Remember when people once liked practical things on their houses? Porches and overhangs and aluminum awnings and such?
Well Greenpoint, for one, has had it with aluminum awnings, reports The New York Times.
Those humble providers of shelter are so mid-century, and not Eames chairs/ skinny ties/ birth of the cool kind of mid-century, but smoking around children and eating TV dinners kind of mid-century.
It’s almost like they’re deliberately trying to be unattractive, a la that golden girl of Greenpoint Lena Dunham, who films herself doing things like awkwardly hitching up a pair of flesh-colored panty-hose.
“You’re never going to go on Craigslist and find someone who’s looking for a vintage 1950s fiberglass or aluminum awning,” architect and Greenpoint-dweller Jonathan B. Held told The Times. “They are despised.”
Even the general manager of a scrapyard takes calls them an “eyesore.” Ouch!
However, apparently some practical-minded people still want these functional coverings to block the rain and the snow and to keep their newspapers (we hope they don’t read The Times) dry. In fact, in an indication of just how much attention they pay to such passing fancies, Brooklyn-based Aluminum Awnings informed us that they hadn’t even heard about The Times article when we called their office.
Indeed, we found several other purveyors of awnings, including General Awnings and Home Depot, who are still selling the product, focusing, we suppose, on the small segment of the population who are not part of the ever-fickle tastemakers. Why just last year The Times was singing the virtues of vinyl siding in nearby Williamsburg:
“To Mr. Canfield, replacing vinyl siding that is in good shape, as some homebuyers do as soon as they have the deed, is like carelessly restoring antiques that came over on the Mayflower. He views vinyl siding facades as the key to preserving Williamsburg’s working-class traditions, which arguably has become its own facade.”
Trends… they are so hard to predict! What’s next? Gutters? A resurgence of faux-wood paneling?
kvelsey@observer.com
