Kevin White

In Greece, twilight bathes the ruins of the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia at Delphi and its tholos, a circular building. Pilgrims may have offered sacrifices here before consulting the oracle of Delphi at the nearby temple of Apollo.

See more pictures from the July 2016 feature story "How the Greeks Changed the Idea of the Afterlife."

It's been five years since New Yorkers were first introduced to the concept of The Lowline, which aims to be the world's first underground park and a natural inverse to the High Line, as it will be similarly built on unused tracks—this time under Delancey Street on the Lower East Side. Taking the idea from aesthetically-pleasing rendering to reality is far from a simple process, involving lots of money and bureaucratic red tape, but the project just took a giant step forward: the city announced its first official approval for the subterranean park this morning, and the project is now greenlit to proceed in the trolley terminal space. [ more › ]

The New York University fencing team reveals a flair for the dramatic in this 1923 photo—especially the four guys on the edge of the roof beyond the railing.

I’m not sure which building this is, but on the left is the Stanford White–designed Judson Church tower. In the foggy background is an apartment building on Washington Square West/Macdougal Street under construction.

[Photo: NYU archives]

Two of Time Square's teal green Designated Activity Zones—new, mandatory standing areas for costumed characters and ticket sellers—were wet with fresh paint and marked off with caution tape Thursday morning. Less than two weeks into their enforcement, and amidst complaints from their daily costumed inhabitants, all eight zones will be painted two feet wider—a slightly roomier 10' x 50'. [ more › ]

Here is a moonlit Cooper Square under a starry sky looking north around 1905.

It’s not a square but a triangular park, a juncture of elevated train routes and avenues, a place where old neighborhood boundaries shifted (like the early 19th century Bowery Village) and new ones (Noho, anyone?) popped up.

It’s a carnival of history. On the right are modest Federal-style homes with dormer windows, built in the 1820s. Cooper Union’s 1858 Great Hall hosted presidential hopefuls going back to Abraham Lincoln.

A sketchier, pre-boutique hotel Cooper Square in late 1980s was also the site of a peddlers’ market of sorts, where the desperate put out anything they could find (or steal) for sale in an empty parking lot.

The city's Health Department confirmed this week that there have been at least 233 cases of the Zika virus in the five boroughs over the last few months, more than half of which were contracted by recent travelers to and from the Dominican Republic. [ more › ]

The beautiful Odalys who we photographed for the first edition of Portraits on Canvas here in New York with Canvas by Lands’ End!

 

One of the first things I noticed about Odalys was how great she is with makeup. She chooses bright, colorful shades of eyeshadow that somehow only seem to enhance her natural beauty.

 

Name: Odalys
Occupation: DJ
Favourite breakfast cereal: Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Fantasy dinner guest: Zoe Kravitz, Kid Cudi, Pharrel
First music track I purchased: Kanye album
A secret my friends don’t know about me: I used to play viola

 

Click here to see the rest of the shots on the Canvas by Lands’ End site.

Larry Francis is a Philadelphia artist, both in the sense of living in the city, and in taking the city as his subject.

His scenes of Philadelphia’s parks, streets, buildings and people are vibrant with a kind of immediacy that testifies to his practice of working on location as much as possible, even in some of his larger compositions.

Francis works both in oil (images above, top six) and in gouache (images above, remainder). He prefers oil for his large works, and uses to advantage the characteristics of gouache that make it ideal for conveying precise details in small scale paintings and sketches.

I had the pleasure of taking a plein air painting course with Francis recently through the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he has been teaching for a number of years, and where he and I both studied at around the same time. Though I didn’t know him at the time, I enjoyed comparing notes with him on teachers that we both studied with and admired.

In taking a class with Francis recently, I had the opportunity not only to pick up some instruction on working with gouache — a medium with which I have been particularly fascinated and in which he is wonderfully adept — I also gained some insight into his working process as a painter.

I found it fascinating that he often finds subjects not only in scenes that might have appealed to Impressionist or early 20th century realist painters, but in “ordinary” houses and streets that many painters (myself included) would be more likely to pass by without seeing in them potential subject matter for a painting.

