Dusk
Central Park at West 65th Street
Sarah Wrote That
Recent Fiction
"All the Summers Ahead" | Five Chapters
"Barnegat Bay" | The Good Men Project
"Light at New Latitude" | PANK
"Social Utility" | Keyhole
"Where the Dust Went" | Atticus Review
-
-
Central Park, February 2006
-
1932 presidential campaign sign from Flickr user Tony the Misfit, from a Washington State Antique shop; Central Park Hooverville via Legends of America:
[T]the stock market crashed in 1929… just as a rectangular reservoir north of Belvedere Castle was being taken out of service. By 1930, a few homeless people set up an informal camp at the drained reservoir but were soon evicted. But,having nowhere to go, they [came] back and as public sentiment became more sympathetic, they were allowed to stay. Called “Hoover Valley,” the reservoir soon sported a number of shacks on what was labeled “Depression Street.” One was even built of brick with a roof of inlaid tile constructed by unemployed bricklayers. Others built dwellings from stone blocks of the reservoir, including one shanty that was 20 feet tall.
-
Central Park foliage
November 4, 2006, 2007, 2009Re-posting this with Tumblr’s improved photo-set options: same date, same location, three years. I missed last year, and this year again I’m unlikely to be in New York on November 4; so message me [update: photographer found!] if you will be and would be up for snapping a few pics in the park.
Peak color in the Northeast seems to me to be happening about two weeks later than in the early-mid nineties. The change largely happened at once, in 2007, with a delay relative to 2006 of a month or longer that we’ve only half snapped back from, and irregularly; with length and intensity of daylight out of sync with the old patterns of temperature, some things change on their old schedule, others linger. There always used to be a single day, two at most, when everything was brilliant at once, and after that you knew would come purple and brown November.
-
Sherry-Netherland Hotel from Central Park. 2006-08: me / 2009: Ann Rose
Today is midsummer warm in Amherst, 75 Fahrenheit at 9 am when I left for my morning run. It’s eerie; our first cold snap a few weeks ago killed most of the insects, so the woods are still, and enough trees have turned that the hills have a faded tapestry look, but yesterday’s high was 87.
In 2006 and 07 I happened to photograph the same four locations in Central Park on the same day (2006 was on video), and in 2008 I realized I’d again shot enough of the same locations to make it a thing. This year again I’m unlikely to be there; any of you New Yorkers want to take a walk in the park with a camera on Nov 4, give or take a day?
-
Met Museum Rooftop Garden
Frank Bruni channels Nick Carraway when he calls ahead to the Hotel on Rivington, prepping for his Tipsy Chronicles piece on rooftop bars:
“We do have a rooftop bar,” she confirmed, “but I don’t believe it’s open tonight.”
“A private party?” I asked.
“We do have private parties there sometimes,” she answered, “and sometimes we have public parties.”
And on this night?
They had neither, she said.
So why was it closed?
“I don’t know,” she said, her bored tone suggesting that she was as untroubled by her ignorance as I was exasperated with it.
The effort invested in getting to rooftop spaces makes them really prone to disappointment. Two spaces I have fond memories of: the loft at 450 West 30th and the Met Museum Roof Garden. Totally different senses of the city: the loft terrace an eyrie in the thick of things, the garden afloat over Central Park. I’m glad that various of my past employers and clients rented out 450—for a few years they didn’t seem to be able think of any place else—but I love that the Met garden is big enough to find a private corner in and for it to be relatively immune from velvet rope syndrome (or else I have been really lucky). Sunset over half Manhattan, for a “suggested donation.” It wasn’t one of the places Bruni mentioned.
-
