Wednesday, May 26, 2010

City Views, Country Dreams

Good evening from New York.

It has been about a month since I last managed to give you all a city view. I have had quite a month, filled with challenges. I cannot give details. I have learned to find a way through some unexpected difficulties.

Having cleared my way through those shoals, I will show you some photos taken a few weeks ago, on a late spring day as beautiful as today.

This is another view of my nearest subway station. I love this station house, situated in the herringbone cross of Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. A huge building has been going up and is just visible on the left side of my photo. It's the one with the red corner. Above street level, hundreds of tenants may eventually get around to renting expensive apartments.

At or below street level, there is to be a giant branch of a major bank, and ... more interesting to me, a giant branch of Trader Joe's, a sort of supermarket. I hope that Trader Joe's will start a price war with my beloved Fairway Market, and that my weekly grocery bills might soon begin to decrease, instead of continuing their alarming escalation.

And now, back to the little "plaza" leading to the subway station. Overnight, the two heavy female shaped sculptures arrived. They look grand from a distance, with their formal symmetry . We could not expect topiary at a subway station, yet these solemn ladies suggest it to me.
A closer view shows the distressed finish to the sculpture's skirt area. It also reveals the scattered litter drifting round the lady's hemline.

And this final photo shows an overflowing garbage bin. We New Yorkers do mostly try to dispose of our litter. If a receptacle is full, we are not so great at carrying our litter onwards in search of another receptacle.
Regular visitors to this site will perhaps recall a series of photos I took last summer showing the results of a traffic accident that had demolished an iron fencing surrounding the Broadway side of this plaza. Take a look at the right of the garbage bin and you will see that the temporary fencing is still doing duty.
All who pass by each day notice this, wonder if and when the actual repair will occur. Finances are hard for public expenditure. I want to know how the sculptures were funded. I love seeing the ladies, but also want to have that iron fence back.
Best wishes to all. I will try to write again before July!