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JP Floru 🇬🇧

@jpfloru

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🦁 Author/property/lawyer Covent Garden. Not 9 to 5. Unusual. Free markets & individuals. All cats. Want to restore a chateau? Art: @floru.art

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Photo 9 was the most striking thing I saw today. By Martine Gutierrez. Oh and the famous banana. Two Picassos of his Early Depressive period - perhaps he couldn't afford expensive colours? Observe the paint is heavily diluted - again pointing at poverty. How his fortunes changed ✨

The architecture of The Solomon Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue will forever upstage whatever art will be put into it. Frank Lloyd Wright's 1959 masterpiece is why I went - I knew from previous visits that the permanent collection, though quite good, is not as outstanding as the MOMA or the Metropolitan Museum.
It is an architectural tour de force which you have to see. Most walls are not straight but curved. How they achieved this absolute spectacle is beyond me.

The temporary exhibition was photographic work by Taryn Simon. Basically a critique on contemporary America. As such some of the subjects were quite inventive. Personally I go to museums for the beauty of the art; not for the social critique, which I think is better left to politiciansand journalists. But that's just me.

Photo 3 is stolen from google because for some reason they have painted some of the bottom bits in a reddish brown - undoing the off white harmony which was half the point of the building.

The banana cracked me up. Well yes, if an urinoir, why not a banana.
9/10

#guggenheim #ues #tarynsimon #manhattan #martineguttierez taken in Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum by @jpfloru

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2 days ago

The architecture of The Solomon Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue will forever upstage whatever art will be put into it. Frank Lloyd Wright's 1959 masterpiece is why I went - I knew from previous visits that the permanent collection, though quite good, is not as outstanding as the MOMA or the Metropolitan Museum.
It is an architectural tour de force which you have to see. Most walls are not straight but curved. How they achieved this absolute spectacle is beyond me.

The temporary exhibition was photographic work by Taryn Simon. Basically a critique on contemporary America. As such some of the subjects were quite inventive. Personally I go to museums for the beauty of the art; not for the social critique, which I think is better left to politiciansand journalists. But that's just me.

Photo 3 is stolen from google because for some reason they have painted some of the bottom bits in a reddish brown - undoing the off white harmony which was half the point of the building.

The banana cracked me up. Well yes, if an urinoir, why not a banana.
9/10

#guggenheim #ues #tarynsimon #manhattan #new york taken in Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum by @jpfloru

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3 days ago

I must take fewer photos. I must take fewer photos. I must take...
1 of Manhattan film poster fame - Sutton Place
2 On Madison Avenue ues
3 Madonna's 3 houses got permission for an eight foot fence. Ues
4 a bad over-lit photo of me on Fifth A
5 The overpriced veg market on Union Square (x 2 / 3)
6 Teddy Roosevelt's wonderful house.
7 Same
8 Washington Square North. sad that the NYU has taken most buildings.
9 Ah the hidden gem mews!
10 Still don't know who cat man is
11 Jackson Pollock liveth here
12 Best pizza. Try the White Sicilian.
13 Lady Gaga liveth here
14 Black girl you've been gentrified!
16 Stonewall. Were they there at the riots
17 Apple Juice from two apples.
18 Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick live here. Ai overrun: they own BOTH houses. Broderick says he never leaves the four blocks and neither would i.
20 the ferry at East 34th.

#manhattan #westvillage #matthewbroderick #newyork #ues taken in Manhattan, New York by @jpfloru

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4 days ago

It had to be done. The East Village Indian restaurant where JFK Jr. & Carolyn Bessette often ate and which features in the Love Story series (the penultimate episode is a complete travesty but let's not go there 🤪)
I am told the Madras was excellent though my Tikka Massala was the blandest of the bland compared to London and the taste was ENTIRELY different. The owner arrived here from Kerala 42 years ago and was super friendly. Several free extras. Would def go back. Arrived early to avoid the crowds.
The decoration is out of this world. Red metallic wrapping paper on the walls with thousands of Christmas lights on the ceiling: it is a sight to behold, and super romantic (eat your heart out, Strand Tandoori Covent Garden with your poverty lighting!!!) Def going back.

#jfkjr #lovestory #carolynebessette #eastvillage #indianrestaurant taken in East Village by @jpfloru

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5 days ago

Some of the best places - not sure I should reveal as the last thing we want is Instahell.

1 and 2 At the Conservatory Water. Used to picnic just northwest of there when I lived here.
3 Washington Mews
4 Washington Square North
5 Still can't identify who cat man was!
6 It truly is the best pizza at Bleecker Street Pizza and it costs very little. My fave was the White Sicilian.
7 Jackson Pollock lived here
8 Lady Gaga lived here
10 Gekko's daughter lives here in Money Never Sleeps
11 Stonewall!
13 Matthew Broderick & Sarah Jessica Parker. Apparently Broderick never leaves the four block radius - I wouldn't either: it's a exquisite area. PS I think they own both houses.
15 the ferry at East 35th.

