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Early Addition
Seriously, what's the deal with that "clock" in Union Square with all the numbers? No one I know has ever been able to puzzle out. I can see the time in it, but the other numbers don't seem to make any sense!
Thanks!
Marty
Things every New Yorker contemplates at least once: Is that purse real or a knock off? Who makes the best burger? Does the G train really exist? What's up with those numbers on the side of that wacky building south of Union Square?
We know the answer to at least one of these questions.
The short answer is that those numbers are part of an art installation. It was designed in 1999 by Kristen Jones and Andrew Ginzel, and it's called The Metronome. And the numbers are a clock, and we, too, have wasted a lot of time staring at it, trying to figure it out.
The artists say it's "an investigation into the nature of time."
From the official Union Square website:
How to read the clock – the Metronome -- on the art wall at 1 Union Square South? The 15 numbers of the digital clock display time going and coming relative to midnight. Read time going left to right and time coming in the opposite direction. So, if the clock reads 070437000235616 it means that it is 7:04 A.M. (7 hours and 04 minutes since midnight) and that there are 16 hours, 56 minutes and 23 seconds remaining until midnight. The three numbers in between are a blur of moving numbers.
Mystery solved! For more pictures and information, check out the artists' website. We can't really help you with the G train, though.
Photo by Kristen Jones and Andrew Ginzel
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The other funny thing about the bizarre mixed media: There's a hand somewhere on the sculpture, and it's a mirror of the hand on the George Washington sculpture (or whatever sculpture that is) in the park. It's like the hands are giving each other the peace sign from across 14th Street.
What's the deal with the smoke? Is it hourly?
From the above linked artists' website, on the hand:
"A large bronze hand high on the wall gestures a benediction. This hand is an identical enlargement from the historical statue of George Washington in the park directly below. The hand is a reminder of how history is our own creation."
And on the smoke:
"At the center of the brick undulations is an enigmatic hole from which an ephemeral plume of steam emanates suggesting the intangibility of time."
I don't think the smoke comes out at any particular time increment.
This is even more revelatory than the those glowing sticks on top of street lamps! The meaning of that clock has been driving me nuts for YEARS!
I figured out awhile ago. I prefer to think of that clock as a hour glass - time flows from one end to the other end.
Here's what's even more obscure:
"To the right, is the lunar timepiece, composed of a sphere set into a socket, which is synchronized to revolve with the phases of the moon."
Also, what are those things that look like speakers you see on rooftops? I've seen them in enough different neighborhoods to think they have to be something.
The thing is universally called one of the worst and at almost parody levels piece of public art ever created in the design world.
bing, those are for cell phone reception.
worst. art. ever.
"This is even more revelatory than the those glowing sticks on top of street lamps!"
What are the deals with those? There's one about 10 feet outside my front window, and I've wasted a lot of time trying to reason its purpose.
really? none of your friends could figure it out?
i'd seriously consider trading up for some more intelligent friends.
My respect for my big sis exponentially increased when she figured it out after thinking about it for maybe a minute.
Kieth: Those are indicators that there is a fire alarm on the lamp pole. Aftr reading it here, I totally added it to my useless cocktail party banter repertoire.
Keith, the Ask Gothamist answer to your question.
What with the Union Square clock, the fire thingies, and the Jetsons building, Gothamist has made this city a great deal more coherent for me this week.
I've always referred to this building as 'the smoking bunghole.' It is a useful landmark when meeting friends or giving directions - "meet me in front of the smoking bunghole" or "go one block east of the smoking bunghole" etc. I think I have given out enough directions that many people are adopting this moniker and eventually the whole town will refer to it affectionatly as the smoking bunghole.
Not to be a dick or anything, but there is a plaque underneath the Metronome that explains what it is. I guess like real New Yorkers would be too embarassed to be caught reading a plaque on a building...
Here you can see a diagram of the clock and what each number means: http://daryllang.com/d103/archive/2005/01/30/284/
Notice how it's aligned down the center of Park Avenue South and is bookended by Grand Central Terminal.
That's what I love about the street grid. How it inadverdantly creates malls & causeways that bustle with streetlife and landmarked with symbolic terminals & junctions like Washinton Square, Grand Army Plaza (in B'klyn and M'nhtn), and the Williamsburg Bank tower.
I wish there was something more notable at the southern end of Madison Avenue.
Chimpie, I thought my wife and I were the only ones calling that thing "Smoking Bunghole". But I guess it's just so obvious I should have figured we weren't alone. The lunar component is beautiful in an understated way, too bad about the rest of it.
In Tilted Arc, there's hope.
Mr. & Mrs. Maller - Well I guess that makes it official then if other people are coming up with the same name. Chimpie, Mr. & Mrs. Maller shall be jointly credited with coining the name "The Smoking Bunghole" for this building. I suggest that in the year 2008, after this appelation is commonly known to all new yorkers that a ceremonialy plaque be adhered to the building officially designating it as the Smoking Bunghole Building.
Years ago a friend referred to that building as "One Anus Plaza," and I've called it that ever since.
Jon Graf, the plaque beneath does refer to Metronome, but it does not say anything about the LED being a clock.
the G is a crosstown serving Brooklyn and Queens, you midwestern Faux-Yorkers
i don't think it really smokes much anymore. I know they turned the smoke off for obvious reasons after September 11th.