Had you heard about the Peter Max collection of Corvettes?

above photos Tony Cenicola / nytimes.com

Above photo David Allee / nymag.com

36 vintage Corvettes in a parking garage in Brooklyn.

One Corvette for each year they were made, starting with a pearl-white ’53 (one of only 300) and ending with a red 1989, they were the prize in a contest sponsored by VH1, the cable music channel, in 1989. The contest awarded the whole lot to one winner, Dennis Amodeo, a carpenter from Long Island. HE sold the whole bunch for $500,000 to Peter Max who intended to paint them all as rolling art, but never got around to it. So the Vettes sat and gathered dust for about 20 years. They recieved a lot of publicity... but no love or interest from Peter.

The collection was a promotion envisioned by Jim Cahill who realized the VH1 audience was a good target demographic for any year Corvette and the contest would boost ratings. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/automobiles/collectibles/14corvette.html and http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/11902/

If you want to see more Corvette collections: http://www.corvetteblogger.com/index.cfm?mode=cat&catid=0858DC6A-96E9-F603-0D61AE51B9511412

NYPD detectives parking illegally, and getting towed!

Dozens of detectives say they have had their department cars towed — by their own department.

On at least 35 occasions, have walked outside to find their cars hooked by a special detail of the Internal Affairs Bureau that hunts for illegally parked cop cars.

From http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/detectives_getting_tow_nailed_KmuIlC8eJkI9k1WDyHFOcJ
Via: http://gothamist.com/2010/03/09/detectives_say_their_cars_shouldnt.php

Comments in this news article point out that the cops took overtime pay to get the cars out of the tow yard. Further endearing is that the city cars, were being locked up... by... the city. So, stupidity abounds, NYPD cops are hypocrites and not aware of the oath of office they swore (and that pisses me off) and then complained about Internal Affairs busting them for being parking a-holes. Int he word of the great Walter Matthau "Putz!"

But when their former leader New York City police commissioner Kerik just plead guilty to no less that 8 Ferderal Felony Charges, what can you expect of leaderless NYPD? That their integrity would be scupulous? http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/bernard_b_kerik/index.html?inline=nyt-per

not that I'm on a roll, but everywhere you look at New York news the cops are hypocrits and worse http://queenscrap.blogspot.com/2010/03/another-cop-claims-he-was-pressured-to.html

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton's dictum, April 1887
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton

New York streetcars from decades ago, among the warehouses along the waterfront

notice the 150 year old (or so) warehouses that were built to last, and with full hurrucane shutters... amazing. The streetcars still have the power lines above them, and with so many open windows they surely won't last for asvmany more years as they've had, before the weather just detriorates them from the inside out. The last of their kind? Probably, can you imaging any others that were saved from scrap, allowed to keep their peice of track, and weren't buearacratically removed from public enjoyment? I suppose very very few people looking at them feel any nostalgia, and maybe I'm one of a handful that is glad they are still around just to look at.

Via an awesome website that focuses on New York City historical bits of architecture and history that is everywhere but seldom noticed, like gargoyes, statuary on buldings (even in Times Square) and is all noticed and posted by a wonderful writer who swears very well at the destruction of the cool old buildings that developers are quickly making disappear to be replaced with glass and steel nondescript high rise condos.

http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=12 has these street cars and his jaunt to a neighborhood called Red Hook, where the warehouses are great, and their is a perfect front view of the Statue of Liberty

Studebaker buildings in New York

Above once had a 2 story glass windowed showroom. It was designed in 1920, but was past its glory days in 1929 when the stockmarket imploded and they started selling used cars here. Now it's a low rent apartment building. http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2009/04/walkabout_with_1.php?gallery1416Pic=2#gallery-1416 for an interesting historical perspective of it and the "Automobile Row" of New York
Photo via:http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=802

The above was an automobile finishing building for Studebaker during the 1920's. The same stock market crash killed it too. http://www.cuf.columbia.edu/workinginstudebaker/docs/Studebaker/history.html

Beautiful advertising from 1924, found in Sevilla Spain also via: http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=802

Bedford Avenue and Manhattan Avenue in New York, 1928 photo with a lot going on

on the far right is a street sweepers push cart, at the far end of that building is the streetcar. On the left is a car with a grill I don't recognize at all! via: http://roughingitblog.tumblr.com/page/3