#westvillage #conservatorywater #jpfloru #ues #manhattan taken in West Village by @jpfloru

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7 days ago

It is quite impossible to capture the experience of Times Square on photos or videos, because of the scale of the countless digital billboards in a quite confined space surrounded by high rises. Comparing it to sedate Piccadilly Circus is a bit silly.
Down there: the circus: tourists, businessmen passing through, instagrammers, people dressed up like Disney characters (I was kissed by Elmo but paid nothing), people waiting in line for cheap theatre tickets, and on this day a Christian pop group singing about all the things Gen Z does wrong (Gen Zeee this being America). Sometimes celebs like Madonna or Lady Gaga give impromptu concerts from The Square , a balcony in one of the billboards.
And yet one street away brownstones in leafy streets.

#timessquare #manhattan #broadway #newyork taken in Times Square, New York City by @jpfloru

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7 days ago

The United Nations! Where the free prosperous nation of Taiwan is not represented, but the West Bank and Gaza are 🥴
The annual summit of heads of state is New York shopping opportunity and stays in five stars hotel for assorted leaders and their entourage at their taxpayers' expense. The New York streets are clogged up for a week.
Still, the mid-century architecture is worthwhile the visit.
The story how the Rockefellers 'donated' the land is a funny one - they kept the land around it 🫢
Always lots of visitors from South Korea - the UN famously sanctioned an international army to liberate it because at the time the USSR applied a 'non attendance' policy (because of another issue) and did therefore not veto it.
Since then communist China and Russia routinely veto anything that could promote freedom and democracy - making the very existence of the UN pointless.

@unitednations
#taiwan #unitednations #manhattan #israel taken in United Nations Headquarter by @jpfloru

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8 days ago

Essential reading @albertinebooks

#albertine #fifthavenue #ues #manhattan #tintin taken in Albertine Books in French and English by @jpfloru

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9 days ago

1 Hudson Yard which strangely I had never been to
2 South Street Seaport, the entire beautiful seafront has for some reason been turned over to a string of Irish pubs?
4 Flatiron Building: two years ago entirely wrapped in scaffolding; now just the bottom floors (TWO YEARS ???)
5 High-line, impossible to photograph nicely as the hard streetscape and planting is a bit chaotic.
6 Hudson Yard
7 West Side Story dance/fight scene was filmed here
9 High-Line: the fully grown bits are gorgeous
10 Sutton Place and the view used on the photos for the film Manhattan with Woody
12 ONE house
13 Favourite spot, the Conservatory Water. When I lived here we pic-nicked many weekends just northwest of here. Nobody was ever sure whether the bottles of wine needed to be covered in brown bags in Central Park
14 The wonderful French bookshop on Fifth Avenue, the Albertine.
15 Last remaining wooden houses in the Upper East Side
16 Fifth Avenue

#conservatorywater #hudsonyard #albertine #ues #manhattan taken in Manhattan, New York by @jpfloru

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9 days ago

Some more random photos of the greatest city on earth ✨
1 is The Oculus, in my view the most beautiful building of the last 20 years
2 Holy Trinity Wall Street, the wealthiest C of E church in the world
4 here lived JFK Jr
5 a Chinatown still wholly devoted to free Taiwan
8 the cat shelter Bideawee Pet Adoption Center
11 it does not get more authentic than ancient Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery

#manhattan #jfkjr #oculus #taiwan #yonahschimmelknishbakery taken in Manhattan, New York by @jpfloru

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10 days ago

Taken a shine to panorama format - ideal for filming walking people. Happy Tuesday 🌞

3 was Cosi Fan Tutte at the Met
4 is The Chelsea Hotel
6 is @cafesabarsky
7 is Jackie O's former apartment on Fifth Avenue
10 is New Jersey seen from Battery Park City

#manhattan #jackiekennedy #cafesabarsky #chelseahotel metoper taken in Manhattan, New York by @jpfloru

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11 days ago

Some random New York photos and vids.
3: Woody Allen's house
4: watch the shoes; it rained the first four days
5: irving Place (Gramercy Park)
7: from my room
8: as seen in the WASP place
9: sheltering ffrom the rain in the Frick
10: sheltering from the rain at Bloomingdale's
13: Andy Warhol's house
17: the Chrysler is not visible from many places anymore
20: entry to Grand Central Station

#frickmuseum #grandcentral #woodyallen #andywarhol #manhattanstory taken in Manhattan, New York by @jpfloru

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15 days ago