terra non firma: waaaay too long

Monday, May 14, 2007

waaaay too long

I can't believe I haven't updated this blog for a month. how does that happen? I've been pretty active on curbed, but this poor blog has been neglected. so what has been going on?

in the past month have been to san francisco, boston, and am now in ny, having left LA the day the griffith park fires erupted. its been years since I had been to SF and I forgot how much I like that city. I could never live in a city that requires so much walking uphill and is so unfriendly to heels, but I still love it. I stayed near the moscone center and union square in a charming, very small hotel called the mosser. I found it online and had never been, but it was a very good refurb of an old victorian building. and in just 3 days I managed to make my way over to the mission/potrero hill for an npr interview, to china basin for some meetings, and to japantown for omakase. final verdict: LA has SF's sushi beat. perhaps its unfair to judge by one restaurant, but I still have yet to find sushi outside LA that is even on par with your typical strip mall joint in LA.

and boston. more specifically, I was in cambridge for a conference. it felt very much like london. it was april but drizzling and cold and cambridge has an interesting mix of mainly industrial architecture, with a touch of the collegiate. I spent most of my time on the MIT campus, which is a bit soulless. I didn't get over to the crazy Frank Gehry Stata Center, regrettably. but my hotel was just a hop skip and a jump from Steven Holl's Simmons Hall, a building apparently inspired by a bath sponge. and possible a prison. in space? of course, it photographs well, but just looked so completely out of context as it sits forlornly overlooking a soccer field, surrounded by...nothing.

image from flickr cityofsound

and new york. now I'm in ny and was able to proudly watch my little sister receive her MD last week. so this past week has mostly been consumed by family, and hasn't left much time for other stuff. unfortunately, the cooper hewitt has the same exhibition they had the last time I was in town, so my sister and I will need to find an alternative to our usual musuem excursion. tomorrow, however, lunch is at lupa with LA friends who are kindly making an exception to their "no socializing with LA friends while in NY rule." its the power of batali to bring people together.