#260: City Reflections

Garment District, NYC

#261: Take Me to Church

Garment District, NYC

#262: Off Off Broadway

Chelsea, NYC

#263: Truncated Two

Midtown, NYC

#266: Stuck on Stucco

Midtown, NYC

#270: Off Kilter

Garment District, NYC

There's something lovable about this one, despite its awkwardness. The crooked 7 in the center, the blunt angles of the frame, the brash stab of red: it may not win any beauty awards, but at least it's trying.

#271: Giger Counter

West Village, NYC

This one looks like something dreamed up by H. R. Giger, though I can assure you I found this on an otherwise unassuming West Village side street. I've been squinting at this arrangement for far too long trying to describe it, and it only gets stranger the more I try to make out what's going on. Claws? Horns? And is that a combat helmet? It's either a work of art or an accidental Rorschach test. Either way, it's evidence that you can always get a little creative with your address numbers.

#273: Nautilus

West Village, NYC

#276: I Swear I Saw This

Chelsea, NYC

Right. So I pretty much the entire reason I started up the number line again was so I could brag about this absolute beauty, a graphic white #276 on a toothy blue circle saw. I'm always on the lookout for hand-lettered type in the city, and this one is both attentive to detail and quirky. There are still scores of great hand-painted hardware and lumber signs around New York, though you usually have to travel off the main drag to spot them. Here's a look at some of the rest of the sign:

The whole look is idiosyncratic yet carefully crafted. I love the faint gray shadow around the lettering and the fact that the spiked back of the saw almost makes it look like a porcupine. An &7 favorite to be sure. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

#278: Keystone

East Village, NYC

#280: On the Grid

East Village, NYC

#281: Nolita Numbers

Lafayette St, NYC

#282: East Village Mosaic Trail

St. Mark's Place, East Village, NYC

It's roughly the size of a bottle cap, sits at shin level, and was almost lost amid the swirl of eye candy on a busy, mosaic-clad street pole, but somehow this 282 got my attention. I found it years ago while waiting on the traffic island close to the giant rotating Astor Place cube where all the disaffected youth mope, and I doubt I'd have noticed the tiny number it if it weren't for the traffic light holding me up. Traipsing up and down Manhattan's sequential grid is one sure-fire way to find numbers, but it's the unexpected catch like this one that keeps things fresh.

If you've ever taken a stroll through the East Village, then you're probably already familiar with the artwork of Jim "Mosaic Man" Power. Maybe you've stumbled upon one of these colorful lamp post mosaics, too, noticing a sudden patch of beauty in the middle of a harried, ugly commute. Power, a Vietnam veteran and much-loved figure in the Village, has been steadily beautifying his 'hood shard by shard for over twenty-five years. The bits of colored glass, plates, mesh, marbles, and whatnot are part of the neighborhood street furniture. He's decorated close to a hundred street poles with his vibrant mosaics along a two mile stretch. But the last few years have seen these pieces endangered.

With the proposed so-called sleek redesign of Astor Place that included the removal some of his poles, Power began dismantling some of his own artworks out of protest. But community efforts to save his work sprang up. It's a conservation effort well worth it. Shards of mirrors, chunks of ceramics, wild patterns, and colorful lettering: once you start noticing his pieces, they're impossible to miss. And it's impossible to imagine the East Village without them.

Photographer Lara Elmayan at Untapped Cities has done a noble job of documenting Powers' work in its entirety, and you can read more about Power and the mosaic trail here. But the best way to see his stuff? Take a walk.

#291: Hits of the 70's, 80's, and 90's

Tribeca, NYC

In cracking open the &7 archive again, I've become reacquainted with a few old favorites, a handful of forgettables, and some new additions to the number line I'll look forward to trotting out when their, er, number comes up. This modest #291 hasn't basked in the online limelight since &7's inaugural year, so I figured it was due for a call up.

It's a fact born out of necessity that my New York numbers tend to be gathered in great hulking expeditions. The first year I kept this blog, I'd often be wandering up and down Broadway in a last-minute panic when I realized how freakin' hard it is to find three-digit numbers in ending in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. This was collected on one of those panic expeditions, though the image seems relatively calm, as if it was waiting patiently to be discovered. Appropriately, this address happens to house a dentist's office, which -- speaking of the 70's, 80's, and 90's -- would be just the place to go if you want the full experiential 70's, 80's, and 90's onslaught. A little "lite rock" with your Novocain?

#294: Koan

Grand Street, NYC

If a blog goes to sleep for two years and then wakes up, does anybody notice?

#295: M.I.A.

Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

These quirky distressed numbers on Baltic Street disappeared from the wall a few years ago, and I still miss 'em.

#296: Tiny Moon

Chinatown, NYC

#299: All That Glimmers

West Village, NYC

#301: Beware Dogs

Upper West Side, NYC

Thanks to what seems to be a customary lackadaisical attitude toward punctuation on local signs, it's unclear if this warning is telling me to beware of dogs or if it's telling the dogs to beware. Or perhaps it is announcing an interesting new type of dog: the beware dogs. Whatever the case may be, I'm glad it has at least committed to the notion of dog and not the more mysterious "dog," as has been woefully suggested elsewhere. You've got to start somewhere, right?

#303: Office Around the Corner

Upper East Side, NYC