NEW YORK RAMBLES (page 43)
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August 2019
A walk from City Hall to Times Square
I’ve come to realize that it is not change that bothers me as much as the loss of fidelity. By removing the scratches we are losing our grit. With each clean new building that goes up, with each street redesigned, we are recording ourselves over and over and each time coming up with a poorer version of what came before. My argument does not concern improvements nor the remnants of real life that cling to our streets, that is irrelevant. What I am talking about is a hollowing out, a loss of soul. For all our steel and concrete, we are turning into a house of cards.
July 2019
A ramble through Long Island City and Hunters Point
I’ve discovered that if you live long enough, New York will undergo so many changes that you will have the experience of living in a new city. I already find that there is very little remaining on the waterfront from the days I first ventured out to photograph it. This has been a mixed blessing. While much of the grit I love is gone, I never had access to most of it. Today I find new vistas in a city I never knew existed.
July 2019
A walk from Union Square to Hudson Yards
I no longer think I would recognize New York if all the scaffolding was removed. It has changed the whole experience of walking city streets. It’s as if I were reduced to a Kafkaesque bug, struggling through cobweb filled underbrush.
June 2019
A ramble in Coney Island
While Coney Island is about the big, that is big roller coasters, Ferris wheels, and rides that drop you from the sky, I find myself drawn more to the small, intimate scenes of those taking in the sea breeze on the boardwalk, buying hot dogs, Piña coladas, and of course eating soft served ice cream. If lucky, I might still find some honky-tonk served on the side.
May 2019
A loop between Jamaica Hills and Forest Hills
A woman sitting near the courthouse was frantically praying out loud; for herself or a loved one I do not know. I tried to ignore this private moment but her weeping was so intense that it took a great deal of effort to avoid being drawn into the maelstrom. When we are faced with conditions we have no control over most of us will reach out toward anything that might relieve our anguish. Who are the gods we pray to? Are the millions of lawn ornaments that grace gardens any different from the millions of talismans and charms carried into battle by soldiers? The answer most like to be given is no, and I have to admit that many of these ornaments are nothing more than overly cutesy. But is the difference between decoration and meaning so far apart? I’m not sure the answer is that simple. Even if only meant to bring joy, their placement sometimes feels like an act of desperation.
May 2019
A loop between Jamaica Hills and Kew Gardens
The last of the spring blooms are fading as the next wave of summer color begins to take form. While I like the change, the seasons move too fast for me. It is not always easy to seize the moment. For some the change cannot come soon enough. I overheard a mother asking her young son, “Aren’t these cherry trees beautiful.” The child looking up at the mass of glowing blossoms replied with an emphatic “No, they are ugly. Trees are supposed to be green, not pink.” This is our future.
May 2019
A loop between Forest Hills and Kew Gardens
Our ability to compartmentalize thoughts is a well studied fact. We can see it in the way that contradictions are easily held in everyday life to the way those who commit the most heinous crimes are able to return home and be kind and loving family members. This strange ability also spills over into the concrete. It seems that we are unable to focus on anything beyond what is immediately in front of us. A small pastoral oasis will sit net ti an industrial site. A home designed of the most subtle hues will be supplemented with the garish. It does not take long for urban life to become a hodgepodge of unimaginable proportions.
May 2019
A walk from Hudson Yards to the Lower East Side
While I find the Highline very problematic as a public park, I do have to say it always provides me with material to photograph. It is one of the few places in the City that feels off the grid. It might have been the perfect place to step off the street and find momentary recluse if not plagued by endless crowds of tourists who are more intrigued by trinkets and food on sale than the intricacies of the view. A simple composition confined within a a snapshot’s frame betrays the true conditions. For most of the walk we were all cattle being funneled down a chute.
May 2019
A walk from Union Square to Hudson Yards
Even on ordinary city streets a curtain may rise to reveal stories of mysterious proportions.
May 2019
A walk through Midtown
New York is absorbing too much pop culture. I doubt that creativity is dead, it’s just that we have become fearful of true innovation. What can be done when even the revolutionary is transformed into something familiar and comfortable before it barely makes its presence felt. Everything is becoming a cartoon of itself.
May 2019
A walk in Kissena Hollow
It seems that I’ve been waiting forever for spring to arrive and now nearly every blossoms has faded. In my defense it has been rainy and difficult to get out. Even today the rain is falling but I’m running out of time. Spring may bloom eternal but we each only get so many springs. If there are no blossoms I still have green, the green that is only native to this season, the green that glows with such vibrancy that it seems to define life. Who can find fault with that?
April 2019
A stroll up and down Fifth Avenue
I suppose what I like best about the Easter Parade is not the artistic innovation, which certainly abounds, but seeing how far it can be pushed while retaining elegance.
April 2019
A walk from Central Park to Times Square
There is a new dynamic at play on the city’s streets. While the rising skyscraper may have symbolized the dynamic spirit of the city for a century or so, architecture no longer defines this city as much as its construction. We are in a perpetual state of becoming.
April 2019
A ramble around College Point
Grids can’t always be made to fall gently across the land, yet city planners remain blinded to facts on the ground by their compulsiveness for order. This is what happens when reality is confused with a line drawn on a map. Gravity however has its own rules.
April 2019
A ramble across Flushing
The sudden rise in temperature is pushing the season. Birds are dashing about as if crazed but swollen blossoms are slow to bloom. I’ve seen so many springs; why can’t I judge if something is off? Am I just overly anxious for something new or have I forgotten what the calendar means? Spring of course is inevitable. I’ll be lamenting its passing before long.
