Some people write personal blogs, some link a web cam to their apartments and still others move into glass houses. Each, in their own way, puts their lives on display.

 

I’ve overheard more than one comment by a pedestrian noting that they “wouldn’t want to live in a fishbowl.”

 

What they are referring to is the Richard Meier apartment house at One Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. It’s not the building itself I want to comment on here. I’ve come to like it in some respects, most notably that the color resembles the bronze on the eagles atop columns at the entrance to Prospect Park.  

 

Yet as residents move into the building, what I am finding interesting is their furnishings. Who would think someone attracted to this no-wall modernity would have Chippendale-style dining chairs? I’ve been irritated more than once seeing modern interiors in Victorian homes, but this is just perplexing!

 

You might think they’d take a cue from the decor in the lobby, modern bright-colored plastic chairs, black sofas and large Jackson-Pollock-esque paintings in the lobby. That’s not what seems to be filling the apartments, however. There’s overstuffed fabric furniture you’d expect in a Pioria ranch home, lamps straight out of any suburban furniture retailer, and most curiously, Mahogany. I guess brown furniture is out for Brownstones, but in for ultra-modern glass fishbowls. More, it’s placed right against the glass, creating a “wall” where none exists.