During my time in Sydney, I was lucky enough to experience Australia Day. Basically one big party (much like our 4th of July), Australians spend the day outside on the beach, at a barbeque with friends or like I did, at the Botanical Gardens located next to the Sydney Opera House. The holiday celebrates the day of the landing of the first British fleet on the country’s shores in 1788, marking British rule over the island.

It was a lot of fun. However, I learned that many Australians have mixed feelings about celebrating Australia Day because of the treatment of the Aboriginal people by the British when they took control of the country. I saw many Aboriginal flags flying alongside the Australian one throughout the day.

Aboriginal Flag

The beautiful Sydney Harbor Bridge was completed in 1932. It took eight years and 1,500 men to build. The locals refer to it as the “Coathanger.” It links North Sydney to South Sydney. It carries eight car lanes, 2 train lines, a pedestrian walkway and a cycle lane. Visitors can visit the South Eastern Pylon and climb to the top. If you are daring and good with heights (which I am not!), you can do a bridge climb. At any time during the day if you look close enough, you can see people moving about on the top of the bridge near the flags.

I managed to get away with not climbing the Harbor Bridge but you can only be a wimp for so long in Australia until someone calls you out on it. In my case, that was how I ended up signing up for Surf Camp. I spent one whole weekend learning how to ride (and not so gracefully fall off of) waves.

One of the many glorious things about Sydney is how the city is so connected to the beach. Minutes away from the downtown bustle are plenty of beaches, like Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach. Many of the names of places in Australia originate from Aboriginal words (such as Bondi) which are really fun to pronounce like Woolloomooloo, a harbor suburb of Sydney (which I believe is where Russell Crowe lives).

Just a few hours drive from the city, is the wine region of Hunter Valley. Here the most common grapes are Semillion, Chardonnay and Verdelho in the white varietals and Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in the reds. Australian wine makers have pretty much abandoned using corked wine bottles and instead have screw tops, making it easier to have an impromptu picnic.

I also visited Tasmania. An island itself separated from mainland Australia by the large body of water Bass Strait, Tasmania is one of the states/territories of Australia. This is Wine Glass Bay on the Eastern Coast of Tasmania. Tasmania is named after Dutch commander Abel Tasman who originally named it Van Diemen’s Land for the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. Later, the British took over and made it into a penal colony.

Of course, what trip to Tasmania would be complete without seeing some tasmania devils? I saw these two at a wildlife park (not in the wild!).  They are normally no bigger than a small dog but have incredibly powerful jaws. At feeding time, I saw these little devils devour large pieces of meat, bone and all, in a matter of seconds. I can also confirm for those of you who are wondering, that they do make much the same sound as the Looney Tunes character, mainly when they eat.

And speaking of animals, the variety of wild life found in Australia is like no other in the world. I fell in love with the animals of Australia. Well, the cute, cuddly ones anyway, not the deadly and dangerous ones like the snakes, jelly fish, spiders, sharks, crocodiles, etc (play this funny spoof tourism song to learn about that type of wildlife).

This is a little wallabee I met on a hiking trail. She has a little joey in her pocket.

I never got over how kangaroos just lounged around everywhere, throughout the entire country. As a non-Australian it is so shocking to see them just bouncing around. You can understand how confused the British were when they first arrived. I heard on one of my many guided trips that when Australia sent over the first platypus specimen to England, scientists in England began cutting open the specimen looking for stitches. They thought it was impossible that such an animal existed and that it must have been sewn together as a joke.

I learned that a good place to find kangaroos was by going to the local golf course.

This is the only koala that I saw outside of a wildlife park. They are hard to spot in the wild as they usually sit high in trees. They are solitary animals and sleep most of the time. They survive almost completely on eucalyptus leaves that are poisonous to most other animals. Handling koalas, something that you can do in zoos as a tourist attraction, causes high stress levels in koalas and has been known to significantly lower their age expectancy. It is now a frowned upon practice but can still be found in some wildlife parks. Despite their appearance, I can say that they are not soft at all (I petted, but did not hold one) and their strong claws are not inviting in the least.

Exotic birds could be found almost anywhere. Cockatoos used to wake me up in the morning. They make the most terrible, screechy sounds and would perch right on my balcony everyday. I saw a rainbow lorikeet one of my first days in Sydney and I worried that someone’s pet bird had gotten loose, but they are, in fact, part of the local wild fauna.

rainbow lorikeet

Aside from the animals that we normally identify with Australia, they are plenty more that I never knew existed. This little guy is a quokka. Ever heard of a quokka? Me neither, until I visited Rottnest Island off the coast of Perth. I could go on and on about the animals!

