You Down with LPC?
(Yeah you know the Landmarks Preservation Committee)
New year, new little friend 🥳
Well, this newsletter will change a tiny bit, but I’m happy to report that I’m mostly the same. I fell asleep at 10pm on Dec 31, was scared awake by fireworks at midnight, and then scared awake again in the morning when I opened some ‘happy new year’ texts from friends that my phone decided to animate with fireworks. I spent the last 2 weeks cat sitting 3 beautiful kitties, I watched the first 3 seasons of Bob’s Burgers, the first 2 seasons of The Bear, and altogether watched 15 movies (9 of them new to me). I also ate more desserts than I can count, spruced up the Big City, Little Friend instagram (where I’ll post all the fun things I come across in real time), and did it all while alternating between a single pair of outside pants and a single pair of inside sweatpants (both were washed occasionally).
This will be the first issue of BCLF that’ll have paid content mixed in. I decided to do this because I feel very strongly that people should be paid for the work that they do and while writing this newsletter brings me immense joy, it is also a lot of fuckin work. I created an Instagram so that I can still brain barf some of the fun stuff I find and learn about, but if you want more long form organized thoughts, this is the place to be. I’m a creature that thrives on feedback, so if you have any please know that I’m all ears. I’m new at this so if I fuck it up, sorry in advance. As an extra treat, I’m gonna keep the 15% off discount going a little longer, so smash that mothafuckin subscribe button.
1. Noshing 😋
One of the many dessert places I enjoyed over the last few weeks was Lysée. Lysée is a French-Korean pastry shop by Chef Eunji Lee and if they sound familiar it’s because I mentioned them a few issues back when I wrote about hot chocolate:
I’ve been to Lysée a bunch, but I’ve only ever gotten pastries to go because they absolutely will not let you dine in without a reservation. And that’s generally fine because if you head upstairs they have an amazing assortment of treats laid out like a damn museum exhibition. There’s everything from kouign amann to tarts to cookies to full size cakes (all delicious). But there was one item that was always marked as ‘sold out’ - their famous corn mousse. The mousse apparently takes 3 days to make and can only be claimed if you get there early enough before they run out or if you make a a Signature Reservation. I was no longer taking any chances, so I made a dessert res ($59pp) and prepared to be wowed.
A Signature Reservation guarantees a Corn, a Lysée (their signature cake), a Seasonal Tart & a Kouign Amann. They serve you the items 2 at a time so you’re not overwhelmed and you’re welcome to add anything else you want a la carte. The Lysée and Corn Mousse came out first for us and honestly, they were both fucking delicious.
Now, I love corn. Cornmeal pancakes, cornbread, corn cookies, popcorn, elote, corn fritters, corn on the cob - I’m the fuckin Bubba Gump of corn. And while this corn mousse was definitely delicious, it didn’t blow me away in the way that I thought it would. That’s not to say it wasn’t good though, I just feel like it didn’t live up to the hype I created. That said, the mousse was smooth and had that slight toasty flavor that popcorn does. The corn flavor itself was just corny enough to add a touch of sweetness. And there were little crunchy bit mixed into the mousse that gave it a fun texture. It was delicious, but I won’t lose sleep if it’s sold out again the next time I’m at Lysée.
The Lysée cake, however, really surprised me. I’m always skeptical of “signature items” because they sound boring to me. Like oh, you always just make this same thing all the time no matter what? Well, turns out there’s a reason this is a signature item. It has layers of soft cake that’s flavored with toasty rice and has just enough crunchy specks to make for a contrasting texture. The mousse is super soft and very lightly sweet, so even though it’s quite a thick coating it doesn’t give the same overwhelming sensation of eating a glob of sugar frosting on a sheet cake. I could eat a million of these cakes and the good news is that they’re pretty much always available and you can get them in individual sizes or in a large size (which can still be considered individual if you’re driven enough).
Other standout items on their menu are of course the buckwheat hot chocolate, the buckwheat caramel cookie, the petit jardin (a calamansi pineapple tart), and their VIC (very important chocolate cake). If you visit Lysée, head right upstairs and take your pick of desserts from their museum counter, but be prepared to spend a decent amount on your bounty (it’s worth it though).
2. Exploring 🛼
If you’ve been following my new Instagram (go there for more action shots of trains), you’ve seen me post some shots from the Holiday Train Show at the NY Botanical Garden! This is one of those things I always told myself was a stupid holiday tourist trap and honestly - it really wasn’t. The more I learned about what the Train Show actually was, the more I was convinced that I needed to take the trip into The Bronx to see it for myself. Keep in mind that the show is only open through Jan 17, so you gotta hustle if you still wanna make it this year. A regular NYBG ticket includes access to the show during the day, but if you want to attend the Train Show (or NYBG Glow) at night you have to purchase a separate ticket.
