49.6

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THE NEW YORK WORKSHOP
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THE SOUTHERN ROUTE
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From the series "New York by the bird"
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Time to return in New York city; time to fly above the last temple, besieged by the fortress in which the soldiers are bankers and lawyers. The Financial district is an old institution as you will see at the end in the buildings' description. Here, once upon a time, it was a territory branded by the incandescence of crimes coming from poor crooks, destitute villains and lowborn children, from a world unsure after too many brutal changes. It was mud, dirt, dust and too many dark nights laying in this dreary ghetto. It was a ghetto, at the door of the rich quarters. It was the start of an industrial world. It was already dying at birth by the black smokes of the burning coals. Here you died young. Just check the tombs of the cemetery under the canopy of Trinity Church (Gothic Revival, Richard Upjohn, 1846) above which you're just hovering. It was a universe gnawing his own legs and hands, hoping to be fathered again, new and sleek. Then quickly the cathedrals in which brokers were priests smothered the old faith, leaving this one in the heart as a testimony for the time of cholera (indeed, here in 1832). It's beautifully hard and painfully grandiose. This sight of brutal walls and lace of faith. This intense paradoxical emotion drives you at once into depression and euphoria. Bipolarity of the modern world.
From bottom, then from left to right:
* The arch of the American Express company building, Beaux-arts, 1919
* The tower of the Bank of New York, Art Deco, 1921
* The block of the American Surety building, Historicist skyscraper, 1896
* The double Equitable building, Beaux-Arts, 1915
* The wall of the Trinity building, Historicist skyscraper, 1907
* The U of the United States Express Company, Neo-classicism, 1907