Faded Bricks, Bright Signs

(I was in Florida for a photo shoot—please excuse my blogging negligence! Now, back to Hemingway and the more substantive things in life…)

I have this thing—an infatuation, really— for the forgotten, faded brick walls of important Fifth Avenue buildings. The front facades are polished, washed, homogeneous in their simple, American beauty. The brick side walls, however, are worn and much more telling—an Italian woman at the end of the night after her silks and mascara have been retired for the day.

This fascination led me to the original Charles Scribner’s Sons Building on Fifth Avenue and 48th Street one lethargic August afternoon, a week or so after I moved to the city. My father had always spoken of Maxwell Perkins (the famed editor of Hemingway and Fitzgerald) and Scribner’s and the discipline required to become a “real writer.” But, I didn't know the location of the building that housed these fabled men, their words, sentences and advice. But, somehow, I found it. There I stood, the bumbling Southern transplant--far from a writer--on the curb of a Midtown street, staring up, enthralled by the stencilling and the history behind that sign, high in the sky.

(back tomorrow morning...)