March 2, 2008

Staring out the window at a Starbucks....

On Broadway, in SoHo.

Starbucks in SoHo

I'm sure no reader can guess what element of this picture caused me to get out my camera and take a shot. You'll need to look at the enlargement.

If you find this bloggish pop quiz too taxing, here's a little doggy to make you happy:

A little doggie

45 comments:

ricpic said...

Lease that store. Fill it with huge blowups of the best of your blog photos. Instant success. Both artistic and commercial. (I'm only half kidding.)

Peter V. Bella said...

Ahhh, come on now Althouse. it can't be. Is it her? Or is it some one who resembles her?

Peter V. Bella said...

Althouse photgraphing the interior of Starbucks. What the camerea misses is the guy getting pistol whipped outside while his bag with 150K is stolen.

ricpic said...

Monica looks stain free, or...is that Maxine?

rhhardin said...

Jacqueline Lamont hat shop.

PWS said...

The red bow on a garbage bag. How odd?

dbp said...

I don't know, it could be the oddly named "jewelry cafe" in that super narrow building, or the lady with a scarf who looks like a rube-like man with a napkin stuffed into his collar...

Ron said...

The Gila (monster) building?

Peter V. Bella said...

She sits alone. In the corner of the coffee shop. Waiting. He promised to meet her there. It has been years since she has seen him. He promised a lot of things to a lot of people. Will he show up?

She sits alone. WIth her thoughts. How could something so good have gone so wrong? She needs answers. Maybe this was not a good idea.

She sits, with the same beret. The flash of sexy smile is gone. replaced by a careworn grimace.

She sits alone.

Palladian said...

Chubby girl, skinny building.

tjl said...

The ambiguities and vexations of urban life are ever on display at Starbucks. Post a photo of a Westie, though, and all problems vanish.

Omaha1 said...

Must have been the "Medium Brown Bag". It looks pretty big to me! Wonder what a "Large Brown Bag" looks like.

JackDRipper said...

Like everybody else at first I thought you were sneaking a photo of the Monica lookalike.

I searched for men in shorts, carrots, onion rings, young hotties with heaving bosoms and couldn't find any.

You said we need to see an enlarged photo and that's when I was shocked and horrified when I saw it.

On the other side of the street I noticed the clever placement of the letters "orch monk ey" and "pear chuk er" on one of the shopping bags and I thought - Dayum, Hillary's at it again!!!

I'm going with rhhardin that it was the abandoned hat store.

Rick Lee said...

Do you suppose that's where Jacqueline Lamont started her hat business before she got famous?

Palladian said...

"Wonder what a "Large Brown Bag" looks like."

like this... Fear how big it might actually be!

dave_WI said...

The sign with the word clothing on it. The word to the left is an M E and half a C so my mind is telling me that the next letter has to be a C, which spells mecca. It is quite obvious to me that that store is a front to recruit Blond women to be suicide bombers since they probably don't have arab clothing. Good work Anne; get out of there fast.

J said...

What's that thing under the Lexus?

Anonymous said...

Hi - new to this blog love the pics. What kind of lens do you use to get this rounded effect?

dave_WI said...

you have got to be kinding me afish. That is a fish eye lense.

Headless Blogger said...

The Gila building, all that boring architecture with this gem in the middle. Back to the Althouse 'details above street level' meme.

Freeman Hunt said...

The dreadlocks... The Medium Brown Bag...

Palladian said...

"The Gila building, all that boring architecture with this gem in the middle."

That building is just as boring as the others in the pictures. It just has nice "frosting" stuck all over it. That was the beauty of the cast iron building- most of them were completely utilitarian squares or rectangles but elevated by the creative use of out-of-a-catalog cast iron and sheet metal skin and and ornamentation.

dick said...

the light in the window and the light in the window across the street and upstairs?

Kel said...

What is wrong with that girl's finger?

Unknown said...

*If you find this bloggish pop quiz too taxing, here's a little doggy to make you happy.*

LOL! One of the funniest blog lines ever.

blake said...

The guy with the giant Starbuck's logo for a head?

