Some more from New York’s Bartender’s skills with a Manhatten, who, tired of treating Perth as his private colony of seamonkeys, turns his gaze to his own patch. Jeez, if he has to resort to CAPITALS for what still looks like a pleasant enough place, then imagine if he saw Darch! Or even Mt Lawley! BTW, see me in the comments here, barking at Perth architects to stop with the excuses. The consensus seems to be that it is the clients fault that they are making bad buildings.
Greetings from the Village of Port Ewen, a historic hamlet on the banks of the Hudson that has done EVERY SINGLE THING IT CAN TO REDUCE ITS VISUAL APPEAL AND HISTORIC CHARACTER TO ZERO. Landmarks bulldozed, churches set ablaze, hideous developments, tacky civic “improvements,” political corruption, garbage-barge commercialism – you name it, it’s here!
First up–an Italian restaurant a few doors down from Van Loan’s (featured in TWoP’s first HRV chapter) I wish I could say the food is good.
This is the front lawn of the house next door.
And this is the house across the street. I am afraid my crappy picture does not do justice to this sham castle, which is built out of tarpaper and fake wrought iron, and which incorporates the house next door, whose former inhabitants moved away in disgust. (Jeez Bartender, it looks pretty good for tarpaper! TLA)
No idea. Main Street, Port Ewen.
There are about a dozen of these wretched things up and down Main Street as part of an “arts program” whereby “local artists” “decorated” “tugboats.”
Perhaps the worst of the worst. Until this year, the two beautiful buildings on this sign, one of which dated to 1739, stood side by side on Main Street. Until they were torn down by a bank for a drive-through branch. And commemorated with the above plaque.
A better example of “this great thing used to be here until we destroyed it!” I have yet to see.
It literally makes me ill every time I drive past this.
We have but scratched the surface of Port Ewen, perhaps one of the region’s greatest piles of Worst. 
Thanks Bartender.
The Worst of Perth 
so, you do registered lawns as well.
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He’s fascinated by our registered lawn concept. Could be a Perth export to Hudson River Valley.
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Is that a registered lawn? Looks like it should be, wait while I call Subi council.
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and those plaques are hideous in concept and design.
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Yeah, kinds rubbing it in. Demolished for a drive through bank. heh.
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Layer upon layer of added insult to injury.
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A bit like the brick layers in mullaloo
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I would call it the greatest architectural crime in the region of the past decade or more. Evidently it’s the first stone colonial house to be torn down in the Valley in almost 50 years.
Halcyon Hall is very sad, but nobody sane could be expected to deal with that monster. This was a wonderful small house in excellent shape smack in the center of town with a view of the river to boot.
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Jaysus Fucking Christ. Brilliant!
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The tarpaper castle looks great. The tugboats, yeah, I hear you.
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The orange restaurant – that’s a preserved facade?
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No–it’s a sham Roman temple front to match the fake castle across the street. The original building was a California-style bungalow now completely covered by the new facade.
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Wow I have never ~really~ wanted to go to the US, now I do. Superb work BSWAM – swami to the upstate NYtards
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Some public art coordinator at the City of Fremantle is currently looking at the tugboat, licking their lips. Mark my words.
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As Foghorn Leghorn said to Miss Prissy. “Yes Dreamboat. (Tugboat, I say Tugboat that is.)”
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Port Ewen will be doing mermaids next.
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Absolutely, TLA. Freo; tugboats. Perth; The Big BSwaM.
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The historic hamlet Village of Port Ewen looks like a rather sleepy, a bit like my American Cousin Valerian, who can also be found lying on the banks of the Hudson
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Exceptional. Spot on NF#1- the tugboat concept is a dead certainty to find its way to Freo (or maybe Rocko).
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it’s natural home is the galleria, just near the dolphins.
or even with the dolphins in them.
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Snigger all you like. When I were a lad, there was a pod of dolphins living in that drain next to Bunnings.
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…curiously shaped like shopping trolleys
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there is a long necked tortoise. bloody freaky thing it is.
