Geese in the Outfield.

 

 

Geese in the outfield. Melting snow but only because the weather is weird – January one day, May the next. This species never heads south, but there’s never been this much food this time of year in this field, now. Maybe climate change is not factual; haven’t Canadian Geese always reported before the pitchers and catchers?

 

 

 

 

 

Terminal Transition

Seems I’ve been blogging about this Hoboken transit hub oncea month; is it because I go through there once a month or my life is a little stressed right now that blog subjects are getting harder to come by? Maybe yes, mostly no. Mainly it’s an inspiring place and space and recently, always changing.

The lobby at the Erie Lackawanna Train Station reopened; 90 days or so after Sandy.

 

 

Especially when it comes to non-event local impressions, I like to say I am looking that things that rarely get really seen or looking at things that can only be seen once. These images are the latter. Ravaged by Sandy – six feet of water in the lobby – the reopening is pretty half-hearted. There’s only one stand – no newsstand (even the Hudson News letters are gone), just coffee and beverages and non-cooked food items – the restaurant court and other vendors remain closed.

The Bathrooms remain closed. You have to go outside to porto-johns to go . The long wooden benches and the model train set are enclosed in plywood cases and plastic tarps. There’s some seating, tiny park benches you would get at a garden store. The lobby is also heated. People were waiting.

Plastic sheets also covered the lobby payphones, a pay master’s window. I guess like the wood these mainly metal fixtures require additional, specialized cleaning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A weird reminder of the extent of our Katrina. The world we know is under assault by the world coming into being. Our buildings and infrastructure and the way of life they enabled are unsustainable in our climate changed wall. The plastic tarps preserve the way things were. No tarp over the water lion. That cat's snout hasn't spouted out water in a decade anyway.

 

Snow Scenes

 

Snow began Friday morning, shifted to rain, and then back to snow but it wasn’t until later in the evening that the snow fell hard and fast.

Not that cold the night of the blizzard. Nemo. They’re naming blizzards now. I would like to resist that, but it does make for if not a better story, a story that is easier to tell.

Trepidation abounds. We live in weather hysteria media. The most immediate news where there’s a constant and universal need to know is what the weather is like. When a weather event like a blizzard is predicted, we have the usual concerns. But in our post Katrina, Irene and Sandy world, we know that the hype and hysteria can be justified. Climate Change is here, server weather events are getting more severe and more unpredictable.

Plus, it happened on a Friday and everybody was like heck lets make a three day weekend out of it after all. More fear than was justifiable was required for leaving work early and closing schools. Also, last winter we hardly had any snow days and nothing resembled what was predicted, or fell. People wanted to enjoy it.

 

 

A beautiful blizzard, the way winter should be. 

 

  

 

 

Walking around a little after 9:30, surprising the number of sidewalks already cleared out. Jersey City is actually getting better at shoveling. Noticeably better. People said they city’s (finally) cracking down, a few even credited Councilman and Mayoral candidate Steve Fullop, which I did not verify. The cleared sidewalks were the rule not the exception, a change from years past. Walking around was less hazardous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snow transforms the usual into the unusual. The starkness of the winter suddenly becomes lunar. Water we know drips, but when those icicles form our awareness of water as substance becomes more acute.

 

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A freight train underneath the Turnpike exit. A baseball field covered with snow. Patience keeps hope alive.

 

 

 

 Snow feels magical, invites play. When it freshly falls is different than when it is the day after. There will be slush. There will be inconvenience. Snow will go away. But here it was again, teaching us something we need to know.

 

 

 

 

 

Newtown & Nemo & Jersey City

 

Hand made memorial to the children of Sand Hook, down by city hall, streaked with Nemo Snow. Walking around the morning after the blizzard named after a popular children’s animated movie, thinking about how Newtown got about 2.5 feet of snowfall and these kids were not able to play in the snow the day after. This sign survived the winter weeks, a classroom project that like all classroom project, served as a teaching moment. We live in a world where children must be introduced to the concept of the murder of other children as early as possible.