Awfully serendipitous, eh, what?

I thought "taxing" might have been a clew but I couldn't suss out what it meant if it was.

New York streets are dirty.

Ann Althouse said...

afish said..."Hi - new to this blog love the pics. What kind of lens do you use to get this rounded effect?"

LOL, a fish. I'm surprised you even noticed!

Anyway... not to be endlessly mysterious. What interested me is almost invisible in the photo, even when I attempt to blow it up. Look at the top edges of the Gila building. (I'm interested in that monstrous name, but didn't perceive it from my café seat.) There are huge urns, with precariously narrow bases. They look like something from an Edward Gorey cartoon.

The woman at the left looks so glum, but in fact she was laughing most of the time I was sitting there. I've never seen anyone enjoy simple people-watching as much as she did. The picture is entirely unrepresentative of her attitude. That's just want happens in photography. I knew I could get her in the picture with the fisheye and that she would have no idea that she would be within the camera shot... one of the advantages of a fisheye.

As to the people on the street: they're all doing that grim, purposeful New York walk. And they nicely exemplify that New Yorkers aren't that fashionable. All those Michelin-Man down jackets and coats! The woman looks like a chess piece -- the white queen.

Bluto said...

Someone call the ASPCA. The poor Westie has a summer cut and no sweater.

Palladian said...

"And they nicely exemplify that New Yorkers aren't that fashionable. All those Michelin-Man down jackets and coats! The woman looks like a chess piece -- the white queen."

It's SoHo, so I'd assume the people outside are 89% tourists.

George M. Spencer said...

A is for Amy who fell....

...for those who don't know of Mr. Gorey...

Trooper York said...

Hey, don't you know that all the fasihonable people are shopping in Brooklyn these days. Soho is so 1990's ya know what I'm sayin'

rhhardin said...

Chicken watcher watches passing Ohio chickens doing chicken stuff today.

It's 60F. That snow isn't going to last long.

rhhardin said...

Gorey :
Little Zooks of whom no one was fond
Was launched towards the roof and beyond
The infant's trajectory
Took him over the rectory
And into a lily-choked pond.

Ann Althouse said...

Thanks for the Gorey link. "T is for Titus who flew into bits." Where is our Titus?

Ann Althouse said...

"It's SoHo, so I'd assume the people outside are 89% tourists."

Typical New Yorkers' excuse. Oh, those people? They are from out of town.

Trooper York said...

Well, I don’t know why you took the first photo. But the second photo is a dog sniffing out a spot to urinate. Another in the long list of photos which deals with your strange obsession with dog’s urinating. It’s getting as bad as the squirrel thing.

Peter V. Bella said...

Trooper York said...
Hey, don't you know that all the fasihonable people are shopping in Brooklyn these days. Soho is so 1990's ya know what I'm sayin'



And I'll bet you know a store or two...

Trooper York said...

Just one buddy, just one. But the professor is too busy gadding around town because she's in with the in crowd.

Trooper York said...

Today we had in an editor from Vanity Fair, a doctor, a dentist,
six regular working people and the cumare of a capo from the Gambino's who needed a dress for the plea bargain sentencing after everyone got pinched two weeks ago. She won't need it till June, so we special ordered it.

Unknown said...

It's funny, my wife and I were furniture shopping at the CB2 and Z Gallerie next to that Starbucks on Saturday. Small world indeed.

Peter V. Bella said...

BTW Trooper,
That dog in the pic does not urinate. It piddles.

hdhouse said...

the Jewelry Cafe no doubt

Ger said...

AA says:

"What interested me is almost invisible in the photo, even when I attempt to blow it up. Look at the top edges of the Gila building."

Interesting choice of lens to capture an architectural detail :)

Adam Bailey said...

I saw those too, but thought they were cell-phone receivers.

Ann Althouse said...

Ger, I don't carry lenses around with me when I'm walking. I pick a lens and then it's my task to find things to do with it. It's like writing sonnets. Anyway, I'll try to take my telephoto lens when I go into SoHo next time. Stay tuned.