STL DPB IN NEW YORK - STREET FOOD

 

Street photography in Manhattan. Food carts like these are ubiquitous and they have quite a varied menu. There is a trailer hitch on one side to tow them in and out. No nutrition labels.               

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - MADELEINE MONDAY

 

 She does. 42nd Street and Second Avenue. 

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - IF I CAN MAKE IT THERE...

 

If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York

I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps
And find I'm A Number One, top of the list
King of the hill, A Number One.

Nice to be back in my home town, particularly with granddaughter Ellie, who is having a blast. She thinks she is almost a subway riding expert because she can stand in a moving car without holding the pole (mostly). Still needs some guidance about where to go. I was riding the subway by myself at 12 or 13. It was normal.

This is the view to the south from the 91st floor observation area at The Summit, the newish super-tall building over Grand Central Station.                

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - SIGNING OFF

Okay, last post from New York. I have an interesting event in STL to shoot today. This picture was taken by another member of the group (thanks, Martin) before we descended into a basement restaurant in Chinatown. I look pretty cheerful for someone whose spine felt like it was going to crumble, but I don't give up easily.

Time  to look around the home town. But I'll be back in New York in just over a month with Ellie and Mrs. C.            

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - FROM ABOVE

A few more pictures from New York before I come back home. This is another shot from the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine. A member of my group gives a sense of scale while photographing Anne Patterson's installation, Divine Pathways. It's only there through June if you are interested in seeing it.

I need to find some new material back here in The Lou. My mobility is somewhat limited by my back issues (new medical consultation soon) but I should be able to find something.                

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT

 

Some people don't want to have their picture taken. Some just love it. When a group of photographers peeked into this Washington Heights barber shop, the crew just loved to show off. Look at the scissor action! You gotta look good in this city.           

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - IN THE CATACOMBS

 

New York's catacombs are, of course, the subway system. The public knows little about its secrets. This station is 181st Street and Broadway in Washington Heights. You might want to enlarge the image, noting the three semi-hidden men with their backs to the camera and the one lounging on the bench.               

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - IN MEMORIAM

At least for me, one of the most gut-wrenching features of the current World Trade Center is the pair of memorial pools in the precise shape and location of the Twin Towers. They fall down from sidewalk level with waterfalls on all sides into a shallow basin, which then empties into a smaller and seemingly bottomless central pit. Around the edges, black marble is engraved with the names of those who died on 9/11, the recesses colored gold. Here and there, the living tucked paper flowers bound with twist ties into the spaces.            

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - INSIDE THE OCULUS

First off, I found that I have been misspelling the name of this building for the last couple of posts. One C, not two.

The view is from a balcony, symmetrical to the one in the background. It feels like you are inside of a space ship-cathedral, or possibly within Moby Dick's rib cage. It was a cloudy day and the upper reaches were a cool gray. There are two levels of shops beneath, whose interior lights send a warm glow. The far background leads to a transit hub with several subway lines and the PATH trains (Port Authority Trans Hudson) trains to New Jersey.          

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - 1 WTC AND THE OCCULUS

After returning from Ellis Island, the group went a short way north to the World Trade Center complex. After the tragedies of 9/11. the tower of 1 World Trade Center now dominates downtown. Below it is an amazing piece of architecture called the Occulus, containing a shopping center and major transit hub. I think we'll come back to more of that.            

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - HIGH ROLLER

There is a park in Manhattan's Chinatown that is a social center for older people. Most of what's going on is games involving gambling. The tables are strictly segregated by sex. The women were mostly playing cards. The men were playing a game in which counters with Chinese characters were placed on a grid. None of our group understood what was going on but money was clearly changing hands.

The man in the shiny pink hat, chain smoking and gesturing with his right hand, was the center of attention. Like a good poker player, his face never showed expression. I don't know if he was winning or losing but he was the center of attention.             

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - CHINATOWN

The Chinese neighborhood in the Lower East Side of Manhattan remains vibrant. Some of the population has moved to the outer boroughs and the suburbs but immigration of people fleeing China replenishes it. There is a small city park off Mulberry Street where the community gathers. There are card games and tile games going on that we don't understand. Strictly segregated by sex and, with complicated chips, obviously heavy gambling going on. Wednesday was warm and humid, and this gamer needed ventilation while he studied his next move.                       

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - ALL THIS IS MINE

As if any one person could contain the enormity of New York. The north end of Times Square contains a set of steps to nowhere that are effectively bleachers to view the passing action. I spoke to the wife of the man with the outstretched arms who happened to be standing next to me. They were visiting from Philadelphia and wanted a visual souvenir of the event. There are events beyond counting in this town.

There hasn't been much about St. Louis lately for a blog that bills itself as being about St. Louis. I don't think there will be any soon. By Sunday Mrs. C and I will be in a different country, one that we are very familiar with.     

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - THE TOUR CONTINUES

The Tale of Two Cities Tour has reached its second destination. According to some claptrap written many years ago by Sir Walter Scott:

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!

Well, it is. Out on the town today and the Metropolitan Opera tonight.

RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY

It is very warm and damp here. The orange boat is the Staten Island Ferry. The background in the first picture is Jersey City, New Jersey, not New York.  The third photo is lower Manhattan shrouded in mist.

The Same Old Picture

I'm going back and forth between Theatre Crawl and NYC photos. This is the Nth iteration of the shot of Manhattan approaching La Guardia Airport. The air quality was pretty bad and this has been heavily edited in Photoshop. Still, when you back away from it you can get a sense of how small the island really is, although it seems infinite when you are walking through it.  

The Little Island Where I Was Born

14 miles long. Two and a half miles wide at most. Manhattan  where all the world comes and where I came into it. Taken during final approach into LaGuardia Airport.

We're going a ways up the Hudson today for something special.

B&W Challenge Day 5 - 120 Wall Street

The last building on Wall Street in New York, where it meets the East River. My father worked here much of his adult life. I loved to go there with him on Saturdays, play with the office machines and watch the boats in the river.

Taken from the walkway on the Brooklyn Bridge.

B&W Challenge, Day 4 - ICP

An iconic institution for people who share my passion, the new quarters of the International Center Of Photography on The Bowery, just south of Houston Street in lower Manhattan. (I think the school is still at the old place on Sixth Avenue in Midtown.) This street used to be New York's skid row, but, like much of the island, it is becoming thoroughly gentrified.

It you look closely, you can barely see the white lettering in the pavement featured in the post of November 12. Of course almost no one notices it.

I think I'll finish this series with three of my favorite B&Ws from the archives.  

Times Square 2

The hordes. I don't think I've ever been there when it wasn't busy. And if you are a New Yorker, the sign in the first picture will resonate. 

Note Olivier in the right of the third picture.