Try to see Stanley Kubrick’s MySpace page because it’s actually pretty interesting. Lots of photos of him and his films.

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Another seldom-discussed but omnipresent Northside icon: the old Mobil gas station sign that’s marked the Williamsburg corner of Berry Street and North 7th since the early ’60s - is gone for good as of this morning. A crew replacing the old half-hearted fence around the former filling station said “some guy who came by” got it, adding “a lot of people are asking about it.”

The shiny new fence, complete with barbed wire top, almost certainly portends the start of the next life for 131 Berry. Although a check of the DOB info site shows no building permits applied for nor issued, the prime location one block west of the Bedford L-train stop - and directly across from Karl Fischer’s soul-sucking Sevenberry condos - can only mean one thing:

Mobil Mews: Full-Service Premium Condominium Living, Filling Up Fast.

Occupancy, Spring 2010

The foundation dig on this one should be fun. At least at the Roebling Oil Fields development over on North 11th (now the Warehouse 11 condos), connecting the blobs meant some detective work. But Mobil Mews begins life as a gas station: DOB “Little E” hazmat restrictions and all.

And as for the iconic Mobil sign - another symbol of Williamsburg’s gritty urban past, soon to be forgotten: tanks for the memories.

www.freewilliamsburg.com

Photo via Ira Monko’s Flickr.

This Sunday marks the annual Gay Pride Parade. This year should be especially celebratory given that same-sex marriage is now legal in California. The march will run from 5th Avenue & 52nd St. to Christopher & Greenwich St. beginning at noon. 

The first NYC Gay Pride March was held in 1970, the year following the Stonewall Riots. The Out at the Center show recently took a look at the history of the parade, which you can watch here.

Around 80,000 gipsy children are to be fingerprinted by the Italian authorities under a new scheme that has drawn comparisons to the policies of Benito Mussolini.

The Italian government has blamed immigrants, and particularly Roma gipsies, for the country’s crime problems.

Since Silvio Berlusconi became prime minister in April, gypsy camps in the south and north of the country have been burned by vigilante mobs.

The home minister, Roberto Maroni, has now announced that all the Roma will be fingerprinted, including children. “This is not ethnic cataloguing, this is the ultimate safeguard of their rights,” he said.

Article continuesadvertisement “We will take the children’s fingerprints in order to stop those occasions when parents send their children out to beg. It is a proper census to make sure that those who have the right to stay here can live in decent conditions,” he said.

According to the latest figures, there are 160,000 Roma gipsies in Italy, almost half of whom have Italian citizenship. The last census recorded that 80,000 of them are children.

The move has triggered memories of the segregation of Jews imposed by Benito Mussolini in 1938. “I remember when I could not go to school with the others,” said Amos Luzzatto, a former president of Italy’s Union of Jewish Communities.

“There is a latent racism in Italian culture and it manifests itself cyclically,” he added. “Taking the fingerprints of youngsters from one ethnic group implies that you consider them to be congenital thieves.”

Unicef, the United Nation’s children’s rights body, said it was “shocked and deeply worried” by the plans.

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk 

Returning from the crafts fair I came across several street performers with English accents. However they were fleeing north, so to engage this chap I accused him of being a hipster and managed to capture this image.

Thanks to my Flickr pal wellohorld I found out that our bunny is in fact a chicken! His name is Chicken Nuts (real name is Matthew Silver) and performs as part of the Bedford Circus of Fools. They perform for free on Bedform every Sunday at 1pm!

My guess is that if they don’t start charging pretty soon they’ll be the Bushwick Circus of Fools…

Photographed on June 15, 2008.

www.freewilliamsburg.com

Santiago, Junio 20. Some graffitis and banners.

Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls start flowing tomorrow morning– perhaps as early as 7am, but sadly, the Circle Line tours of the bay don’t start until Friday. So if you want a good view (or a good picture) of these babies, you’re going to have to view them from land. No problem: we’ve marked the best viewing spots for each one on the map above.

1. Governors Island– this is the toughest one to view without a boat. Best spot is from the piers next to the Maritime Ferry Building at the tip of Manhattan. For a closeup, bring binoculars or a telephoto lens.

2. Brooklyn Piers– for the angle shown above, you’ll need to be on the Manhattan side, on the waterfront by the Helicopter terminal. If you don’t mind seeing the back of the falls, you can get a closeup view from the Brooklyn Promenade, or from Empire State Park, north of the Bridge.

4. Pier 35– this waterfall is best seen from the path right under the FDR that runs alongside the water, or from above, on the Manhattan Bridge Bike Path (north side of the bridge– be careful of bikers!)

A note on timing: in the morning, the light will be coming from the East, so you’ll get better photographs on the Brooklyn side. In the afternoon or at night, the light will be from the west, and the falls will be lit up with lights, so it’s better to shoot from the Manhattan positions. Wherever and whenever you take your pictures, send them to photos (at) gothamist (dot) com, or tag them “gothamist” on Flickr– we’ll put up the best ones tomorrow.

On the personal ads in the New York Review of Books.

There are more semicolons in the New York Review of Books personals than balls in a gay bar.

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The US State Department was forced to address a hot topic yesterday during a press briefing about Iran, Afghanistan and Albania when a hard hitting question was spouted about…Boy George? Spokesman Tom Casey nearly spit out his drink when asked about the singer being denied a visa. After regaining his composure he stated, “I’d simply note that there often are difficulties for individuals who either are currently subject to criminal charges or otherwise may have criminal records.” When the reporter noted it was tragic, Casey countered with a knowing, “Do you really want to hurt him?” Then it was back to business. Watch the video here.

For its July 2008 issue, Vogue Italia is featuring only black models and feature articles about black women in arts and entertainment.

Having worked at one time with nearly all the models he chose for the black issue — Iman, [Naomi] Campbell, Tyra Banks, Jourdan Dunn, [Liya] Kebede, [Alek] Wek, Pat Cleveland, Karen Alexander — [photographer Steven] Meisel had his own feelings. “I thought, it’s ridiculous, this discrimination,” said Mr. Meisel, speaking by phone from his home in Los Angeles. “It’s so crazy to live in such a narrow, narrow place. Age, weight, sexuality, race — every kind of prejudice.”

Here’s a slideshow of some of the images from the magazine. As I’ve said before, Vogue Italia is doing some interesting things with the editorial nature of the magazine’s photography (see State of Emergency and Super Mods Enter Rehab, both by Steven Meisel).

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