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I’ve always been uncomfortable with the US habit of calling me an alien.
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Crap. I must have screwed up the photos somehow. I don;t know why they’re so small.
And I have to admit that this crop might not catch the true hideousness of Port Ewen. I took about two dozen pictures, many of real nightmares, but a lot of them just wound up looking kind of dull on film.
Sorry for the dud post, folks. “Try, try again.”
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Don’t apologise for the pics Barkeep, they’re great. You’ve nailed the registered lawn.
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The pics are awesome.
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Pics are great, Barkeep. That would be a ‘New York Style’ registered lawn. ‘Perth Style’ registered lawns are pure Bassendean soil, and retain no water whatsoever.
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Gooseberry Hill stylee FTW.
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And you need to sink a goon box to shore up outside toilets when camping. True story. Sandy soils preclude outside dirt toilets.
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They’re a great collection, BSwaM, but I was disappointed when I clicked on one for a better view. Any danger of resending them ?
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Mark Latham would love this.
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I’m afraid to ask…
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I don’t get it either.
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PerfectStorm of Worst Wednesday 30 November 2011 – 6PR Sattler is going to interview Mark Mitchell aka Con the Fruiterer
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Got that wrong, Sattler is interviewing Con the Fruiterer – unfunny racial stereotyping worst by Mark Mitchell
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from TLA’s link above
ooookay then … err, do architects do this a lot?
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I raised an eyebrow at that myself.
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By the way, TLA’s argument reminds me of a quote from Richard Morris Hunt, the architect who designed the Metropolitan Museum of Art and who was the American architect for the base of the Statue of Liberty: “If the client asks to have the chimney pointing through the floor, it is up to the architect to respect his wishes and still achieve the greatest possible technical and aesthetic effect.” This was back in the 1890s, so I don’t know where some of the commenters are getting the idea that Gaudi or even Wright didn’t have to modify plans in accordance with the client’s briefs.
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I’m totally correct. They know it. Blaming Perths famously bad architecture on “bad clents” is a disgrace. However Perth would have good comedy if it wasn’t for our bad audiences.
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I had a look inside Ms Liberty once, quite an experience was exhausted by the time I came out
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I’m hoping that the frame at the top will be displaying a Peter Jackson, Stradbroke or Winfields billboard.
This is the building for out of towners
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/217/bhp12wy5.jpg/sr=1
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I’m just wondering how long it will take before it’s tagged.
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Tugboats eh? Fnarr fnarrr!!!
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Has there been an Occupy Port Ewen?
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There is barely an “actually live in Port Ewen.”
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BSWAM how did you find us here in WA? Do you have an urge to leave Port Ewen for WA?
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I am fascinated by and occasionally write articles on the development of colonial architecture through what, for lack of a better term, can be called The New World.
I found “The Worst of Perth” by Googling “Perth architecture”.
I wish every city in the world had a corresponding website. From London to Lagos and Boston to Buenos Aires, the world would be a more honest place.
For your second question – no. I would like to visit Perth, for architectural reasons and also to meet up with you lot, but I love the HRV and I honestly think Perth’s climate would not suit me. (I need to see snow and autumn color to feel to that time is passing).
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Everything here turns brown in summer. Would that help?
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Nothing lets you know the passing of the years than a sunburn post a 44 deg C, 111 deg F day.
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Or your own reflection in the mirror lit by the sun outside the bathroom window when it’s already 35 C at eight am. Passing of the years, pretty much undeniable at that point.
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There would be an upside that mojitos are appropriate for 9 moths of the year. Except for lime price.
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Pfft. 12 months of the year you can see a new clan lab every day!
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I bet you say that to all the cities. Cleveland? Indianapolis? Slut.
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You bet. Cleveland and Indianapolis have great late 19th through mid-20th century architecture and two of the best art museums in the US.
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Pingback: Outrage Sunday 31 bedlam | The Worst of Perth
where is port ewen?
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At the end of Alexander Drive.
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just google ‘lake gnangara sailing club’
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