Sculpture in Lobby

Shoot, here I thought Exchange Place meant basically the Hudson river waterfront between Pavonia and Liberty State Park, but it turns out, the area between Pavonia and Exchange Place is now called Harborside. In honor of the ghosts of harbors past apparently, not even the ferry docks here now. The official map of the Artist Studio Tour misprinted the location of this Victory Arts Project “Constructions in the Sunken Garden Sculpture at mack-cali atrium.harborside 3. It’s to the left of Montgomery Street not to the right, as the map indicated. I’m wandering this neighborhood of de-humanizing glass and steel canyons. No art tour signs in sight, no people in sight on the block, except for some really sleazy guys who are condo sellers in the luxury condo building, a hideous glass structure for the hideously wealthy I suppose. The salesmen were really creepy guys, the very idea of giving somebody directions or the fact that I hadn’t known that the ugly buildings that have sprung up are named after the architects. They should be named for the bribes given by the developers to the city officials that approved these haphazardly positioned monstrosities. So, I was in a bad mood for this sculpture show, although I found out the invaluable information that the semi mall, the ugly office buildings and such, north of the Path Station, is actually called Harborside. The sculptures were kind of lame, had some native American themes of some sort, in this sunken lobby. I read about in the paper earlier, I thought it would be interesting, the pictures looked interesting. And you know, the pictures I took look pretty good too. A little more lame in person, but the mood was wrecked from the a-hole condo salesmen in the big, glassy ugly building. An illegal bribe is the only explanation for this building, it’s on Greene south of Montgomery. Tell you one thing about this pre-fabricated, sterile neighborhood—Exchange Place and Harborside (please!), it ain’t Jersey City. No exhibit of sculpture is going to change that sad fact.