The Secret Museum

Pet Architecture: 1 West 13th

Great tiny little food store! You can get a sense of just how snug this place is by the relative size of the woman by the door (although the lens of my Palm Zire 71 warps the image a bit).

Every single surface of this establishment, except perhaps the ceiling, seems to be deployed to satisfy the insatiable New York City demand for Food To Go.

A bench has been provided in case you really want to Stay And Eat.

Also, very elegant address: 1 West 13th Street.

Pet Architecture: PATH station, two

Back at the WTC PATH station a week ago. This time, I rode in from Jersey City, my first time taking the trip around The Bathtub; I described the experience on Worldchanging while posting about last week's New York Times Magazine feature on four alternate designs for Ground Zero.

The construction I saw a few weeks ago is complete. Here is the small result. No clear indication to me of what this building is meant for.

A side view, looking into the PATH terminal. The terminal has an invitingly raw feel, as if you're looking into the substructure of the city (which is only appropriate, given the giant skyscraper foundation sitting just outside) as well as the grandure of a large open space within a built setting.

Here's how this structure is situated in relation to the PATH terminal pet architecture I noted on April 18.

Pet Architecture: Windsor Terrace 1

In my Brooklyn neighborhood, Windsor Terrace, there are examples of small frame houses, like this one, alongside townhouses, brownstones or apartment buildings. Although none of these structures are objectively massive, the frame houses end up looking anachronistic and small--they're sort of oppressed and adorable as a result of the company they're being forced to keep.

The photo shows that overall, we're living in fairly spacious conditions in this part of Brooklyn. In that sense, it's a pretty generous pet architecture.

Pet Architecture: PATH station

A temporary pet architecture, seen in the lower Manhattan PATH station earlier this week.

Scale is easily determined by the size of the man sitting inside the structure. It's unclear what the purpose of this little station might be. Perhaps it is a makeshift office and/or guardhouse for the construction effort going on along side it. Although it gives the occupant no privacy whatsoever, you can see that the worker inside was pretty relaxed; although he was completely visable to people outside, perhaps the coziness of the enclosure and the separation from the vast underground space outside gave him a relaxed feeling.

I would like to have gotten closer to take this picture, but felt a little uneasy using a camera in a public transit hub—even with my Palm Zire 71, which looks nothing like a camera. Earlier in the evening I had seen police patrolling the PATH station in body armor, armed with slim, matte black machine guns. This is not unusual anymore, objectively, but does not feel usual, or particularly reassuring.

West 11th Street, New York

So lately I am on the lookout for pet architecture in New York City. We don't replicate the incredibly compressed conditions of Tokyo, so ultimately New York pet architecture will probably not be quite as small, although it could be just as cute. Here is a small residence on W. 11th Street.