Heavenly Body Works

The Heavenly Body Works is no more, but someone apparently appreciated the sign well enough to keep it. Below the sign is the futuristic tunnel-like back entrance to Comme des Garçons on West 23rd Street.

Seafood

More signs about food from Chelsea. These are considerably more appetizing than the humanoid avocado.

Avocados

Okay, this one is just strange.

Trailer Park Restaurant

The Trailer Park restaurant on 23rd Street has carved out an interesting brand for itself. The appeal of burgers, Philly steaks, beer, and margaritas is clear enough, but why the trailer park theme? What’s the attraction of poverty and pink flamingos?

There are a few possibilities. You would expect the Trailer Park restaurant to be cheap and unpretentious. No need to dress up, or even refrain from burping.

The lady next to the sign, with her cutoffs, tattoo, and baseball cap, offers another not-so-subliminal signal, suggesting that a trailer park is where you might find young, unemployed women with time on their hands and few inhibitions. (There are actually two women reclining on either side of the sign, in an inadvertent—I would guess—parody of the tomb of the Medici in Florence.)

Get close enough and you can see that the clothes have actually been painted onto a naked mannequin, producing an effectively trashy look.

The joys of the sullen

Seeing this message every morning on the way to the High Line eventually made me curious enough to look up the Brooklyn-based artist Elbow-Toe and to follow his Twitter feed.