 

 

 

Then later in the day, in Hamilton Park, snow men. Afternoon by now, the snow played in and children still playing. The lead up to the storm was one of dread. Happening on a Friday, the news reports were relentless, schools and work places closed early and everyone spent the night hunkering down. By the next day, everyone wanted out to explore and play. Haven’t had a blizzard like this in a year or two. The Nor-easter had a wide radius and New England was hit harder than Jersey City. The weather event linked us all, again and as always. Sandy has put us all on perpetual climate change havoc preparation.

 

 

 

 

 

Winter has its own beauty. We wake up and school’s closed and our landscape is suddenly lunar. We build a snow man in the park with our parents. The parents still thinking about the Newton shooting, alongside the dozens of other worries one has bringing children into this world, being an adult, negotiating with and navigating though our responsibly labyrinths. Debates in congress about gun control; politics and the translation of those ideas into legislation. Our children no longer remembering that memorial poster they made sometime between Sandy and Christmas. They didn’t see the report on what Biden said or the NRA testimony. They are here in the snow and we are here with them. Let’s make your own Frosty. These snowmen were just another reason why Newton matters, as much a memorial as the solidarity poster by City Hall.

 

 

 

 

Meaning Graffiti

The present day, contemporary form of Graffiti has a psychedelic flavor to me. The lettering is trippy calligraphy, pulsating, euphoric. There’s a voice crying out in the urban wilderness feel, a personal statement of I am, or maybe Kilroy was here. There’s also the scrawl, one might recall the original graffiti of ancient Rome, Creaser Must Die – anonymous and subversive. Fun, like Keith Haring playfully giddy image, both ultra- modern yet clearly echoing primitive totems. But it is illegible. The letters seem like western script but I can’t decipher exactly the message. What is it saying, what does it mean? What is the purpose? Maybe the purpose is that it is here, both art and defacement and that in itself is message enough. This was by the highway, a hard to get to concrete wall, and this had to take a long time to complete.

 

 

 

 

Newark Avenue Shrine Vandalized

 

 

The statues in this mini-memorial on Newark Avenue apparently have been stolen. It takes your breath away, makes you shake your head in disgust and mutter profanities.

I’m not sure when this happened, but it looks recent. The broken glass seems fresh. This roadside shrine, near the high school on the north side of Newark Avenue has been there since I can remember. Inside were statues of The Blessed Mother, The Sacred Heart of Jesus, and Saint Anthony of Padua, the Patron Saint of Miracles. I just assume it commemorated a tragedy; there was even an electric candle inside.

 

 

During Christmas, somebody set up decorations; at other times of the year, candles and flowers were not uncommon.

Not knowing the impetus of this shrine seem to add to its meaning ... Usually, when on a road like this, it commemorates somebody dying, more often than not, a child. I do not know the exact reason, I’m just speculating. The statues are familiar, but the anonymity and lack of apparent explanation just deepens the purpose.

Anyway, it appears the statues have been stolen, the glass broken. The statues were not unusual, I can’t imagine there being much of a resale value. You can buy similar representations of these Catholic icons in any religious store. If someone is interested in purchasing Mary, Jesus and Saint Anthony statues, would they really buy stolen statues? Maybe the explanation is less nefarious than robbery, maybe the statues were removed to avoid theft after the glass was broken. I just don't know.

Newark Avenue is the closes thing to a main boulevard in Jersey City, a well-travelled thoroughfare connecting downtown to the Heights as well as the Courthouse and Journal Square districts. Some might consider this vandalism and theft a mere desecration, but it is a loss suffered by every citizen. One of the small things that make Newark Avenue special – makes a city street human – has been stolen from all us. Instead of being momentarily reminded of personal Faith, we think of someone's personal selfishness.

 

This picture is from last year, during a wander after a snowfall.