Atlantic City Boardwalk

Walking the boardwalk at Atlantic City, as a photographer, provides two primary subjects.  Of course, there is the ocean and the beach scenes look out to the Atlantic.  Some of the views this way could be at the shore anywhere, particularly the Jersey shore.  

The other subject is focusing on the millions of little stories happening on the boardwalk.  There are the people (some good street photography subjects there).  And, then there are the static personalities looming.  The casino entrances, the shops, the colored garbage cans. 

Here are a few pictures that focus on these icons. 

Pizza Window

French Fries Guy

Bally's Casino

Steel Pier Carousel

Taj Mahal Neon

Steel Pier Wheel

EYE'EM Awards

The EYE'EM Award Exhibition 2010 is wrapping up this week in Berlin.  This is a competition of photos taken by mobile devices (like the iPhone I have).  Out of several thousand submissions, one of my shots was chosen by the grand jury to be part of the shortlist of 144 mobile photographs that are being exhibited in the final show at the Schlectriem Brothers gallery.  The pictures that were selected are absolutely fantastic, so it is an honor to be included. 

Here is the one that was selected.  I'm not sure that I could have gotten a similar picture with my DSLR.  The extra wide-angle of the iPhone distorted the picture in such an interesting way that it exaggerated the sizes of parties in an interesting way.  This is the blog entry that I original posted about this picture. 

Free Colonial Concert

Pink Pooches

So, here are two dogs made to look like twins moving down Broadway near City Hall. I don't believe they are related to each other although they do have similar fur.  But the one on the left is clearly fluffier and looks a little bit bigger.  Perhaps a man and wife?  I wonder about the effort expended to make them pink.  And the upkeep?  It is certainly worth it though.  How often do you see pink pooches like these?  They are an attraction.  And, a look at the owner's sandaled feet showed that her toenails were a matching pink.

 

Werewolf Heads?

I was waiting for a meeting to begin in our conference room on the 32nd floor.  Being early, I blankly looked out at the view.  I have looked out that way many times (it's a good view), but this time I happened to notice the roof and details of the building directly across the street. 

I was struck by the amount of detail in the building (which I had never noticed).  In particular, I was amazed by the row of animal heads along the top rim.  What effort to create these in a location that is impossible to see from the street.  As a matter of fact, the only place you could really see them was from where I stood. 

But, when the building was created, it was decided that there should be the work and expense of adding this detail.   Not an uncommon thing in those days, I guess, especially when you see the work put into the Woolworth Building a few blocks north.  But still, this attention to detail is missing from the new construction. 

Lookin at the row of 17 heads, it wasn't really clear to me what this animal was.  It seemed like it was a lion at first, but looking closer made me unsure.   It actually kind of looks like a werewolf to me.  And I'll bet there were more werewolves on the other sides.  All, but the west wall, which is now connected to the Hilton Millennium Hotel.  The hotel was certainly built later, and maybe they needed to remove the werewolves from that side.  So that would be 51 heads or so (maybe 68 when it was built). Where are those heads from the west wall now?

So, these heads, made me curious about this building and the effort put into its creation.  I'm sure I had passed it from the street, but from this perspective, I had no idea what it was. 

So, my research began by doing a Google Map search on the street to figure out the address.  Moving into the Street View mode, I could see the front of the building.  Ah, so this is 195 Broadway.   Oh yes, I remembered this building had a large marble lobby and I taken a picture of a man sitting there that I called "Lobby Contemplation". 

Knowing the exact address now, my next stop was Wikipedia, which had a page about 195 Broadway. 

I now know this was the original home of AT&T, occupied from 1916 until 1983. And, this was from where the first trans-Atlantic telephone call was placed. 

Now missing is the original 28' foot gold plated statue called "Genius of Electricity" that originally sat on top of the building (again probably best seen from my building which did not exist in those days).  It was later taken down from the roof and moved to the new AT&T building uptown, and then to their headquarters in Basking Ridge.  When SBC bought AT&T, and then later changed their own name from SBC to AT&T, they again relocated the Genius to their home office in Dallas.  That is a lot of effort and expense to move a 16 ton statue.  

 Here are some pictures of the building taken by others.  It kind of amazes me to realize the effort that went to creating and paying for the werewolves, building the columns, and the 16-ton statue (and to move it to Dallas). But then someone wanted to build the pyramids too.  There are a lot of remarkable buildings in New York, so this one is only a member of the list.  But, it was new to me, at least from the top.