Stumblin' Along 1/26 '25
Breathe (2 AM)
Breathe (2 AM)
- Trinity & US Realty Buildings
- Jets Hire GM
- YouTube Rabbithole
Alright @YouTheReader,
Today’s tune is Anna Nalick’s Breathe (2 AM) because I thought the contrast between this and yesterday’s Breathe by Loso would be funny. Duality of man-type stuff or whatnot.
This song spent 34 weeks on the US Billboard Hot 100 but never peaked above #45. I’m shocked; this feels like it was a pretty big hit back in the mid-2000s.
(Source: SongFacts)
Breathe (2 AM) was Anna Nalick’s first single on her debut album called Wreck of the Day. Part of what helped the song stay on the US Billboard Charts for so long was it was apparently on Grey’s Anatomy. My guess is it was used as a commercial.
![YARN | [ Anna Nalick: Breathe (2AM)] | Grey's Anatomy (2005) - S02E17 Romance | Video gifs by quotes | b32e305a | 紗](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Pk_l!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F530d24d3-fdee-4fa3-930c-17f01f0d9efb_400x226.gif "YARN | [ Anna Nalick: Breathe (2AM)] | Grey's Anatomy (2005) - S02E17 Romance | Video gifs by quotes | b32e305a | 紗")
Full disclosure….I was not on a military base at Fort Bliss like the guy in this song; however, on the night of my 21st birthday (probably around 2 AM), I ended up in an ER with two chipped front teeth and an enormous lip. It's a long story that we won’t go into and a lot of blood, but it was in Albany, New York, while I was in college.
That’s not funny, even a little, but the funny part is Anna Nalick was performing this exact song in Albany on the same night…
Weird coincidence. Also, I never made the same mistake of touching a fishbowl at The Pub on Madison Ave again.
I apologize for stepping on these lyrical annotations, but the rest of the post is about a cool New York City building and the Jets hiring their new General Manager.
Nice tune, on to some history…
Trinity & US Realty Buildings
This week’s Stumblin’ Along is on the Trinity & US Realty Buildings because, in a City filled with cool-ass buildings, they stuck out this one time after a few pints of Guinness. Located a few blocks from the Oculus and right next to Zuccotti Park, I swear they stick out, all you gotta do is look up if you’re commuting via the Path. You may even say to yourself, “Wow, those look like important buildings.”
The original Trinity Building, built in 1853, was located in Lower Manhattan across the street from Trinity Church. The land was previously used as John Van Cortlandt’s Sugar House, which had been converted into a prison during the American Revolution where the British would hold colonists. The Van Cortlandt Family were a prestigious New York City, but they must’ve gotten sick of the hustle & bustle, so instead, they just focused on buying up loads of property in the Bronx and Westchester County. Richard Upjohn, an American architect, not only built the Trinity Building in 1853 but was responsible for the Trinity Church across the street. Upjohn decided to go with the Romanesque Revival style (pictured above). Although it was just 5 stories tall, the 1853 Trinity Building was an enormous office building for its day and was “long regarded as one of the most attractive [not to mention valuable) parcels in the city for office building construction." It housed the “Exchange Salesroom,” which was used for real estate auctions and coal sales. It also was the office for several prominent architects aside from Upjohn (like Charles C. Haight, J.C. Cady, and H.H. Richardson) and thus was the setting for the founding of the American Institute of Architects in 1857. The American Institute of Architects is still around instituting today.
The original Trinity Building of 1853 emptied out at the turn of the 20th century. Harry S. Black, who was already on a building heater after completing The Flatiron Building in 1902 under his father-in-law’s construction company, decided to establish his own US Realty & Construction Company. For his new construction company’s first major project, he bought out the empty original Trinity Building and planned to simultaneously build the US Realty & Construction Co.’s headquarters right next door, in what was previously called the Boreel Building.
(Source: Geographic Guide)
Harry S. Black gave the projects to Frank H. Kimball. Known by his contemporaries as the “Father of the skyscraper,” Kimball had decades of experience working on buildings all over Manhattan. Kimball decided to go bold with the Trinity Building, as it was the first Gothic-inspired skyscraper in New York. As a huge fan of New York City neo-Gothic architecture, well done, Frank H. Kimball. We should bring Goth (architecture) back. While the plan was to build both neighboring buildings up simultaneously, the Trinity Building was completed first in 1905, while the US Realty Building was finished in 1907. While not totally identical buildings, they can pass for siblings as they are 21 stories and 308 feet tall with their exquisite neo-Gothic look.
(Source: NYC Urbanism)
Not too much craic to report on inside the walls of Trinity & US Realty Buildings, which means they must’ve kept it very hush-hush over the century. For instance, in 1912, it became the home of the old Lawyers Club of New York City. This prestigious club of high society lawyers once kept their very own private herd of 50 cows in New Jersey so they could provide their lawyer members with the finest supply of fresh butter. The space was used for lunchtime meetings until 1979, and the club had as many as 569 members. As recently as the 1970s, the Old Lawyers Club had a nice sweetheart deal of $1,000 a month rent on a month-to-month basis for three floors of 42,000 square feet until the landlord said enough is enough. It was worth well over $100,000 a year (in 1979). One would assume there was definitely some shady shit that went down, but who wants to get sued by the Old Lawyers Club of New York?
(Source: NY Times & Atlas Obscura)
Anyway, another cool part of the building is its basement. Andrew Carnegie and New York City commissioned the New York Realty Bank’s 70-ton vault on the bottom floor of the brand-new buildings. The heavy-ass vault was constructed in Hudson, New York, and sailed down the Hudson River once the buildings were complete. 5” thick steel walls surround the vault, so it’s safe to say no one ever broke into it. In 2006, the historic bank vault was transitioned into a restaurant and bar, Trinity Place.
(I gave them an 8.6 Guinness score…This was the very 1st week of Pint&Pen&Papers, so I was giving out rookie scores, but the pint still looks decent.)
Now to something completely different….
Jets Hire GM
After a thorough search, the New York Jets hired Darren Mougey as their General Manager this weekend. Here is a bit on the 17th GM in Jets franchise history….
The Player
Darren Mougey is from Scottsdale, Arizona. Growing up, he won an Arizona State Championship as the QB of Chaparral High School in 2002. He went to college at San Diego State, serving as the team’s backup QB as a freshman and sophomore behind Kevin O’Connell (current Vikings HC & former Jets backup QB). After sparingly playing 10 games with 2 TD passes and 8 INTs, Mougey decided to move to WR. During his junior and senior seasons, the 6’6” wideout caught a combined 66 passes for 805 yards with 6 TDs.
After 4 seasons with the Aztecs, Darren Mougey entered the ‘09 NFL Draft. He would go undrafted, signing with the Atlanta Falcons as a free agent. Mougey failed to make the Falcons’ active roster and signed on with the Arizona Cardinals in ‘10. He recorded one catch for 8 yards in a preseason game before getting cut and becoming a talent evaluator.
The Executive
The Denver Broncos hired Darren Mougey as a Scouting Intern in 2012. He quickly rose up the Broncos ranks as after one year as an intern, he was promoted to personnel and scouting assistant in 2013. Broncos’ Czar John Elway liked what he saw from Mougey, so he elevated him to an area scout in 2014 and served in that role until 2019. Then, he became assistant to the director of college scouting in 2020 before taking on the Director of Player Personnel role in 2021. Lastly, he became the Broncos’ Assistant GM in 2022-2024.