Francis captures these with an unwavering eye and is seldom daunted by architectural or botanical complexity. I was surprised to see him working out his lines of architecture and perspective directly by eye, without recourse to drawing instruments except perhaps the occasional edge of another sketchbook.

He works methodically, often returning to the same location for weeks at a time, capturing the light in a sequence of short sessions, rotating to another painting in the same location as the light changes and returning on subsequent days to look for similar light.

There are two nicely done mini-documentaries on Francis and his process by Philadelphia filmmaker John Thornton, available on YouTube: Larry Francis: Painting Philadelphia and Larry Francis on the Art of Painting.

Larry Francis’s work is currently on display in a solo show at the Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia, that has an opening tonight, June 3, 2016 from 5-7pm, and runs until June 30, 2016.

See also my previous post on Larry Francis (2009).

Yesterday, the world was captivated by Ivy St Ive, a professional Pokémon Go trainer/IRL Misty who offered to catch and train all the cute little Pokémon hiding around town for you to the tune of $20/hour. St Ive's crafty venture was admirable, to say the least, but alas, fame killed her business, and now she's retiring to keep Big Pokémon from unleashing Team Rocket (or a lawyer) on her. [ more › ]

By 1932, alcohol-loving New Yorkers had had enough.

For 12 years, Prohibition had been the law of the land, a law enforced in the city by a team of sometimes crooked prohibition cops and ignored by people who openly drank at the city’s legendary speakeasies.

So New York’s mayor, party guy and frequent speakeasy visitor James J. Walker, proposed an idea.

He wanted to stage an enormous protest parade, with participation on the part of labor activists, government officials, and regular citizens, up Fifth Avenue.

It wouldn’t be the first “wet parade” in the city. Anti-Prohibition marches were held in the 1920s as well, attracting many drys, as they were known, as well.

But what was dubbed the “We Want Beer” parade of 1932 had more support than ever.

The argument was strong: legalizing beer and other beverages would add millions in tax money to government coffers and also open up an industry that would employ thousands in Depression-era America.

On May 14, at least 100,000 marchers strode down Fifth Avenue from 80th Street, with picket signs, in costume, and cars festooned with slogans.

The marchers went west on 59th Street and back north on Central Park West, parading into the night.

Mayor Walker, dapper in his derby and suit (and about to be brought up on corruption charges before resigning as mayor), led the procession.

Other cities and towns held beer parades as well, and Coney Island had its own on Surf Avenue a month later.

(Interestingly, at noon, the marchers paused for a minute of silence in honor of Charles Lindbergh Jr., whose body was found dead in woods in New Jersey two days earlier.)

How effective was the beer parade? Hard to say. It  generated big media coverage (check out this old newsreel) and may have helped put the final nail in the coffin for Prohibition, dead and gone 19 months later.

[Top image: via Free Republic; second image: via i09; third image: MCNY; fourth image: Brooklyn Daily Eagle headline; fifth image: New York Daily News]

The MTA decided to take an entire 6 train out of service during rush hour on Tuesday after straphangers spotted a small dog riding the subway unattended, proof that the Real New Yorkers Who See Something And Say Something Campaign is working well. [ more › ]

So you see everyone playing Pokémon Go, and you've decided that you, too, would like to catch 'em all. On the other hand, you're American, so you're left crying out "Can't someone else do it?" Well good news: Someone can, and her name is Ivy St Ive, professional Pokémon Go trainer. The bad news? It'll run you $20/hour to get her services. [ more › ]

A rainbow adds magic to an already paradisiacal scene captured by Your Shot member Cory Mottice at Havasu Falls, Arizona. “The clouds looked promising for a decent sunset, so I left my campsite and headed up to Havasu Falls,” he writes. “Instead, I was treated to a once-in-a-lifetime view.”

This photo was submitted to Your Shot, our storytelling community where members can take part in photo assignments, get expert feedback, be published, and more. Join now >>

A woman was terrorized by a man with a bag of feces in Manhattan on Monday, and now police are hoping video will help the public identify the revolting perpetrator. [ more › ]

An ice cave beckons on Lake Baikal, the world’s oldest and deepest freshwater lake, located in Siberia. Photographers eager to capture an image like this one should be ready to brave the bone-chilling Siberian winter, which renders Lake Baikal sealed by a thick sheet of ice between November and March.

