ADP Blog

Friday, July 22, 2011

Philadelphia Belle's Last Days

I heard on the local news that The Philadelphia Belle had just ceased operations on Penns Landing and something inside me said I had to go down there and photograph this beautiful vessel before she sails away. I had seen this type of ship before in New Orleans over a decade ago and I had always thought it was such a beauty. Surely enough when I arrived, Belle was empty and so was the parking lot but she was still there as though she knew I was coming to photograph her.

Up til now, I had not heard of Belle's operations which apparently had be going on since December of 2010, a bad time to start such an endeaveor in the middle of winter.

I know for certain that Philadelphia can support this type of cruise with a starting package price of just under 30$ if it had been better marketted. I'm expecting a better marketting company will will soon replace this because the Spirit of Philadephia alone cannot support the needs of the fifth largest city in the nation...

Enjoy the journey...

ADP

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

New York City July 16-17

I know this blog is supposed to showcase the beauty of Philadelphia but I like to travel and each time I do, I am reminded that there is no place like home and to me, there is no other city more beautiful than Philadelphia which will always be home to me. Here are some images that I captured during this visit to our neighboring city.

This sculpture, located in Zucotti Park, looks strikingly similar to the one diagonal from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. After a couple of google searches, it turns out that these sculptures are from the same artist by the name of Mark (Marco Polo) di Suvero. This one is called Joie de Vivre, the one in Philly is called Irroquois.

Nice arctichectural contrast on Broadway between Liberty & Cedar Streets

Construction at the World Trade Center. Building is more than half way done to 104 stories according to the banner update.

Red Cube, 1968 by Isamu Noguchi , Location 140 Broadway, between Liberty & Cedar Streets.

Commissioned for the One Chase Manhattan Plaza in 1980, this sculpture by Ken Mowatt is called "The Raven Puts the Sun in the Sky". It iis based on a very interesting indian folklore, Raven & Sun which you can read more at:
http://www.wwu.edu/depts/skywise/legends.html#Raven%20and%20Sun

Located at 70 Pine, this 1932 art-deco bld. was formerly the HQ of AIG who sold it along with the bld. at 72 Wall St. to a South Korea-based Kumho Investment Bank in 2009 for total of 150 million dollars. Kumho resold these 2 buildings 2 years later for 251 million dollars, a nice return on investment, don't you think? 70 Pine is currently the tallest skyscraper in lower Manhattan and will be converted to condos.

This building lit up nicely with the sunset.

Williams Street in Lower Manhattan. For second I thought I was in Bangkok..

Lower Manhattan at Twilight

The architect of the Brooklyn Bridge is John Augustus Roebling, the same man that built the Delaware Aqueduct 20 years earlier in 1845 connecting Minisink Ford, NY to Lackawaxen, PA. (The aqueduct is the oldest existing wire suspension bridge in the US spaning 535 feet (175 meters)

The history of the bridge construction is very interesting. Read how it killed Roebling Sr, paralyzed Roebling Jr. and eventually relied on the supervision of Jr.'s wife for most of the construction on ADP blog: http://andydinhphotographyblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/nyc-july-15-17-2011.html

Caught this plane flying across the Chrysler building while cruising on the Hudon river, thought it was pretty cool.

High Line Park

10th Avenue & 18th St. This is one of my favorite pictures, you can see the neighborhood transforming. I'm curious to see what street will look like in 10-15 years...

$4 East River ferry from Pier 11 up the Hudson to 34th Street.

This Beaux-Arts building is stunningly beautiful (almost fairytale-ish) when the evening sunlight shines on it. This was the prototype for the Wrigley building in Chicago. Can you name and locate it???