This is Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsunday Islands off the Great Barrier Reef. All together there are 74 small islands of the coast of Queensland, Australia in the Coral Sea, most of them uninhabited. It was like paradise!

Believe it or not, Australia has some pretty serious skiing. The mountain of Thredbo, just five hours from Sydney, is a popular spot in the winter months of July and August. I am from Chicago, but trust me, this was real skiing. The season is short, but there are are plenty of ski enthusiasts and affordable rental agencies that rent out not only ski boots and skis, but snow jackets and pants, that make skiing fun and easy.

Spending New Year Eve in Sydney was one of the highlights of my time in Australia. The city has an amazing fireworks display. They light fireworks off of the Harbor Bridge and all around off of other buildings. I took this photo while sitting on the beach in 80 degree weather.

Not bad, Australia. If only it wasn’t so very very far away!

The grand entrance to the Andrew Freedman Home faces the Grand Concourse in the Bronx located steps from the subway. Behind the steel gate and fence lies an impressive mansion that has been abandoned for 25 years and has fallen into disrepair. The mansion, owned by millionaire Andrew Freedman, became a home for rich people that lost their fortunes during the Depression. When I walked up to the building, I saw the tarp covered staircase and assumed that there must be another way in.

Walking around to the rear of the mansion, I found this back entrance. Currently, the ground floor of the home is occupied and being used as a community center. Children and their families bustle through this back entrance. Inside I found classrooms and activities taking place inside. However, when I stepped outside again to take a better look (and there weren’t any strollers passing by) I began to imagine what this mansion was like years and years ago. By looking at this rear entrance, you can imagine how the previous residents entered the mansion in style.

The first floor has a number of spacious ballroom and banquet spaces. In the year following the Depression, though those that lived here had lost their fortunes, the Home provided them with the lush surroundings that they were accustomed to. Fancy dinners and events were held in these spaces.

Here is another example of event space located on the 1st floor.

The most interesting part of my visit was taking a look on the 2nd floor. Eerie and quite, this floor seems to have been completely forgotten. This is where the residents had once lived. Individual apartments line the wide hallway, each with its own private bathroom. Christmas decorations were sitting in the hallway, a ghostly reminder that this was once the home of a vibrant and active community of people. The tree and presents look as though they were pulled out from one of the abandoned apartment rooms.

Most of the rooms look like this. Personal items, clothes, furniture are in heaps.

A few of the rooms are completely empty with the exception of the cracking walls. In this room, a phone was still mounted on the wall.

Small details like this beautiful door knob were a constant reminder to me of the mansion’s past as I wondered around. This mansion was once the home for residents with extravagant tastes and standards, but whose fortunes disappeared right before their eyes.

No Longer Empty’s exhibition is scheduled for April. They will be using some of the larger banquet spaces on the 1st floor as well as a number of rooms on the 2nd floor. You can read more about the exhibition here. Titled after the F. Scott Fitzgerald book, This Side of Paradise, the exhibition and its programming “will celebrate human ingenuity, the strength of the human spirit and the resilience needed to fashion beauty, hope and rejoicing from the simplest of resources.” (No Longer Empty website)

This will be a fabulous opportunity to breathe new life into this historical site.

Andrew Freedman Home
1125 Grand Concourse, Bronx

Saturday, February 11, 2012
Starting at 11:00am – evening (5:00-6:30pm)

Join OHNY and Docomomo US for a scavenger hunt across Manhattan and beyond. Spend a day exploring the city and taking photographs in front of examples of modern architecture and design for a chance to win great prizes! Hunt alone or as a team and learn about the historical buildings, spaces, as well find out about the architects and designers that made major contributions to the cityscape. The hunt starting point and event opening will take place at Room & Board in SoHo at 11:00am. The hunt will conclude at the Spring Natural Kitchen, a new restaurant on the Upper West Side, where hunters can rest and enjoy a complimentary drink and munchies from 5:00-6:30pm.

Starting Location: Room & Board, 105 Wooster Street, SoHo
Ending Location: Spring Natural Kitchen, 474 Columbus Ave (between 82nd and 83rd Sts)

Registration: $30

Purchase tickets here.

Rules and Prizes
Objective: Decipher and find as many clues as possible from 11am until the closing reception (5:00-6:30pm) on Saturday, February 11th. Follow the rules below and take photos of each answer to receive points. The top three teams with the most points will win one of the prizes below. The top team will be able to choose their prize, and on down to the third place team.