This photo was submitted to Your Shot, our storytelling community where members can take part in photo assignments, get expert feedback, be published, and more. Join now >>

On January 15th, 2009, a US Airways flight splash-crashed into the icy Hudson River after the plane suffered a bird strike, disabling its engines. Somehow, no one died and all 155 passengers and crew members escaped the sinking plane, thanks largely to the quick thinking of pilot Captain Chesley Sullenberger. [ more › ]

Legendary Lower East Side performance artist Reverend Jen has been evicted from her Orchard Street home. This apartment also doubles as the location of the popular Troll Museum. No longer. Building owner, and all around reviled landlord, Misrahi Realty, wielded some muscle by pushing Rev Jen curbside this week. It was reported that she hadn’t paid rent […]

Like so many before them, Prosperity Dumpling is fleeing their Manhattan home on the Lower East Side for a fresh start in Brooklyn. The embattled dumpling shop will be reopening in Bensonhurst, reports Bowery Boogie, abandoning the bad vibes on Eldridge Street for less rat-filled alleys on 86th Street. [ more › ]

The sun’s rays set flame to Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park’s most recognizable land features: the Mittens, the towering buttes that jut from the park’s desert floor. Though the iconic landscape has come to symbolize the American West immortalized in such classic movies as Stagecoach (1939) and Easy Rider (1969), Monument Valley is the ancestral home of the Navajo people, who still live in the area today.

Höydén's shot was recently featured in the Daily Dozen.

This photo was submitted to Your Shot, our storytelling community where members can take part in photo assignments, get expert feedback, be published, and more. Join now >>

 

RIP Bill Cunningham. An inspiration in his work and commitment to photography and fashion.

 

I always loved sitting across or near Bill Cunningham at a fashion show. If it was a more dramatic show like Vickor & Rolf he would look like a kid in a candy store!

 

While all the other editors carried a very studied nonchalance Bill was all smiles and almost physically snapping at the looks with his camera.

 

What Bills work meant to me wasn’t about perfect light or composition or edit but about the pure joy and energy he brought to doing the job. Bravo Bill!!

 

 

 

 

Your Shot community member Dominic Rubin captured this waterfront image of Fenghuang, China. The ancient town, a World Heritage site, is noted for its historical charm and harmonious existence with the landscape into which it's built.

This photo was submitted to Your Shot, our storytelling community where members can take part in photo assignments, get expert feedback, be published, and more. Join now >>

Bioluminescent phytoplankton surround swimmers in circles of brilliant blue light. Your Shot member Will Strathmann captured this image while in Krabi, Thailand. “[I] heard that the bioluminescence [was] beginning to peak under the new moon … While this photo doesn’t come close to the actual experience, I am proud I was able to capture and share this magical moment.”

This photo was submitted to Your Shot, our storytelling community where members can take part in photo assignments, get expert feedback, be published, and more. Join now >>

Scuba diving off Tenerife in the Canary Islands afforded Your Shot member G. Lecoeur an opportunity to capture this sharp underwater close-up of an Atlantic green sea turtle. “It was early morning, and the sunbeam pierced the surface,” he explains. “I adjusted the setting of my camera and waited for the turtles to come close enough to trigger [it]. After a little while, the turtles were circling us, and it was a great opportunity to photograph them.”

Lecoeur's shot was recently featured in the Daily Dozen.

This photo was submitted to Your Shot, our storytelling community where members can take part in photo assignments, get expert feedback, be published, and more. Join now >>

The Citi Bike rider who was tackled and handcuffed by cops when he tried to breeze through a Manhattan roadblock for President Obama has come forward to tell the world his story. Daniel Provencio, 59, says he was on his way to a blind date on Wednesday night when he ran afoul of the NYPD, which had blocked off Park Avenue to clear 50th Street for Obama's motorcade. Provencio's enviably blissful obliviousness, and subsequent rude awakening, was captured for the ages on Instagram: [ more › ]