Slip Sliding Away

There seems to be a growing number of for-profit street events that travel from city to city. The latest one is Slide The City. The organizers put up a four-block long water slide down Market Street and sold tickets for a fair amount of money. A tube or inflatable slide was required. It you bought a three-slide ticket they threw one into the deal.

Downtown St. Louis doesn't have much slope so no one got up a lot of speed. Still, people seemed to be having fun. Lots more where these pictures came from.            

What's A Bollard?

This area has lots of bicycle trails. One starts just north of downtown and runs through an old, somewhat barren industrial area along the Mississippi to a point north of the city limits. It's not too busy. The part seen here is on the river side of the flood wall. If Big Muddy rises about two more feet this trail will be covered.

I had never run into the word bollard until they became a ubiquitous security device. The parts of the Arch park along streets are lined with them, like rows of little soldiers protecting the monument. I looked it up. The term comes from those posts on docks that boats are tied up to. Here, they block cars from driving onto the southern end of the trail.                 

Howl

This post has nothing to do with Allen Ginsberg.

Back home and need to shoot some new local material. The town is going to be boiling this weekend. I wonder if there is anything around that is both air conditioned and interesting. In the meantime . . .

This is a country music-themed bar at Ballpark Village, the newish Budweiser/Cardinals-themed venue across the street from the baseball stadium. I think it would take a lot of the sudsy beverage to get people howling. If they did, I suspect security would get involved.

                                       

A Last Post From New York

Well, not forever, I hope. You know, home town and all that.

The renaissance of the World Trade Center is not nearly done. There's lots of construction still going on. The Freedom Tower (second picture) is almost ready but the finishing on the windows doesn't look complete. Tourists, of course, are now invited to the top through the underground elevator lobby in the third picture (and those elevators go up 102 stories fast with almost no sense of movement). 

The last picture is the new entrance to the transportation complex including the subway and the PATH train to New Jersey. It looks like a brilliant white crown.                     

The Fourth In Ridgewood

My family moved from Queens to Ridgewood, New Jersey, the day before my senior year of high school began. I was going to a Catholic boys prep school in the Bronx and commuted into the city to finish. A year later I decamped for St. Louis University.

My mother died seven years later but my father lived in Ridgewood into his 80s. My younger sister stayed in the town. My father's birthday was July 7 (he would have been 104 Tuesday) and all four of us would come out for the Fourth of July and grandpa's birthday. He's been gone for 20 years but the four siblings still get together at my sister's house almost every 4th. We're pretty tight.

Ridgewood has the biggest fireworks in the county. We always go. I'm happy with these shots that were taken on my little Olympus EM5 Mark II.

Below, one of my sweet nieces bottle feeding a puppy, followed by the village  emblem on a sign in the railroad station.                        

Be Mighty

This was found taped to a post under the FDR Drive in Manhattan. It's hard rise to the top in New York City. I wonder if this has affected anyone's life.                                       

The Brooklyn Bridge

Another one of New York City's much-photographed icons. We walked across the bridge last Friday. It was a gorgeous day and the path was crowded. It is located above and between the driving lanes, making it ideal for photographing the complex structure. I've shot it before. This image, taken with a Lensbaby on a winter day, is my favorite.

The second picture was taken from the top of the Liberty Tower.