Sergey Kadinsky

The Howard Williams Jazz Orchestra has been around for two decades, comprised of full-time musicians, music teachers, 18 members in all, a true Big Band. It performs every Monday night at the Garage Restaurant and Cafe on Seventh Avenue South.

7:15pm: Thelonious Monk’s Ugly Beauty

The Howard Williams organizes the repertoire.

Howard Williams

The interior of the Garage Restaurant and Cafe looks like a traditional jazz club, with posters of jazz legends behind the stage.

7:30pm The Scene is Clean by Ted Dameron

A warm, cozy venue for a jazz concert

Any musician can tell you that their income depends on their audience. While their average income remains confidential, band member tells of their most generous tip- an all-expenses paid flight to Amalfi, Italy.

A wedding performance

A wealthy Italian financier invited the band to play at his wedding in Italy. In spite of the jet lag, the concert was a hit. “And we told him that we don’t do wedding songs,” said Williams. After only three days, the band returned home.

The Garage offers a variety of views

Honestly, I am having a hard time figuring out why the most hideous tenements of the last turn of the century are far more pleasing to the viewer than today’s middle-income condos.

An abandoned South Bronx tenement. Note the cornices, keystones, and rounded corner. Photo by Ray Mortenson, 1984

Today’s developers seem to be cutting costs at every available opportunity. It seems that in the New York of 2007, only two architectural styles predominate- glass and steel boxes for the rich, and brick boxes for the poor. Whatever design there is to these buildings, it fails to inspire. Tearing down an older home in favor of high-density dwellings isn’t always bad news, but when it ruins the unique image of the neighborhood-

No stonework or decorations here. The viewer should at least thank the builder for providing gables to break the boredom.

This is New York in 2008. Goodbye aesthetics, and welcome back functionalism. Where these homes stood, there was once beautiful architecture. Usually, only an affluent neighborhood like Park Slope can muster the clout to prevent ugliness from being built. In my home borough, it’s good to see minority and middle-class neighborhoods speaking out against crapitecture.

This Long Island City tenement is a gonner. Expect a glass box in its place. Photo byLIQcity

Architecture critics praise these new glass boxes. It’s the new black, but from a pedestrian’s point of view, there’s really not much to see here. In my opinion, the glass office boxes are related to the brick boxes. Both lack imagination and design. When an abandoned South Bronx tenement looks better than an inhabited 21st century apartment, we have some serious thinking to do.

And then there were two… The Transfiguration Roman Catholic Church is tucked on a midblock slope in Maspeth named after Monsignor Frank Bulovas. Parked on the sidewalk outside the church an Acura license plate reads Siauliai, and a Benz reads Lietuva. That’s the native name for Lithuania, a West Virginia-sized Baltic state represented by the church. With the 2007 closing of Our Lady of Vilnius in the West Village, only Transfiguration and the Annunciation Church in Williamsburg remain as the city’s sole outposts of Lithuanian Catholic traditions. (more…)

I’ve just completed my first impressions photo essay of Maspeth. It contains five images, but it’s only a start. In the near future, expect to see abandoned train tracks, yard statues, storefront posters, and other local curiosities.

How “hyper-local” can blogging get? I’ve just settled into my new home in the Hillcrest neighborhood of Queens, and on my block, there is a curious street that sticks out of the grid. It also defies local naming conventions.

The other Park Avenue: No Doormen Here

As a follow-up, I shall interview the residents of this block. I wonder if they have trouble receiving pizza deliveries.