Grand tour of the POPOs, day 4
Site 52 seems to aspire to be a grand plaza comprising four public spaces that face each other around the intersection of Howard and 2d St. (just down 2nd from Site 51). Only three of them are there, sadly. All three are done up in squarish black stone designs that give off a sort of macho artsiness, like the navy pin-striped furniture in a bachelor pad.
The fourth is still an open-air parking lot and doesn’t show any signs of joining its counterparts any time soon.
The northeast corner has a pleasant collection of umbrella’d tables and some trees just tall enough to give an effective shade. We hung out there for a while and watched the light change as the sun bounced off buildings and the trees broke it up. Most relaxing.
The northwest corner is more severe, as befits the anteroom of the building that houses the Black Rock investment firm, which basically runs the world right now. There are tank barriers around the
perimeter artfully designed to look like tank barriers, and a forbidding Moebius-like sculpture doubtless intended to evoke the incomprehensibility of modern finance, or something.
The southwest corner shares the elegant black rock motif but gives more space to its trees than to walking or sitting space. It is dominated by a Specialties restaurant that contains an Intelligentsia
coffee kiosk, a nice surprise for coffee snobs weary of the long lines at Blue Bottle. Intelligentsia appears to be following a Starbucks-like model, with settings controlled by someone other than
the barista and not a lot of information available behind the bar. But the coffee is passable, certainly far superior to any Starbucks I’ve been at lately.
Categorised as: Travels