Incredible Pictures Of The Intricate Architecture On Manhattan’s Gold Coast
 Matthew Kassel |
Sometimes I avoid marveling too long at the buildings here in New York because I don’t want to look like a tourist. But those who don’t marvel are missing out. New York gratifies the gesture of looking up, perhaps more so than another city in the world.
Often, though, you can’t make out the finer details of tall buildings with the naked eye. So last weekend I went up to the Gold Coast—the most opulent section of the Upper East Side, roughly between 59th and 78th Streets and Fifth and Lexington Avenues—with a giant lens on my camera to capture some of those details.
You’d be surprised at how much work has been put into them: the frozen, ironic face of a grotesque I photographed looks like it’s in on some joke that nobody will ever know; the cornices that stick out from the tops of the buildings hide all sorts of stone flowers and filigree and lions’ faces in their shadows.
For the sake of simplicity, I only photographed buildings along Fifth Avenue, and with the exception of the Ukrainian Institute (whose details are so funny and shocking), I stayed between 59th and 78th Streets.
The pictures are rounded up here in order, from south to north, so you can take a stroll up Fifth Avenue and look at them yourself. You might want to bring a pair of binoculars. It’s worth it.
Live in Spain - Manuel Gandarias Carmona 