I’ve seen New York tenement stoops flanked by carvings of lions, dragons, grotesques, even topless women.
But I haven’t seen many dogs—like this little pug (and his buddy on the left side of the stairs, not pictured), both in repose outside a tenement in the East Village.
Someone give him a new coat of paint….
Faces and grotesques are all over the city’s buildings, smiling or frowning at passersby through the years. It’s rarer to see a full-length sculpted figure looking down from a tenement to the street below, which is why these two are so eye-catching.
The woman above, who adorns a tenement on a Lexington Avenue corner in the 80s, looks like Botticelli’s Venus flipped around—with the shell on her head instead of at her feet. Her hand clutches what looks like a weapon, not her hair.
Partly obscured by the support bracket of an old fire escape, this figure, on a West Fourth Street and 10th Street walkup, strikes roughly the same pose. I wonder what is at its feet.
This iron fence outside a residence between Eighth and Ninth Avenues pays homage to the iconic image from A Trip to the Moon, a 1902 French sci-fi film in which a spaceship from Earth lands in the moon’s eye.
The film—only about 8 minutes!—is pretty wild. Watch it here. The rocket in the eye scene happens about 4 minutes in.
Ephemeral New York 