Of course the main draw of the Train Show is all of the cute trains, but the real artistry is in all of the building reproductions made by Laura Busse Dolan and the creative team at Applied Imagination. All of the buildings and landscapes that the trains traverse through are botanical architecture - created entirely of natural materials like twigs, seeds, and fungi. Lots of the materials are collected near Applied Imagination’s offices in Kentucky, but some are foraged locally in nature or in greenhouses. When you’re at the show, take some time to look at the buildings really closely and you’ll be able to see all of the distinct and unique materials.
It was an absolute dream for me to be able to traverse all of the city’s biggest hits in 1 hour; I was able to give Lorenzo a full city tour and talk about landmarks that we usually don’t reach IRL. Immediately upon entering the conservatory building I came across a landmark that’s not standing anymore - the Elephantine Colossus of Coney Island! The show also had a replica of the Old Penn Station, which was a beautiful Beux-Arts building that was demolished in the 60s to make way for the shithole Penn Station that tourists throw up in today. It also created a super interesting movement that you might learn about in the next section….
The show had lots of current building, too! At the very end is a collection of some of NYC’s most famous skyscrapers - One World Trade, Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center. They’ve got a replica of the Statue of Liberty with a Staten Island Ferry floating by. Some NYC Ferries are also featured which, fun fact, are often named by NYC students. That’s probably why we ended up with a ferry named Lunchbox (no Boaty McBoatface though). A section I really enjoyed featured not landmarks, but rather apartment buildings showcasing various architectural styles found in NYC. The attention to detail all around was great - they even made sure to feature the famous Macy’s building cutout.
If you’re an architecture nerd, you’ll enjoy the Train Show a lot. And if you’re just a silly goofy guy who likes to watch trains go around on tracks, this will be absolutely delightful for you.
3. What’s Good 😎
It feels weird having this section in the middle now, but I had to move it up because of the paywall break. Sorry if this feels weird to you too, it’s a work in progress!
That Dinner Thing’s January ticket lottery opens on Jan 12! This time around they’re doing two dinner seatings at 5:30pm and 8:30pm and I for one am a big fan of early dinner.
Flying Fox Tavern in Ridgewood is hosting a Cemeterrium-making workshop on Jan 16! What is a cemeterrium you ask? It’s a cute little terrarium but with spooky skulls and gravestones 🥺
Also in Ridgewood, Woodbine is giving out free lion’s mane mushroom grow bags on Jan 13! *cries in mushroom allergy*
Street vendors are no longer allowed to sell items on NYC bridges. On one side of the argument, this will help open up congestion that bubbles up (especially on the Brooklyn Bridge). But on the other side of the argument, now there will be tons of vendors (often immigrants) who are losing out an a much needed source of income. I don’t know if this is the right solution, but it’s the solution our clown ass mayor gave us. (unrelated, but did you know there are 789 bridges in NYC? A crazy fact I learned from ciaooo!’s newsletter)
One of my goals for this year is to do more creative stuff, so I signed up for a pottery/ceramics class at Dirtbag Arthaus in Bushwick! I will definitely be updating you on all of the misshapen tchotchkes I create.
Remember when I went to the Color Factory? One of my favorite podcasts, Stuff You Should Know, recently did an episode on one of the colors I found there - Scheele’s Green!
4. Watching🍿
Of all of the things I watched over the last 2 weeks, I think Poor Things was my favorite. Poor Things is Yorgos Lanthimos’ newest film based on a book by Scottish author Alasdair Gray and it not only looks beautiful, but it tells a pretty dope story. But don’t take my word for it - Lorenzo came out of the theater gushing over the plot rather than the copious amount of boob that was on screen.
Put quite simply, the story follows Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) as a woman with a child’s mind (quite literally) and we get to watch her experience personal growth, relationships, adventure, and just basically everything the world has to offer. The cast is rounded out with everyone’s favorite weird guy Willem Dafoe as Bella’s dad (Godwin, or God to Bella), Ramy Youssef (Max McCandles, her eventual husband), and Mark Ruffalo (playing the absolutely fantabulous Duncan Wedderburn).
And put quite unsimply - this movie is Barbie if it were made in an alternate (and less plastic, more sexually liberated) universe.
Both films explore the awakenings of a female character who had each been naive little babies (one more literally than the other). Barbie is suddenly thrust into a patriarchal world, she’s objectified, and she learns that milk goes bad way too quickly. Bella enters a similarly harsh world after being raised in isolation in her father’s mansion, though the way these two characters move through this new space is a bit different. While Barbie is slightly horrified and ultimately breaks down because everything she believed in is being challenged, Bella instead defaults to challenging these “norms” that she frankly doesn’t understand and so doesn’t give a shit about. Barbie comes with the baggage of context while Bella is literally making her way downtown by doing whatever just feels right and is fairly logical.
Although both characters react to their new worlds differently, they’re sort of cut from the same cloth. Take for example how Margot Robbie discusses getting into character as Barbie (I couldn’t find a written account, so you have to watch the video. Just do it.)
