Look, I made you a car!

Have you ever been to Rockefeller Center in New York City? It's a must see place, especially around Christmas time, if for nothing else but to see the Christmas Tree. (Or Holiday tree, or whatever the PC name for it is) I really dig the art and style inside the building. Now I'm not an art critic, nor an art major, but I assume it's of the Art Deco movement of the 1930's. Lots of streamlining, and a lot of industrial imagery. Shirtless muscle bound men with hammers banging on steel to make buildings and Zeppelins and Trains, strong jawed women with sheaths of wheat bundled in their arms. I assume the motif is aimed more at the Ayn Rand, glory of capitalism aesthetic since the patrons of all this art were the Rockefeller family versus the same kind of art work done by the Soviets called Socialist Realism. (Not to be confused with the style exampled by Diego Rivera's "Social Realism" in case you were wondering.) Having been in both Rockefeller Center and the Metro stations of Moscow I can tell you both styles are a lot alike. Either way, it's amazing that we managed to be so optimistic during the depression, but maybe it was more of a unique opportunity in the history of the world where the rich could afford the labor and talents of thousands of gifted but out of work artists and to paraphrase Max Bialystok , "since they had it, they flaunted it."


So once again, I'm on the Scooter in West Chester, and there was this place on Gay Street that sold Futons to the off campus college types and the 41 year old studio apartment dweller losers like myself. Anyway, they moved, and I guess the building is being remodeled and in the course of this remodeling was revealed this very nice retro looking hint as to what used to be in the building, Turner Motors Mercedes-Benz of West Chester. Now for the local townies, maybe they remember when it used to be a car dealership, but I don't, being a newbie and all. The best part of this revelation is this relief that is exactly of the same kind of thing you see in New York City. I'm sure a smarter person than I can tell me what the significance of the two people are, (oh that's Detroiticus, Greek God of automobile manufacturing, and that's Smartshoppera, Goddess of wise automobile buyers.) but regardless, I'm hoping somebody saves it and puts up somewhere where all of us in town can enjoy it.

All this got me thinking about the latest architectural marvel in town. When I look at the new Chester County Courthouse, I think to myself, "God bless 'em, they tried", but it really doesn't have much of a personality. Sure they went with some Roman Columns at the entrance, but you know, it's the little things, those details and flourishes, that usually have nothing to do with the engineering of a building that are often what really makes a building something special.



Maybe since the days of cheap immigrant labor are long over, ( I mean cheap, artisan labor, mustachioed Italian men with chisels) it's not in any body's budget to have these little do-dads on buildings anymore. Well, if we don't care how future generations will look on us, let us at least have the sense to preserve what generations past managed to crank out even during our darkest days.