gio in new york: a westin weekend, 2003

[giovanni sasso]

so. it was exactly two years ago today that i pulled up my life's roots, rolled the dice, and went west. it's a little twisted, but one of the things i miss most about living in philly is its proximity to new york. the last time i was there was the day eric bruntlett turned an unassisted triple play to end a phillies win over the mets at citi field. this was the end to a day that saw brunch at cookshop just before my first (and only) visit to the high line park. that was over two years ago ... my nyc jones is growing stronger, but fortunately i have thousands of photos of the city and some years of photo editing evolution, and i've been meaning to centralize my NY stuff anyway.

this particular set is from a weekend at the then-new westin at times square, from december 2003. it was also three cameras ago, a 4 megapixel sony cdmavica -- what up volguus -- which wrote the images to mini-cds instead of memory cards. accordingly, a metric shit-ton of the photos are corrupt and unreadable, which chaps my ass because i know i'm missing some goodies.

the westin itself is a wacky, 45 story (532'/162m) hotel by miami's arquitectonica. i'm pretty sure this was the last time i was in times square, too. ever since the time i had to pass through it in a rush to penn station during a TRL taping with nsync, i've avoided it like the plague, but it's pretty okay at 1am on a monday in the driving rain.

at any rate, the westin times square. these pics are of the building, the views from a room on the 42nd floor, and the immediate vicinity.


























(with apologies to the incredible zoe strauss.)








you mean i can have a loan for ANY dream home? thanks, wamu!








this is one of those pics for which the original JPG file is corrupt. ARGH.



TIME STAMPS ARE FUNNY.





philly heads: remember bolaris' "lost weekend" in nyc? I DO.










finally, two panoramas. click to enlarge.

[ue]

Wow, great shots. Amazing how well these turned out, considering I've seen a lot of crap taken with earlier generation digitals. I enjoy seeing these steps back in time, even if it is of recent times, so I hope to see more in the future !

[Expat]

Excellent & just in time for the holidays!

[Centropolis]

I like. The tele-stills give some realital juice to this set.

[ColDayMan]

There is nothing like snow and holiday time in New York.

[Xing]

I'm digging the neon lights.

this one is nice.

[Kingofthehill]

Post-Modern architecture...hate it or hate it. I will, however, say that pomo buildings do impart a certain fun spirit not seen in other styles. All things considered, I wonder how this style will be viewed in the future. Speaking of that, this is a pretty good read on the topic. Now, when can we expect that circa '09 gio-NYC thread?

[Nineties Flava]

Great set, I especially liked the night shots.

[STLgasm]

Hard to believe that was nearly a decade ago. Still lookin' good!

[volguus zildrohar]

Ahh, memories.

[diskojoe]

Originally Posted by Kingofthehill

Post-Modern architecture...hate it or hate it. I will, however, say that pomo buildings do impart a certain fun spirit not seen in other styles. All things considered, I wonder how this style will be viewed in the future. Speaking of that, this is a pretty good read on the topic. Now, when can we expect that circa '09 gio-NYC thread?

Could be worse. Thank god that russian architecture never got popular.

[Ex-Ithacan]

Bravo Brad, thanks.

[boden]

Thanks for the time tunnel.

[KVNBKLYN]

Originally Posted by giovanni sasso

Thanks for this last one! My BF and I decided to walk through Times Square on Thanksgiving evening and we got into an argument about what stores used to be at the base of the Bertelsmann Building - and here's photographic proof I was right.

The Virgin is now a gigantic Forever 21 that has some sort of interactive digital display over it that seems very popular with the tourists. And the "retail space available" in your shot that had been a video game bar called Barcode is now a Disney store which has one of the most stunningly high resolution digital signs I've ever seen - it doesn't look like there are pixels at all. No matter what you might think about the Disney store, that sign is beautiful.

It's probably still too soon, but in about ten years I think that image of the Virgin Megastore is going to provoke a good amount of nostalgia in many, me included.

[Danny]

Great pictures, giovanni sasso!

I doesn´t matter if they were taken many years ago, because NYC is always wonderful to see again.

I like night pictures, and snow ones too.

Congratulations and greetings from Madrid, Spain!

[Okayyou]

Everyone's digging into their old shots this week. You were able to do quite a bit with that old tech. My first digital camera was some 1.2 MP Olympus brick. That was back in '01. Cool to see some of your older stuff. I like the bird's eye with the snow and cabs.

[i_am_hydrogen]

Like how you went into the archives for this thread. Great shots.

[Bedhead]

double post...

[Bedhead]

Wow - love those colours in that first shot.

Originally Posted by King of the Hill

I will, however, say that pomo buildings do impart a certain fun spirit not seen in other styles.

Yes - I think that was its greatest strength and its greatest weakness - it wasn't as pompous as a lot of the stuff that went before it, but because it was always referencing other styles and making all sorts of jokes, there are few, if any, post modern buildings that are really monumental, that really feel like they stand for something important.