This week will end my focus on the architectural faces of my block. Next week onward will require a little more hunting on foot for each post. Which is great. I’m not long a New Yorker, but in the few weeks since conceiving of this project, travel on foot has become a much more pleasant mode of transportation while I gaze at roof cornices, building faces, and look up and down side-streets waiting for the lights to change.

Well… actually, New Yorkers don’t wait for the lights to change before they cross the street. Incidentally, this gets my fellow city-dwellers in trouble in other cities where, I hear, people actually care about jaywalking. How they ever arrive on time for meetings or their train beats me. In New York, one cannot arrive anywhere in any sort of time while strictly obeying the crossing signals. Rigorous adherence to these devices would shut the city down. But New York is a city of, and Manhattan is run by, pedestrians. This is almost totally unique in the United States, and a great part of what makes New York so interesting. There aren’t many, as friends in Germany call them “Pedestrian Precincts,” outside of the interstices between Herald and Times Squares. We don’t need them. We have the whole sidewalk, doorways and the road shoulder.

Just don’t stop and stare up at an interesting building without checking your six-o’clock position for oncoming fast-walkers. You’ll get knocked over and create unnecessary animosity. Trust me on this.

For this week, 230 and 226 E 25th Street. These are two different buildings, with different styles, posted together for slight contrast. I find it interesting that architects on the one side of the street lavishly decorate buildings with unique, lovely façades, while across the street just one building attempts much ornamentation.

Continuing on the theme of the Faces of New York project, this week and next will include more buildings from my block. For some reason, the architects for this block of East 25th Street in NYC loved faces. I was informed by a friend that as architectural features, faces are sometimes referred to as “grotesques,” the purpose of which may vary. The uglier faces, though, are supposed to act like slightly more modern gargoyles, warding off the evil spirits which could otherwise infiltrate the building and its residents. The new apartment ad I visualize on craigslist will read: “Luxury Alcove Studio! Elevator, doorman, laundry, live-in stone grotesque spiritual superintendent.”

If only there were such a simple ward against rats, mice and other vermin. Perhaps the future builders of New York will include stylized giant mousetraps or glue traps carved in marble relief on the alley-facing side of buildings. I doubt this would work, but it would make me feel better and make for another photo project.

Warding off evil must have been quite the industry on E 25th street, what with all the guardians on our buildings. I imagine the dispossessed souls of the dearly departed must bounce like billiards balls around the block unable to penetrate beyond the fire escapes. Supernatural safety = covered.

I knew I choose this neighborhood for a reason.

New York City, Manhattan Island specifically, is a city that is best appreciated on foot. Skyline views from rooftops aid with perspective, and flying over the city is a real joy for those of us who can (or, like me, do so for a living). Even the views from across the river in the other boroughs or on one of the bridges or ferries bring scale to what you see from the sidewalks. What gets lost in the wider perspectives, however, are the millions of minute details that are far from pedestrian (but close to pedestrians). Over the next year, I am going to highlight some of those details every week in this project I’m calling “The Faces of New York.”

There are thousands of photographers working throughout the city, along with many fashion bloggers, who do a great job cataloging the interesting people and architecture of New York. What I want to do, however, is draw attention to the borders of the streets, to the buildings and architecture that surround them. The inspiration for this project came when I realized that on my own block I had many architecturally unique buildings; and in 9 months of walking past, had never noticed them. The street-traveling attitude most of us adopt after a few months in the city is: head down, earphones in, eyes forward or slightly down, walk as fast as possible and don’t let anything get in your way. Don’t stop to gawk or you’ll get run over.

This is a great way to survive the crowds, shove your way through hundreds of thousands of tourists, and avoid getting asked for money on the street. It is a bad means of meeting new friends and appreciating the beauty endemic to our fair city. Just after I arrived, a friend told me I didn’t fit in here after noticing that I was admiring the cornices high above me. “New Yorkers don’t look up,” she said. For a while, I fell into that trap. Now, realizing that some New Yorkers do look up—those that want to avoid dripping air-conditioners or perched pigeons—I can appreciate the diversity that exists above eye level.

To make this project a little more manageable, I will be focusing only on the faces: the faces in and on the buildings and in the parks, and may branch out to the other boroughs if I find something really unique in my meanderings. Of course I am open to comments, suggestions and posts by others who have their own perspective on the many stone and metal men women and children built into our homes, offices and monuments.

This post features a building on E 25th street, a street surprisingly rich in architectural details.