Wow, thanks, John. I never knew about Bill Cunningham. What a beat 57th and 5th is. I passed through there many, many, many times growing up. I love the stripes slide show at his NYT link.
Glad you liked it, Elle! It's part of my nabe, too. For ten years, from 1996-2006, I worked in an office on the NW corner of Madison and 60th, two doors down from
Barneys New York (now
that's dangerou$!!!
) and Mr. Cunningham is still often (purposefully) loitering on that block, photographing the people (and their clothes) as they walk by.
I know this is a bit off track, but you (and others!) may also love this tidbit about the corner of 57th and
7th Avenue:
Apr 30, 2010
On the Street | Goodbye (Video)
Bill Cunningham says farewell to Carnegie Hall after living there for 60 years.http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/04/30/style/1247467749052/on-the-street-goodbye.htmlandhttp://www.newyorker.com/talk/2007/08/13/070813ta_talk_paumgartenAugust 13, 2007 Roots
Home at Carnegie Hall
by Nick Paumgarten ....[Josef] Astor’s studio, with creaky wood floors, faces north; the indirect light, from a giant skylight, twenty feet overhead, is ideal for photography and painting. There is a balcony, with room for a bed, and a kitchenette. Last Wednesday, he’d arranged a dozen chairs—no one like the other—in a circle, in anticipation of a meeting, that evening, between some tenants, their lawyer (a woman named Ms. Boop), and local politicians, whose vaguely articulated sympathies they hoped to convert into tactical support. A Senegal parrot named Zoltan flew freely about the place. Astor ticked off the names of some of the studios’ former residents (Isadora Duncan, Agnes de Mille, Leonard Bernstein, Marlon Brando, Norman Mailer) and current ones (such as the ninety-five-year-old photographer Editta Sherman, known as the Duchess of Carnegie Hall, and the Times photographer Bill Cunningham, seen occasionally in the hall on his way to the showers) and evoked the days when the corridors were filled with the sounds of piano and clarinet....Now back to Heath....it's a bit of a stretch, but I bet he would have liked skateboarding by, stopping and chatting with Bill Cunningham. For all I know, maybe he did!