Susane Colasanti - Journal

Since Take Me There takes place in my neighborhood, I thought you might like to see what everything looks like to Rhiannon, Nicole, James, and their friends.

This is Rhiannon's house:


She lives on West 11th Street, which is one of the best streets in the nabe.  Here's a view of her block:



Rhiannon's neighbors like to plant flowers in their window boxes and outside their doors.  Space is really limited here, so most people don't have things like yards and gardens.  If you are very lucky, you might have a rooftop garden (which is one of my top five goals).  A lot of the townhouses and brownstones here have a tiny area out front, usually fenced in and, if the tenants are cool enough, used to grow green things.  I also love how some of the doors are painted these rad colors, like blue.  There are a lot of blue doors for some reason.

      

James lives in this building on Charles Street:



He doesn't live in a whole house like Rhiannon.  That's because to live in Rhiannon's house, you have to have approximately one trillion dollars.  James has a cramped apartment with really noisy neighbors.  Unfortunately, noisy neighbors are quite common around here.

Nicole lives in this building on the Upper West Side, near Central Park:



Rhiannon, Nicole and James go to Eames Academy of Design.  This is not a real school.  I made it up.  But I did use an actual school on West 10th Street as its model:



See the third window up, sort of in the middle of the pic with the stripey arch over it?  That's the library window seen on the cover of Take Me There.  And the awesome thing about it?  Is that the cover designer hasn't even seen this school.  He was able to imagine that window just by reading the book.  That's hot.

Nicole and Rhiannon have a project for Contemporary Design.  They decide to do it on using recycled material in designs that enhance urban aesthetics.  So they go to the MoMA's sculpture garden and observe Picasso's She-Goat.  It's my favorite sculpture.  Picasso used things like a wicker garbage can and flowerpots when he was making it.



This bike sometimes shows up near where James parks his bike.  It says things like Bikes Not Bombs and Be the Change.  It would probably belong to Danny if it were less flowery:



This is Mr. Farrell's building on the Upper West Side.  Nicole stood here many times, trying to figure out which apartment was his, wanting to be on the other side of his window.



One of the things Rhiannon and James love to do is get cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery.  Here's what they look like:



And they really do come in all different icing colors with special sprinkles!  Nicole likes the cupcakes at Crumbs.  They make special seasonal cupcakes and are down with celebrating holidays:



More treats can be found at Chat 'n Chew.  Nicole is a fan of their cupcake cake, which I am sorry to report no longer exists. That is a shame.  But I love the old-school knick-knacks and ding-dangs that decorate the whole place, like gas station signs from the 50s and early toasters.  Here's a section of the back room:



The best mobile coffee comes from Mudtruck.  They have a few trucks that are usually parked in the same locations with very friendly neighbors creating your special drink.  Here's the Mudtruck with Greg inside:



Rhiannon likes to chill in Hudson River Park, moon sketching or just listening to music.  Here are some day and night views of the park...





...and the exact spot where some serious iPod dancing went down:


Looking across the Hudson River, the New Jersey skyline looks pretty at night.  One of the buildings has a slanted top and does an exciting light stripes show.  Stripes of all different colors and widths slide by on the slanted top, which acts like a screen.  Here's the slanty-top building (on the left, obviously) displaying fat stripes of red and gray:

    

A different view:



When Rhiannon, James, Nicole, and Danny all go to see Unisex Salon play at Welcome to the Johnsons, they are impressed.  Unisex Salon rocks especially hard. This is their lead singer, Kenyon, who has angel wings tattooed on his back.  He's such a rock star.  And he loved Take Me There!




This photo tour will be linked to the Take Me There page of my website, so visit back later for more photos!