CHRISTMAS CANDLE DECOR

Gourmet Bistros and Restaurants of Paris

Paris claims to have invented the restaurant with the opening of Beauvilliers in 1784, and here are over 100 dining places that keep the city at the crossroads of culinary tradition and innovation. Rival indulges the reader with a discerning selection of splendid historic restaurants, notorious brasseries, down-to-earth bistros, and contemporary hot spots. Each is described in delectable detail. From the glittering decadence of Michelin 3-star chef Guy Martin's Le Grand Vefour, to Jacques Garcia's trendy Hotel Costes, and from Philippe Starck's Bacarrat wonderland to the student haven at Polidor, the restaurants presented here are tried and true; they define the delights of dining a la francaise.An indispensable black book provides the reader with contact information for the featured restaurants as well as other exceptional eateries in the food capital of the world. Rival covers all the notable addresses in a volume that serves as both a practical reference as well as an exquisite visual feast for the armchair traveler.

Midtown Manhattan

The Bryant Park Studios constructed in 1900-01, is one of the earliest buildings in New York specifically designed to house artists' studios. The building's location across from Bryant Park and its generous windows with northern exposures make it aptly suited for this purpose. Designed by the prominent architect Charles A. Rich, the elegant building displays a complex program of ornamentation in an elaborate French Beaux-Arts style. It was also known as the Beaux Arts Building and was commissioned by portraitist A. A. Anderson, an artist with French training and experience, who sought to address the shortage of appropriate artists' working spaces in the city.

Above the retail stores at the street level, prominent design features of the building include: rusticated terra cotta, terra-cotta and brick banding, dramatic, multi-story stone window enframements with pediments or delicate metal-railed balconies highlighting the studio windows which themselves are elegantly proportioned and divided, and prominent cornices. In addition to Anderson who had a triplex apartment-studio at the top of the building, numerous artists of note worked here, including Edward Steichen and Fernand Leger.

Artists' Studio Space in New York

In the rapidly expanding economy of New York City at the end of the nineteenth century, many people had difficulty finding sufficient space for their living or working requirements. The dramatically increasing population led some to move far northward, while others preferred to live close to the center of the city in small apartments. Artists, who had specific requirements for northern light and large working areas, were left to cope as best they could with the increasing shortage of space.

The first building specifically devoted to artists' studios was The Studio Building at 51-55 West Tenth Street (demolished), designed in 1857 by Richard Morris Hunt. A large building with expansive windows to capture the northern light, it had a huge, vaulted studio on the ground floor as well as other, individual studios above. Numerous well-known artists were tenants, including John LaFarge, Frederick Church, Winslow Homer, Augustus Saint-Gaudens and William Merritt Chase. Its immediate popularity attested to the need for this building type in New York, but no others existed at that time.

The Studio Building served as a Mecca for artists and became a focal point for artists' organizations such as the Artists' Fund Society which had its headquarters there, and the Tile Club which was located nearby. Those who could not rent space at the Studio Building, found other quarters nearby and Greenwich Village became New York's art center. The numerous skylights (to capture the most daylight possible) found on buildings throughout the Village attest to the presence of these art studios.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the art community in New York grew, and their activities required more space for studios, meeting and exhibition rooms. This group, like other New Yorkers, moved uptown and dispersed. One developer, W. Jennings Demorest, made "a specialty of artists' studios in many of his buildings, among which are The Knickerbocker (cor. Fifth Avenue and 14th Street), The Manhattan (95 Fifth Avenue), [and] The Jennings (10 E. 14th Street)."

Other individuals created studios in any building where sufficient space and light could be obtained at an affordable price. During the last part of the nineteenth century, two buildings were specifically constructed uptown with space for artists' studios. These were the Sherwood Studios at 58 West 57th Street (demolished) and Carnegie Hall (built 1891; a designated New York City Landmark) , also on West 57th Street. When the American Fine Arts Society erected its building at 215 West 57th Street (a designated New York City Landmark) also in 1891, with rooms for meetings, exhibitions and classes, it was clear that the artistic community was moving northward.


History of the Bryant Park Area

The area known today as Bryant Park was well beyond the city limits when it was purchased in 1822 by New York City as a paupers' burial ground. In 1842, the Croton Reservoir was constructed on Fifth Avenue, between 40th and 42nd Streets because the area was so remote. Behind it, in 1853, rose the Crystal Palace, built for an international exhibition of that year. This structure burned to the ground in 18 58 and the site became known as Reservoir Square. In 1884, the name was changed to Bryant Park, after the poet William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878).

By this time New York had made considerable progress in its expansion northward and the area around the park was fully developed with mansions on Fifth Avenue and smaller individual houses on the side streets. Sixth Avenue, with its Elevated Railroad was a business center, retail by day and other, more lively trades by night. Storefronts lined the street, often with "French flats" abov

Each year since 1985, Roosevelt High School in Des Moines has held an all-night Senior Party for graduates following the commencement ceremony. The entire school is decorated by parents around a theme. This year it was "R World" with different parts of the school representing getting out into and around the world: there was an airport terminal, a French cafe, an Italian bistro, a Monte Carlo casino, etc. There is also food and activities throughout, everything from Salsa dance lessons to massage therapists to, in this case, a caricaturist.

I volunteered to take some photos throughout the event, many of which I had already posted including a version of this shot. But, looking back on what I had shot this week this was my favorite photo: pleased with the focus, the lighting and the happy subject.

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