Prizes (see details at the bottom):
(1) Beck Chair donated by Room & Board
A behind-the-scenes tour of the United Nations
AIA Guide(s) to New York City

Teams: You may hunt alone or as a team. Team limit is 6 people. If you are planning to hunt as a team, the names of your fellow team members is required. Once everyone has purchased tickets for the hunt, please have one member of the team send an email to jailee@ohny.org with the names of all of the team members and your team name before February 9th.

Starting Point and Hunt Packet: Your hunt packet and clue list will be handed out starting at 11:00am on Saturday morning at Room & Board. A drink ticket redeemable for one free drink at the closing reception for each team member will also be included in your hunt packet. Make sure to put them in a safe place while hunting.  Hint: don’t just grab your packet and run – you could snag some points by looking around the showroom at Room & Board.

Points: To score points, each team must take photos in front of as many clue items on the list as possible based on the specifications below. Each item is worth a certain amount of points and participants should collect as many points as possible. All scavenger hunt photos should be uploaded to the Docomomo US Flickr page after the hunt.

To collect points, all team members must first put on their OHNY buttons, which will be given out at the start. Then, you/your team will need to decipher the scavenger hunt clues and take a photo of all of the members of the team but one (one member is allowed to be absent in order to take the photo. If you are hunting alone, you must be in all photos). If, for example, the clue says “a photo of the Ford Foundation building,” you have to submit a picture of you/your team AND the Ford Foundation building. If you’re not in the picture wearing the provided OHNY button, we have no idea when the photo was taken and the photo will not count. No cheating! – any entry that looks like it has been tampered with or taken on a day other than the day of the hunt will be disqualified.

Submitting your photos: After the hunt, participants will need to upload their photos to Flickr, label and tag them with “Docomomo US” and “openhousenewyork”, and share them on the Docomomo US Flickr Group. Teams must upload their photos to Flickr by 2pm on Sunday, February 12. If a team encounters problems with Flickr, photos may also be sent by email to jailee@ohny.org. The same rules apply: the email must be sent by 2:00pm on Sunday, February 12.

When you’re ready to submit your pictures, upload the pictures to Flickr. Please read and follow the following instructions carefully:
1. Label each photo with the clue answer and the scavenger hunt list item number (i.e. The Seagram Building,  Clue #1)
2. Tag each photo with “Docomomo US” and “openhousenewyork”, and share them on the Docomomo US Flickr Group.
3. Drop us a quick message on the Flickr group page so we know which team you are representing.
4. By participating and submitting photos for the hunt, all images become reproducible by Docomomo US and openhousenewyork.

Ending Point: The closing reception for the hunt will be on Saturday evening at Spring Natural Kitchen. All teams should make their way to the end point between 5:00-6:30pm to turn in their OHNY buttons and to enjoy a complimentary drink. Small appetizers will also be available courtesy of the restaurant. Other goodies and small raffle items will be handed out during the closing reception.

In the event of a tie: Should two teams have equal amount of points for any of the top three positions, OHNY and Docomomo will ensure that all winners receive one of the above prizes (not including the Beck chair).

Good luck and happy hunting!

Winners will be announced on Wednesday, February 15.

Prizes

Beck Chair (Danby) – retail value: $899

The Danish-inspired design of Beck features a tailored seat that sits in a solid walnut frame.
Thoughtful details make the design ultra-comfortable, including sculpted wood arms and a precise angle to the comfortable seat.

Behind-the-scenes tour of the U.N. – retail value: priceless

The tour will showcase the architecture of the U.N. and its current renovation.
Winners will get a special look at the iconic building and access to areas that are normally closed off to the general public.

AIA Guide to New York City – retail value: $44.99

First published in 1968, the AIA Guide to New York City has long been the definitive guide to the city’s architecture. The Fifth Edition continues to include places of historical importance and includes the building boom that has given rise to an unprecedented number of new buildings by such architects as Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, and Renzo Piano.

The garden was design by Hideo Sasaki, a modernist landscape architect who co-founded Sasaki, Walker and Associates. with Peter Walker in 1957. It was completed in 1959 and sits at the middle of Washington Square Village. The garden and residential towers make up one of two superblocks, a controversial urban design initiative that was led by Robert Moses and originally part of the Mayor’s Committee on Slum Clearance project. The superblock in which the Sasaki Garden is located was purchased by NYU in 1964.

