A question about the forthcoming Nordstorm Tower, freshly rendered by YIMBY: At which floor of the one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five foot tower — which, though it is one foot shorter than One World Trade Center, because of the elevation of midtown, will be the tallest point in the city — will residents’ view of Central Park be blocked by clouds? Not that it should matter terribly much during the fall and winter, when the building will cast a four-thousand-foot shadow across the park, since they should be some place much warmer anyway, like Miami or São Paulo.

November 26, 1873:

May 15, 1887:

March 1897:

August 3, 1898:

May 11, 1942:

Sept 9, 2014:

“A new development, 42 Crosby Street, is pushing the limits of New York City real estate to new heights with 10 underground parking spots that will cost more per square foot than the apartments being sold upstairs. The million-dollar parking spots will be offered on a first-come-first-served basis to buyers at the 10-unit luxury apartment building being developed by Atlas Capital Group at Broome and Crosby Streets, itself the former site of a parking lot.

…

The parking spots, some of which will be a generous 200 square feet, will run $5,000 to $6,666 a square foot, whereas the nine three-bedroom units upstairs will cost between $8.70 million, or about $3,170 a square foot, and $10.45 million, around $3,140 a square foot. Monthly common charges for operational expenses and taxes for the three-bedrooms will run as high as $8,880 ($18,360 for the $25 million duplex penthouse).”

★★★★★ The river was crushed-velvet blue. Broken, dry leaves blew in a cloud around the street sweeping truck. It surged ahead or sagged to a halt, as the cars did or did not scatter for it, its roar reverberating under the scaffolding. Being in the sun was a bit too warm, after the exertions of prying a clinging first-day-of-preschooler off one leg. Loose, white clouds were moving fast, northeast to southwest, making the higher cirrus look like it was in retrograde motion. Evaporative cooling was going on in the hollows of the elbows. Afternoon brought a gray sky with gray clouds under it in the east, and white clouds under gray in the west. The shops on Grand Street had their mooncakes out; a vendor by the subway stop was huddled in a pay phone with a handful of cheap plasticky American flags, a dollar apiece, reminding the passersby that 9/11 would be Thursday. Holiday season again. Up at 72nd Street, the leaves along the Park were turning over in the wind. Building decorations on Broadway were muted in the dull light but also somehow coextensive, for a moment, with the gray-tinted tossing branches on the median. The dinnertime sky out the window presented gorgeous white-edged gray clouds against blue, sustained for a while. Then: maximal sunset, spilling upward. Somehow the orange setting sun took a double or triple bounce to shine off the windows directly in front of where the sun’s disc would be, as if the light were piercing straight through the solid block of the apartment tower. A tiny corner of coral peeked above a rich purple cloud, and then hot pink slashes, and then multiple pinks, multiple grays, whites, golds — sharp forms here, a blurry rainbow haze down there. A tugboat came upriver through waters that were now pink.

by Kevin Lincoln

@[redacted]: #StandUpFor soft drinks, duh

@[redacted]: #StandUpFor real cold soft drinks, realllllll cold

@[redacted]: I’ve, uh, I’ve been alerted that maybe last couple tweets were out of line. Will conduct a full investigation now

@[redacted]: oh my god

@[redacted]: oh my god, I’m so sorry

@[redacted]: I’m so sorry

@[redacted]: I did not look into that hashtag before I participated in it. I am looking now. there is no room for soft drinks

@[redacted]: I was just trying to spread happiness. I apologize to everyone, everywhere. for once, soft drinks aren’t needed

@[redacted]: @[redacted1] I’m so sorry you were offended. I didn’t mean it. I really do stand up for soft drinks, tho. ride or die

@[redacted]: @[redacted1] no, you’re right, that’s also insensitive, I didn’t mean to belittle the situation, I’m doubly sorry

@[redacted]: @[redacted2] please don’t call me that

@[redacted]: @[redacted2] I mean, I see your point, but I think saying I’m worse than ISIS is mean

@[redacted]: @[redacted2] no, OK, you’re right, I’m sorry, I am, I really am worse. god I fucking hate soft drinks

@[redacted]: @[redacted2] I didn’t mean that

@[redacted]: Please, if everyone could stop retweeting what I said about hating soft drinks, I was frustrated, I didn’t mean it

@[redacted]: I love soft drinks

@[redacted]: dammit why can’t you delete tweets

@[redacted]: @[redacted3] wait, what

@[redacted]: I’ve just learned that you can delete tweets. this is great. earfuck yourselves you clowns

@[redacted]: Good morning! #empower your thirst with 64 ounces of a soft drink from [redacted]

