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Some folks never take down their Halloween decorations. I just noticed this dang thing on Coles Street, it’s on the roof above the metal man I blogged about way back. The head is a jack-o-lantern on a stick figure body. Jack Rodman I guess. Someday I’ll find out what this all is about. For now, dig the metal.
Get off the Path at the 33rd Street Station, take the 32nd Street exit heading east and you’ll see this, a block away, 5th Avenue. I’ll probably try it if they have non fried foods, hard to say with Asian fusion, which this seems to be an example there of. But what bothered me was the other day, workers from a different hemisphere, ladders braced on the sidewalk, just caution tape, somebody just urging people to keep walking. As bad as Jersey City can be, construction in New York is worse. It has to be a hot bed of corruption and bribes, either a lack of or a complete and total ignoring of regulations. Pedestrian Safety is at best, an after thought by city government, regulators and construction crews.
New York City has a fondness for 19th Century kitsch. Real Gaslights in City Hall Park, found myself there the other morning and noticed them, I don’t know how often they are lit and I usually walk around the park. Have to remember to make the effort to walk through the park, it’s worth it.
Brush and trees on a hillside in the heights, steep hill, picture taken through a fence… spring, summer, fall even, maybe couldn’t see so well, but in the season of no leaves, only branches obstruct the view from the heights. From the backseat of the station wagon, from the big green Grand Marquis I drove in the 80s, seeing the highway system of N.J. from the car, the industry, the buildings, thinking what sort of lives were being lived and now all these years later, here I am, seeing the cars in the distance, catching a view of what is left of the industry, passage to there from here, firsts and lasts happening and most of the time, you are never aware it will be the last time you see this from here or see that from there.
Snow showers, a mere dusting. Second street, sometime between 6 30 and 6 45 in the morning, right around dawn, just before, street lamps still lit… St. Mary’s Church has a 7:00 AM Mass every day, that’s why the lights are on there. A few people are inside, praying as the sun rises over a snow dusted town.
Lafayette, always been a fan. Without the help of France, America would never have been founded. Good thing the early 00’s are over with, with that silly Freedom Fries and Surrender Monkey bull crap. People point to World War II, failing to remember that by the time France surrendered, they already had lost 80,000 soldiers. France was right about Iraq. France was often the first to recognize American originals like Poe or Jazz or Film Noir. So, we have Lafayette, a younger statue here, in Union Square—I never really noticed it before—than the concrete thing by the arches in Washington Square. Lafayette and Washington were genuine friends, he even named his son George Washington, but that didn’t stop Lafayette from urging Washington to emancipate slaves when George became President number one. Washington would eventually emancipate his slaves in his will. He joined a French abolitionist society that sought to end the slave trade and in 1782 Lafayette addressed the House of Delegates and urged emancipation. He was not the only one back then to see the contradiction in our love of liberty and our enslavement of a race. If we listened, maybe the Civil War and Jim Crow could have been avoided. It’s important to remember, inevitability is not an absolute and also, sooner or later, one way or another, contradictions will be resolved
Go to another blog for ornithology, but I believe they are grackles, our common blackbird. It was early on Sunday morning, which accounts for the limited traffic. When a car did come, the birds flew to the telephone wires, watched and waited. They poked whatever it was with their beaks, pulled out shreds, poked again. Whatever food was littered here had been mashed flat by the vehicular tires. Might have been more symbolic if they were actual crows, and the road kill was a human skull or limb, but it was just some trash and some birds able to eat in the street because the morning lack of traffic permitted it. I didn’t feel like a scarecrow; I felt like a bird watcher.
Get off the Path at the 33rd Street Station, take the 32nd Street exit heading east and you’ll see this, a block away, 5th Avenue. I’ll probably try it if they have non fried foods, hard to say with Asian fusion, which this seems to be an example there of. But what bothered me was the other day, workers from a different hemisphere, ladders braced on the sidewalk, just caution tape, somebody just urging people to keep walking. As bad as Jersey City can be, construction in New York is worse. It has to be a hot bed of corruption and bribes, either a lack of or a complete and total ignoring of regulations. Pedestrian Safety is at best, an after thought by city government, regulators and construction crews.
Snow showers, a mere dusting. Second street, sometime between 6 30 and 6 45 in the morning, right around dawn, just before, street lamps still lit… St. Mary’s Church has a 7:00 AM Mass every day, that’s why the lights are on there. A few people are inside, praying as the sun rises over a snow dusted town.
Go to another blog for ornithology, but I believe they are grackles, our common blackbird. It was early on Sunday morning, which accounts for the limited traffic. When a car did come, the birds flew to the telephone wires, watched and waited. They poked whatever it was with their beaks, pulled out shreds, poked again. Whatever food was littered here had been mashed flat by the vehicular tires. Might have been more symbolic if they were actual crows, and the road kill was a human skull or limb, but it was just some trash and some birds able to eat in the street because the morning lack of traffic permitted it. I didn’t feel like a scarecrow; I felt like a bird watcher.