April 2019
A walk from Midtown to Hudson Yards
Spring comes to New York in peculiar ways. Before the first bloom is out on the street, store windows fill with blossoms and flowery scents whiff out through shop doors as spring bulbs shiver in their flowerbeds. Ads have already been proclaiming the change of season before the last vestiges of winter have vanished. Shopping has its own seasons.
March 2019
A walk across Flushing
Whenever I walk down a street these days, one I haven’t visited for a while, I’m almost sure to reach a point of puzzlement. Something just won’t feel right and it takes a minute to realize that a once familiar landmark is gone. These need not have been architectural gems, only structures that seemed a true part of that place, those that gave it personal meaning. With change underfoot everywhere these days it has become difficult to maintain these relationships. Are we all destined to become inhabitants of a foreign land?
March 2019
A ramble through Corona, Elmhurst and Jackson Heights
The promise of a warm day has pulled me out from my winter seclusion. I’ve been seeing hints of spring for days, peeking crocus and the first sitings of robins but the change of seasons still seems elusive. In parts of the city the seasons never change. Concrete blots out the possibility of anything green while autumn colors never leave our sight, perpetually frozen in adds and street art.
March 2019
A walk from Hillcrest to Flushing
Construction is a year round activity in NewYork, yet despite its artificiality I can’t help feel that it is a prisoner of the seasons. I don’t mean the effect that weather has on building practices, only that there is no escaping our connection to the natural no matter how much we subvert it. No matter how fast buildings rise in winter they never seem to be growing, succumbing instead to a sense of demolition and decay. High above me seagulls cry out. As the barometer falls they rise on the currents navigating pillars of concrete and steel.
March 2019
A walk from Midtown to Hudson Yards
Out in the Hudson Yards a new blossom arrives with the first day of spring. Does it sprout from conspicuous wealth, overbearing ego or the creative spirit? Some seem outraged at the display though most only seem eager to grab a selfie with it. My mind does not want to take hold of it. I cannot help but think of the follies that were once built on the estates of the wealthy for no other reason than they could. In any case it sure is shiny.
March 2019
A walk from the Lower East Side to Chelsea
I’ve always heard that the pets people own reflect their personalities; I wander if this is true of the buildings they live in? Whether one replaces makeup with piercings or dresses up to the nines, it seems that it is all an effort to be seen as unique. Structures are often treated the same way. Some are manicured and carefully painted while others are slapped up with some color, any color that might say notice me.
March 2019
A walk from Hillcrest to Flushing
In New York, all you need to be a tree pruner is a saw and a low bid.
March 2019
A ramble through Forest Hills
It did not feel as if I were walking through a neighborhood as much as a park built solely for my amusement. Crossing paths with dog walkers and children pulling sleds seemed nothing more than incidental. If most inhabitants were comfortably tucked away on this snowy day, the neighborhood still embraced the season, and warmth was expressed through every decoratively laid brick, every nuance in a roofline.
February 2019
A walk through Midtown
While the classic skyscrapers of New York have continued to shine through the introduction of more modern architecture, a tipping point is nearing due to the sheer volume of new construction. The Empire State Building has remained the tallest in my mind despite loosing that official status years ago, but the prospect of it being dwarfed, of it just becoming another old building in the skyline is finally in sight.
February 2019
A walk through Flushing at night
New York City is not the best place to view celestial events. First of all it is too bright at night and very often what might be seen is obscured by clouds. I thought this one of those night until I rounded a corner to find a super moon staring back at me through a cloudy haze. Even this veil could not hide its intensity. It spoke with a searing voice too intense to ignore. Deciphering the flow of orbits is the easy stuff. Where are the mathematics for the romantic?
February 2019
A ramble through the Lower East Side
I have never conflated simple tagging with street art. I’ve always been happy to associate the former with vandalism and the latter with a city’s creative pulse. In some neighborhoods where graffiti is very common, I find it has inadvertently taken on a form where everything spray painted, pasted and marked add up to a new whole where each component is but a note in a song.
February 2019
A walk from Tribeca to Hudson Yards
The reflective facades on glass and steel building have insured that not all tall skyscrapers darken our streets. Trees planted in formally dark canons appear much happier and even pedestrians seem to breathe a sigh of relief. There is however an unseen consequence, the relentless pursuit by the sun. No sooner did I put this harsh light to my back than I found myself walking straight into an inferno.
February 2019
A loop between Soho and Chinatown
What do children make of dragons passing down our streets? Some reach out to touch in wonderment while others awakened from their indifference recoil in horror. I canÕt say if these differences in disposition are inherited or taught, only that the ability to hold on to wonder grows too rare.
February 2019
A walk in Kissena Hollow
It is too cold to be standing among the swaying trees. The wind has chased everyone indoors or perhaps they never ventured out to begin with. I could not help myself, I was called to this place by the light. People tell me that the cold is more acutely felt with age. I think we let ourselves feel it. I can remember getting very cold as a child and then putting this discomfort aside in order to continue playing outside. As the wind bites at my face I look up at the glowing clouds through the trees. A child awakens and tells me there is no place I would rather be.
February 2019
A walk from Midtown to the Lower East Side
It is just cold enough to be uncomfortable. Still, the light is beautiful and it holds me to the street. It seems obvious why I’m here taking the shots that I do, yet how do I explain? There never seems to be enough words. Perhaps the answer can be deduced from the act itself. If this was not meaningful, I would not be here.
