but people have been going to hotels and stripping down in front of the windows for long time, even before The Standard opened.  It’s just that most don’t happen to have a public park / viewing deck right below.  It isn’t really possible to legislate that people must close their blinds when they plan have a nude romp inside their own homes, so we can’t really do it for hotels either.  Whatever your position on the nude antics that take place in the windows it certainly keeps the city interesting!

Pay your subscription or watch it burn.

The big question today in Tennessee is whether or not libertarian fire services should be an option. Last week firefighters watched a house burn because the owners had neglected to pay the 75$ annual subscription fee for fire protection. The optional aspect of fire coverage comes from the fact that the property that burnt down is not within the city limits where the citizens automatically pay for fire protection with their taxes, its a rural property outside the city that provides users outside South Fulton with the option to ‘opt in’ to rural fire service by paying a 75$ annual subscription. In this case the property owner hadn’t done so.  Thus leading to the scene wherein the firefighters were on site to protect the neighbours but did nothing to protect the owners.

What do you think? Should there a be a good Samaritan clause? Or is the fire department and town right to let the place burn? A debate has been rageing on the Internet about whether the city was right to let the house burn or not. What do you think?

Kevin Williamson writes at the National Review Online:

The situation is this: The city of South Fulton’s fire department, until a few years ago, would not respond to any fires outside of the city limits — which is to say, the city limited its jurisdiction to the city itself, and to city taxpayers. A reasonable position. Then, a few years ago, a fire broke out in a rural area that was not covered bythe city fire department, and the city authorities felt bad about not being able to do anything to help. So they began to offer an opt-in service, for the very reasonable price of $75 a year. Which is to say: They greatly expanded the range of services they offer. The rural homeowners were, collectively, better off, rather than worse off. Before the opt-in program, they had no access to afire department. Now they do.

And, for their trouble, the South Fulton fire department is being treated as though it has done something wrong, rather than having gone out of its way to make services available to people who did not have them before. The world is full of jerks, freeloaders, and ingrates — and the problems they create for themselves are their own. These free-riders have no more right to South Fulton’s firefighting services than people in Muleshoe, Texas, have to those of NYPD detectives.

The Mayor makes his case over at NWTN TODAY.

Vowell explained that the property owner was not a paying member of the rural fire subscription service offered to county residents by the City of South Fulton. He said as per city policy, established by city ordinance, the call was declined and the city’s fire department could not respond.
“I have no problem with the way any of my people handled the situation. They did what they were supposed to do,” he said. “It’s a regrettable situation any time something like this happens.”
He said the South Fulton Fire Department did respond to a request to protect the property of the adjacent property owner, who is a member of the rural fire subscription service.
Vowell said county residents do not have guaranteed fire service since there is no countywide fire department to cover rural areas, but many municipalities offer rural fire coverage to residents in specified coverage areas for a nominal annual fee. South Fulton’s fee is $75.
However, Vowell said residents in those rural areas cannot be forced to pay the fee and it’s their decision whether to accept the coverage.

Vowell said people always think they will never be in a situation where they will need rural fire protection, but he said City of South Fulton personnel actually go above and beyond in trying to offer the service. He said the city mails out notices to customers in the specified rural coverage area, with coverage running from July 1 of one year to July 1 the next year.
At the end of the enrollment month of July, the city goes a step further and makes phone calls to rural residents who have not responded to the mail-out.
“These folks were called and notified,” Vowell said. “I want to make sure everybody has the opportunity to get it and be aware it’s available. It’s been there for 20 years, but it’s very important to follow up.”
Mayor Crocker added, “It’s my understanding with talking with the firefighters that these folks had received their bill and they had also contacted them by phone.”

When Architects Try for a Luxury Hotel, and build a Death Ray.

In news today, a first in building construction! quite by accident MGM resorts has created the worlds first functioning death ray!

Employees call it the “Vdara death ray,” although a spokesman for MGM Resorts preferred to call it a “solar convergence” S

Essentially what happens is similar to a solar camp stove, for those of you that remember your boy scout training ( I guess these architects  were too busy at math camp).  The sun beams bounce off of the concave facade of the Vdara Hotel at CityCenter and travel in a focused beam across the hotel’s pool area.  On a clear day this beam can singe hair and melt drinking cups as it travels poolside. Apparently designers predicted this problem and put a high-tech film on the building glass but it appears to be safe to say that the film was ineffective.

So let this be a lesson to all you Architects out there, the best way to avoid burning people with your buildings is to design smart, and not use a band-aid or ‘film’ to fix the problem.

Babel Tales: Peter Funch’s look at life at street level.

Peter Funch is a Danish Photojournalist who resides in New York city. One of his recent works is the series ‘BABEL TALES’ which is a sometimes gritty, at other times whimsical look at urban inhabitants. Using composite photography he catches; a bride on her way down the street, a frenzy of tourists at times square, or a pimp daddy on his way home his photos offer an intriguing look at what happens on street level. Here at Urban Neighbourhood we bring you a selection of his works, but highly recommend you go to his own gallery to see the complete collection.

Babel Tales as a series of works that focus on human relations (or the lack thereof) in big cities. Peter Funch’s project is a junction between documentary photography and manipulated photography. Through repetition and juxtaposition he zooms in on human similarities and collective behavior and ends up creating a strange poetic and detailed picture of our presence both as individuals and community in the public sphere.

Jesper Elg, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen

The Mitten Field

A Field of Mittens Appears in St Henri.

The lot at the corner of Rue Saint Philippe and Rue Notre Dame spends most of the year as a ‘sort of’ green space that people mostly just cut across when they are heading to and from the Metro and Rue Saint Philippe. Every so often though one of the resident artists finds a way to turn it into an impromptu art space. One of these installations was a vast collection of mittens in various states of attention, most straight up, some on their way to the ground and some already there.
The mittens were of varying shape colour and size, most likely found in a bargain bin maybe or a lost and found? Whatever their origin they were a great addition to the neighbourhood before time and destructive individuals removed them.

*If you are the artist responsible for the mitten field please email us at: urbanneighbourhood@yahoo.ca so we can give you your due!

Adaptive Street Art

Street art isn’t a new phenomenon, graffiti art has been around for centuries, and street artists like Banksy, transition from street artist to fine art and back. The Toronto Sun has a great little slide show of artist Sandrine Estrade Boulet’s public art works that range from irreverent to cute to naughty. Her works embrace their surroundings and incorporate physical features in the environment.  Her Cheerleader stencil makes use of a pair of grass tufts peeking through the side walk, while a pile of garbage bags forms a cheering section along the side of the road. Its fun and ironic and a pleasure to look at.

Take a look at the full slide show over at the Toronto Sun.

evil in your pants

sign found by our intrepid explorer Chris K on the outside of a church in Munich.

Notice the second one on the right…”NOT ALLOWED TO PUT HANDS IN YOUR POCKETS… THERE IS EVIL IN YOUR PANTS” haha classic!

Toys

Over at KubatON.com. Taking time to lean out of the window and play with the cars in the parking lot below.

The Urban Dinosaur

Tyrannosaurus Rex spotted in a park in Seoul.

The Department of Funny Street Signs

Over time I have collected a set of street signs that are a little out of the ordinary.  Enjoy the Gallery!