Emma Stone had this to say about Bella Baxter:
Even though Bella has obviously been through trauma in her life, it just isn't there for her now. She was the most joyous character in the world to play, because she has no shame about anything. She's new, you know? I've never had to build a character before that didn't have things that had happened to them or had been put on them by society throughout their lives. It was an extremely freeing experience to be her.
Then you have the Wedderburn/Ken and Ruth/Godwin dichotomies. It is abundantly clear that both Mark Ruffalo and Ryan Gosling had the time of their lives playing these characters. Both were absolutely obsessed with Barbie/Bella to the point that it ruined their lives and drove them mad. Ruth (creator of Barbie) and Godwin (creator of Bella) both learn that they have to let their creations go and live a life beyond what they planned for them. And then another dichotomy that I haven’t seen discussed is Martha Von Kurtzroc (Hanna Schygulla) and Woman on the Bench (Ann Roth).
Barbie tells the Woman on the Bench that she’s beautiful and she responds on perfect Han Solo fashion with “I know.” It’s in this moment that Barbie learns you can still be beautiful and confident even with wrinkles or flat feet and that there is so much more of life that’s worth living. This moment has been described by Greta Gerwig as “the heart of the movie” and I believe a similar moment occurs in Poor Things. When Bella meets Martha on a cruise ship, she immediately begins talking to her about her frequent sexcapades with Wedderburn and is horrified when she finds out that Martha hasn’t had sex in ages. Once they continue speaking though, Bella learns that Martha is quite satisfied pleasuring herself and THIS IS THE SAME THING AS BARBIE. After this moment, Bella begins becoming increasingly unsatisfied being trapped with Wedderburn and she realizes that while yeah sex is great, but have you ever been the captain of your own destiny and not relied on a man for gratification? I absolutely gagged when Wedderburn later criticized Bella for being a prostitute and she responds with “We're our own means of production.” Shut him down, girl!
As much as I love all of the above (and more), I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get a deeper investigation into what it means to have one’s baby’s brain implanted into one’s grown up body. Maybe this would have gotten too existential and sciencey and there just wasn’t enough room in the film for everything, but it feels like a missed opportunity.
5. Learning 🧠
Ok ooh, I teased something earlier when I was writing about the Old Penn Station and that thing is - The NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. A preservation committee was first organized in 1961, but no one really gave a shit about people trying to save old things until the Old Penn Station was demolished and then everyone gave a shit. The demo of Old Penn was dramatically referred to as architectural vandalism and when the NYC Landmarks Law was passed in 1965, the LPC really got going. The Landmarks Law was enacted to “protect historic landmarks and neighborhoods from precipitate decisions to destroy or fundamentally alter their character” and a landmark was described as “a building [that is] at least 30 years old and have either historical or architectural merit.”
There are a few different landmark designations that sites can attain: Individual Landmark, Interior Landmark, Scenic Landmark, and Historic District Status. The degree of preservation depends on these designations. An Individual Landmark must preserve the exterior of the building, while the interior can be changed. The Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn is a good current example of this: parts of the exterior building are Individual Landmarks, which is what allowed developers to renovate the interior while keeping elements of the exterior intact. Pretty dumb that they’re making it office space, but whatever.
NYC is home to about 150 Historic Districts, some of which include additional landmarked buildings. Defining an Historic District can get a little woobly because it must be a region that “contains architectural and historical significance. Landmark districts must also be geographically cohesive with a coherent streetscape and a sense of place.” These are your Brooklyn Heights Federal Houses, your SoHo Cast Iron Buildings, and other areas of the city that look like contained little communities.
But why bother preserving stuff? Is it just a bunch of cranky old people calling the shots? I mean partly yes. There’s a commission that decides this stuff and while I’m sure they try to be diverse and impartial, any decisions are obviously victims of perspective. A building that I, a white woman from Brooklyn, find historically significant might be very different from a building that a Black banker from Queens or a Hispanic store owner from The Bronx finds significant. So that’s obviously a problem. We’ve also sadly lost a bunch of landmarked buildings due to fires, buildings falling into disrepair and having to be torn down, loss of land ownership, or even just the LPC revoking Landmark Status (how embarrassing). But the goal is to preserve a sense of culture and community and not just raze over the past when it goes out of style. There’s a delicate balance between progress and preservation and the LPC walks this line.
First of all, the corn mousse being shaped like corn?? I wasn't expecting it and it DELIGHTED me!
You sold me on Poor Things. On all accounts, but particularly, I want to see Mark Ruffalo have as much fun as Ryan Gosling!
My most relevant-knowledge of landmark status comes from when The Strand fought against it a few years ago - I remember the owner saying it was going to do more harm than good and create a lot of red tape they'd have to wade through in order to make any changes to the store. I don't remember where the whole thing landed - I hadn't realized until then that landmark status could be anything but good!