New York City | The First Few

Primus | A Thoroughly Creative Experience

Written by Andrew Payne on October 14, 2011
Art, Creativity, Design, Music, NYC

When you’ve got it, you’ve got it. And Primus definitely has it. They’ve been around since the mid 1980s and remain consistently solid musically and as heavily experimental and progressive as ever. I typically enjoy three solid meals a day of all-things-music (with extra helpings of rock) and consider myself reasonably well-versed but I wasn’t [...]

Free History Lessons | Union Square NYC

Written by Andrew Payne on November 8, 2010
Fashion, Historical, NYC, USA

With everything in New York City so compressed and with everyone moving so quickly, a person can often miss what is right underfoot. Yes, NYC is not “ancient” in the global sense, but we do have quite a bit of evidence of it’s history all around us. I have the pleasure of emerging from the [...]

Signing Your Work | Cast Iron Building Facades

Written by Andrew Payne on October 1, 2010
Architecture, Historical, NYC

For anyone who lives in or frequents Soho, New York City, buildings with cast iron facades are a familiar sight. They are so beautiful that one can’t pass by without noticing their unique texture and details. The majority of the cast iron buildings in Soho were made by local firms using cast iron sections made [...]

Odin New York Menswear Shops

Written by Andrew Payne on March 31, 2010
Fashion, Menswear, NYC

Odin in the West Village It’s always worth noting when you come across a shop that is run by a staff as nice as the clothes they sell. A lot of times it seems that the attitude grows exponentially with a shop’s price tags. Not the case at the Odin shops in NYC. Both the [...]

Iron Works | New York City Foundries

Written by Andrew Payne on March 17, 2010
Architecture, NYC, USA, Vintage

As you can note from the small stamp in the lower right, the above ironwork is imported from a foundry in India- not the case for most of the last century. Most of us think of Pittsburgh as being the only home of US steel, but New York City was actually the base for many [...]

Finishing Touches

Written by Andrew Payne on January 5, 2010
Fashion, NYC, Photos, USA

I started going to Tender Buttons back when I was in design school. It was the only sure bet for finding the most unique special buttons and trims that no one else was going to have. Evidently, the shop hasn’t lost any of its integrity since it opened doors in 1968, by co-founder Millicent Safro. [...]