New York, New York
Our favorite niece was graduating from Columbia University so she gave us a three-day tour of New York City.
I figured a concrete canyon is similar to a red rock canyon, so I took my outdoor camera equipment - but neglected to hire a Sherpa. Street photography in hiking boots.
We travel into New York on a bridge with questionable rivets that carries over 100 million cars a year - except for the two cabs that didn’t come.
I would love to watch the archeologist trying to decipher the pictographs a thousand years from now.
The writing and images may be larger and more complex than a buffalo and a spear but the meaning will be as vague in a millennia as it is now.
Even in a city of eight million people, it is sometimes difficult to find someone to talk to.
Architecture from different eras and styles but they all seem to make a point.
Many folks have an idea and want to make a point.
Every couple hours you will happen upon another fashion show that will become next weeks pictograph.
Only in New York. Gourmet fruit.
Art. I hate having to explain these things.
Times Square was as dazzling and chaotic as I had imagined but surprisingly small in size. Television images must always be done in wide angle. New York in general is built in four-fifths scale since folks were smaller a couple centuries back when they started.
The subway system is a test in upper body strength grasping elusive rails while standing so as not to be hurled into another body (foreign or domestic) during abrupt changes in acceleration - all the while avoiding eye contact - or otherwise contact.
The subway system is an exercise in exercise. You have to walk ten blocks to get to a station. The stairs must be scaled between levels. (Yes. Her left foot is probably higher than her head.)
It is a complex, subterranean world. ADA attorneys must have lifetime careers ahead of them.
The Statue of Liberty. A monument without equal. It inspires emotional awe from a distance.
It was a gift from the French when they still liked us.
An engineering marvel close up - especially when you realize that it was constructed in 1883.
Artistic detail that can be easily missed in the grand scheme…
From an upper level, you can look up into the statue structure (pardon me, Ma’am).
Looking down at the people on the ground you get a better sense of the grandeur.
And the people visiting are as fascinating as the Lady...
Appropriate attire is encouraged but not required.
The sight of The Lady must have been uplifting for the immigrants on their way to Ellis Island.
It is now a landmark and cultural museum.
Twelve million people came through this room for their first step into the country…
…their names checked off one by one from the ship manifest.
The One World Trade Center was completed in 2014 as part of a complex to replace the Twin Towers that were destroyed in the “9/11” attack in 2001.
There does seem to be a choreography in the different architectural designs.
New York has built a memorial on the site lest anyone forget…
…and sometimes signs of lesser significance have more impact on memory.
….THANKS FOR THE LOOK1