Twelve/twelve 2009 involved Metro North, a trip to the City, a delicious brunch at “Sarabeth’s East” (you have to tilt your nose up just so and then peer down it at others to fully appreciate this), some shopping at Various, more coffee, etc. Cold, but not too, fine weather and a tomato omelette that shall not soon be forgotten. The last time I had the spinach omelette but I am forcing myself to branch out.

Sarabeth’s at Madison and East 92^nd

Sarabeth’s looks modest and unassuming from the outside, but open that little door on the left, go inside and you had best believe you will smash hard against the bulwark of queueing, ravenous, upper east-side bruncherati. This time I was prepared both mentally and physically (flanel-lined jeans, denim jacket, beanie and a certain cognisance) but as always the being seated at table and pouring of hot, black coffee into sturdy white cups came not a moment too soon. And naturally, to our left: a couple of Australians from Brisbane and one New Englander. We eat in packs, it would seem.

Shopping with Elena

It will never cease to amaze me, in the large cities of the world, just how much stuff can be packed into how little space. I’ve long known the privilege of taking room and space for granted and every time I visit New York I run smack into the intense proximity of just about everything, especially when following E from shop to shop. This little kitchenwares store was a marvel of practical consumption nestled in a broader context of material unnecessitude, and yet I was able to get my girl out of there for under ten American dollars owing to my formidable powers of persuasion.

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• Sunday breakfast
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As we plunge further into crises, of economics, democracy, environment and war, and the future appears less and less about infinite progress, I’m increasingly struck by the ways that we used to imagine the world of today would actually turn out.

View from the Twentieth Century

Take Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, page through some science textbooks from the 1950s, walk the passenger tunnels at Union Station in New Haven (pictured here), circle Eero Saarinen’s Ezra Stiles and Morse Colleges, or Paul Rudolph’s brutalist Art and Architecture building on Yale campus, explore Wesleyan’s CFA complex in Middletown, or stroll past the entrance to this hotel on St. Kilda Road in Melbourne.

We used to project where we were headed with Modernity in the way we built the city environment. There’s a dream of a better future, on a different scale, that seeps in as you spend time with these objects, images and places. There is a sense of optimism and the hope of a more cooperative sociality. I’m not sure that we do this anymore.

Entering the station building

A different future

In these ways we used to be more modern. In other ways, it was always a dream, an aspiration that was never achieved. Was it supposed to be? Maybe not. Looking ahead one thing seems certain: the Twentieth Century’s imaginings of Tomorrow will never come to pass, and the future is going to turn out to be a lot different than anyone predicted.

On the other hand, I don’t know from architecture. Never studied it. Of course, when has such a limitation ever prevented me from expressing a strong opinion? Perhaps you disagree…

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