Back in June of this year, you may remember an entry I put up called Where's the Fire, Lou?, which was based around a photo I'd stumbled across of Lou Reed standing in front of an old neighborhood favorite, the garishly painted garage door of the firehouse of West 10th Street, just a few steps to the west of Greenwich Avenue. Here's that photo again.
As I mentioned in that previous post, beyond it being a cool shot of Lou Reed, I have great affection for that firehouse mural. My dad lived across the street from the place back in the 70's, and I remember it from my childhood. As such, I'd taken pictures of my own kids in front of it periodically (see below).
Here's another shot of it I took in 1999. Frankly, I had a hard time not taking pictures of the thing.
Okay, so where am I going with all this? Well, I was out walking around with my kids this afternoon, and we happened to find ourselves walking east on West 10th Street when I was suddenly stopped dead in my tracks by what I saw. The colorful garage door to the firehouse was -- like Lou Reed -- suddenly gone, replaced by a perfectly respectable door, but one that greatly lacked the signature visual panache of it predecessor. Quite simply, I was crushed.
Here it is now.
ADDENDUM: Apparently, it only vanished a week or so ago. Here's the backstory.
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