neighbors.

Recognize this place?

I'll give you a hint:

Old walls, new life

This is the old dance hall that used to be on Robinson Street.

More specifically, it was tucked in the back, speakeasy style, on Rope Alley, near the intersection of 2nd Street.
I took these pictures 6 years ago, when the Housing Resources people let Alan and I go in and rummage around before they rehabbed. They were about to gut it and turn it and the adjacent 2-story apartment building into new housing.

I grabbed the piano stool with glass ball feet, some loose ivory piano keys, and some beautiful wallpaper samples from the upstairs apartment (which I later used in a collage.)




Alan salvaged a heaping truckload of beadboard from the dance hall walls, and stored it away.

Not too long after, the whole building burned down.

Last week Alan  pulled out some of the beadboard and installed a 20+ foot span of wall in his workshop (partially shown here). He also devised some secret method of removing spraypaint graffiti without ruining the original finish.

Now and Then: Columbia and First streets, Hudson, NY

Columbia and first sts, hudson, NY. now and then (1953 and 2008)
Originally uploaded by fiveanddiamond

Special Thanks to Alex Brown and Paula Mickle (the girl in photos) for letting me use their vintage photos for my ongoing Now and Then project. (Dis-honorable mention to urban renewal for tearing down all the old buildings).
Below is my photoshop collage.

Found

8x10" photo stuck to glass.
Found at a yard sale in Claverack a couple months ago (the seller gave it to me).

It reminded me of a scene in one of my favorite movies, Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World.  In it, Max von Sydow's character has invented a ground-breaking device that can record the visual experiences of one person and then transfer them to the brain of a blind person, in this case his wife.  The technology is still rough though, so the imagery the woman experiences, of her children and grandchildren, are quite blurry and broken.