Comic Times no more

Yesterday afternoon I went for a bike ride around the Manhattan waterfront greenway. One of my favorite sites along the way was the old collapsed shell of a pier around 60th Street on the West Side. Years ago, someone painted the words "COMIC TIMES" on the front of the shell, and I could always count on seeing that pier and remind myself of the city's history. (Somewhere in there is a metaphor for the cyclical collapse and rebirth of New York City, but it's eluding me at the moment.) Anyway, when I passed the pier yesterday, I saw that it had been partially disassembled. I guess the city found money somewhere to get rid of this eyesore. But you can see what it used to look like here (thanks to Photo_a_Day and Google).