best way to write your 100th post

(illustration by Jason Edmiston)

Once upon a time, architect Frank Gehry had some cred among progressives. The postmodernist's image probably began fading as his designs started repeating themselves, his style descending into cliché—all those buildings that look like they've already fallen down.

Che cosa avra’ fatto di male il piu’ celebrato degli architetti per meritarsi un trattamento simile? Ma che domande: sta facendo chiudere un bar, no?

… Gehry's pact with developer Bruce Ratner to design the megalithic Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn torpedoed whatever remained of his alterna-rep. The community issues involved with Atlantic Yards are larger than the survival of one neighborhood bar, but those who know and love Freddy's may be some of the most hostile to the Gehry-Ratner axis … The bar's Prospect Heights corner is slated to be leveled to make way for the arena and housing towers.

Freddy’s e’ fresco vincitore del premio "Best Neighborhood Bar Slated For Destruction By Frank Gehry" (che per quanto mi riguarda vince il premio del piu' bel titolo per un premio) assegnato dal Village Voice nell’edizione 2007 del tradizionale Best of NYC. Tra gli altri vincitori segnalo, per mia personale customer satisfaction, "Patti Smith's Last Meal", "Best place to mourn the closing of Tonic, Fez, Sin-é, and other small but important live-music venues" e "Best stand-up/dance/ burlesque club inside a movie theater", nonche', per la bellezza del titolo, "Best place to find dudes with yellow fever", "Best place to creep out retail employees by shopping for do-it-yourself bondage" e "Best place to get murdered, raped, or robbed in the city".