Georgia Silvera Seamans, a member of the Save the Sasaki Garden Committee, points out the location of the garden between the residential towers.

This block was designed to create an isolated urban space for its residents. As Ellen Jouret-Epstein writes, “you feel that the buildings have turned their back on the street. But, walk inside, and you find a secret garden.” (read Jouret-Epstein’s Garden Rehabilitation Plan here).

The garden and the architecture of the building (designed by Paul Lester Weiner) was developed together to create a harmonious central green space to be enjoyed by the local community.

One of the defining design elements of the park is the crab apple tree bosquet with concrete planters that form benches. The use of materials and structural design of the garden display the influence of modernist architecture of the time.

At the time of its construction, the garden was also an innovation in roof-top green spaces as it sits four feet above ground level on top of a 670-car parking garage.

Another charming element that is from the original design of the garden are the globe light fixtures.

Admittedly, this bleak and snow-less winter is not the best time to visit any garden so the Save the Sasaki Garden Committee member, Hubert J. Steed, was kind enough to supply me with photos with more picturesque views.

Click here to view a full archive of Hubert’s photos of the garden.

Much has changed since 1959, plants have died and have been removed. Other lighting elements have been taken out (as you can see from the empty concrete and metal bases) and the park’s fountain has gone into disrepair. But, the cultural and historical significance of the garden still remains. It is a historical monument to modernist design and the integration of green space in urban planning during the 1950s. It is also an integral part of the daily lives of the local community.

The cardinal, a frequent visitor to the garden, is the mascot of the Save the Sasaki Garden Committee. Under the NYU 2031 Plan, the spacious and green children’s playground just next to the garden will be destroyed and moved into the garden to make room for a temporary NYU sports complex. Countless trees will be cut down in the process. The new buildings of NYU will tower over the garden and will highly reduce the amount of sunlight it receives.

As NYU pushes forward with their 2031 plan, it is obvious where the local community stands. It is a hot political issue in Greenwich Village as can be seen from signs up on all of the trees in the neighboring green space that lines LaGuardia Place. The plan stands to completely alter the urban landscape of this area and destroy a large amount of public green space.

I want to extend my thanks to the members of the Save the Sasaki Garden Committee for their hospitality. Hubert and Georgia gave me a great tour. I learned so much about the park that seems so hidden but is also so welcoming once you step inside.

This short video was shot by Jordan Rennert during my visit to the Sasaki Garden. Take a look!

The Sasaki Garden is open to the public and is located within the block of LaGuardia Place and Mercer Street and West 3rd Street and Bleecker Street. You can enter the garden by walking through the entrances to the residential towers on either the north or the south ends of the block.

Sylvia Smith (left) talking about WCS' Center for Global Conservation

Sylvia Smith, Senior Partner at FXFOWLE Architects (the firm behind the design for both buildings) and Sue Chin Vice President of Planning and Design & Chief Architect at WCS were our chief experts and guides. First stop was the WCS Center for Global Conservation.

Completed in 2009, this LEED-certified Gold, three-story building serves as the headquarters for WCS’s international programs as well as the administrative offices and scientific research that occurs within the Bronx Zoo. As Sylvia and Sue explained, the natural wooded landscape and its elements of nearby rock outcroppings and topography played a large part in the design of the building.

administrative and research offices

Walking inside the Conservation Center we could see how many of the interior meeting and gathering spaces also featured exterior extensions encouraging employees to eat lunch or even conduct meetings outdoors.

The facility also includes an intensive green roof that includes an 18-inch layer of local grasses and shrubs that help to regulate the temperature of the building.

Our second stop was to the Bronx Zoo Lion House. This designated landmarked Beaux-arts building was closed to visitors in the late 1970s when the lions were relocated to more spacious environments. The reconstruction of the Lion House was completed in 2008 and transformed the open-air cages into natural environs for the flora and fauna all native to Madagascar.

the perks of being  lemurs

The “green” features of the building include a greywater recycling system and geothermal wells incorporating both FXFOWLE and WCS’s missions of practicing environmental sustainability.

We had an awesome time learning and hearing about the challenges and design concepts for each building to fit the needs and specifications of the WCS.

Afterward, we got the chance to spend the day and explore other parts of the Zoo.

grizzly bears!

Our thanks to Sylvia and Sue as well as a very special thanks to Brien McDaniel at FXOWLE for organizing this tour for us!

Bronx Zoo
2300 Southern Boulevard