@[redacted]: @[redacted4] are you fucking serious

@[redacted]: @[redacted4] I’m so sorry

@[redacted]: I’m so sorry, everyone. please don’t earfuck yourselves. I don’t even know what that means

@[redacted]: I thought if I deleted the tweets everyone would forget about them

@[redacted]: but they didn’t

@[redacted]: secondly, I once again misinterpreted a hashtag and used it to spread the gospel of soft drinks

@[redacted] #thegospelofjesussays drink a soft drink

@[redacted]: apparently that last tweet was both insensitive and apocryphal

@[redacted]: @[redacted5] I’m so sorry, God doesn’t deserve this shit, or Jesus

@[redacted]: @[redacted5] I’m sorry I cursed

@[redacted]: @[redacted5] please pray for me

@[redacted]: @[redacted6] I’m not just a soft-drink twitter account, I’m a human being and that’s hurtful

@[redacted]: @[redacted6] no, you’re right, I can’t prove that my brain isn’t goat cheese, I don’t know, I’m sorry

@[redacted]: @[redacted7] what

@[redacted]: @[redacted7] speak English you clown

@[redacted]: I’m sorry, I and soft drinks love you all no matter what language you speak

@[redacted]: #gandhiwould’ve had a soft drink right about now

@[redacted]: @[redacted8] no, not hunger-striking gandhi, that’s ridiculous

@[redacted]: @[redacted8] gandhi was not always on a hunger strike his whole life, that’s ridiculous

@[redacted]: I’m so so sorry, I’ve just been informed that gandhi did a lifelong hunger strike so he couldn’t have enjoyed a soft drink

@[redacted] tough life, amirite

@[redacted]: @[redacted9] you’re fucking kidding me

@[redacted]: look everyone, I know I screwed up, but don’t mess with me, I knew gandhi didn’t never eat or drink in his life

@[redacted]: you all think gandhi would’ve endorsed this shit

@[redacted]: with great power comes great responsibility, gandhi said that, I’ve got great power, I am soft drinks

@[redacted]: @[redacted10] motherfucker

@[redacted]: @[redacted10] no, not you, I’m just frustrated, I’m sorry

@[redacted]:;

@[redacted]: retweet if you like soft drinks

@[redacted]: please

Kevin Lincoln is a writer in Los Angeles. Photo by Michael Holmes.

“Ugh, where are we all moving next?” asks everyone, everywhere, all the time. “Madrid seems pretty nice,” says someone who just heard this song.

“Rising inequality is not a law of nature — it’s not even a law of economics. It is a consequence of political and economic arrangements, and those arrangements can be changed,” writes John Lanchester. I’m a cynical fuck who thinks hope for a better world is futile since we’re all doomed to toil as servants for the thin and calcifying slice of the upper class that runs everything and there’s no way we’re ever going to get it together enough to change things, particularly with all the distractions and sedatives this modern world has to hey is that a new iPhone? But Lanchester, who is always a joy to read, has a new a book coming out that purports to make money understandable even to fiscal illiterates like myself; if you’re at all interested in learning what the people with all the cash are doing to you it might be worth picking up.

Developing…

“One reason is that the left-wing Democrats highly enjoy calling me an evil Koch brother, and the contributions I make in these many areas are tremendously worthy. It sends a message to the political groups in this country that don’t like the conservative Republican businessman.”

★★★★ The sky was a heartening blue, with a little dingy blue haze lower down. A cool breeze pushed into the apartment lobby, but the sun out on the avenues turned out to be hottish. In the Park, on the Sheep Meadow, the sawtooth oak sheltered its recurring rain puddle, but the turf was nearly dry. Amid the conflicting agendas, the two-year-old’s desire to go to the tots’ playground turned out to be the wisest, microclimate-wise. Sprinkler posts made a puddle and sent water trickling down the entrance path. The two-year-old climbed up the shiny tube slide, with reflected light filling his face. He knocked his head on the top a couple of times as he emerged. By afternoon, at the schoolyard playground, the sun was harmless. Children scrambled everywhere, white noise and Brownian motion, and attentive parents scrambled after them. The swings were full, with would-be riders waiting by the fence while a soft-faced brat bullied his obnoxious grandparents into giving him one last swinging session four or five times over. Uptown, after dinner, widely spaced cirrus clouds were pink on the still-blue sky. The light faded, and the two-year-old stepped deliberately, making his new light-up shoes glimmer white with every stride. Then he was off and running, feet flickering and kicking high, as he chased his brother down the sidewalk through the dusk.

A cover of Sam Smith’s unavoidable summer moan that alternates gracefully between entrancing and viscerally upsetting. It’s a total aesthetic dismantling (and kind of a huge improvement!).