Week 9
February 29, 2016
Strand Book Store
Washington Square Park
Train In/Out: Milford, CT
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M1, m.Zuiko 17mm
I wanted to start this page with a big Park Avenue yawn...it was a gloomy, rainy Monday morning (but the day ended with sunshine)!
Pershing Square Cafe on the left, nice view of the Grand Central clock. The VI on the clock tips open and you can look out on Park Ave. (not that they let just anybody up there) And a full sized man can lay on the arm of Hercules, the status is THAT BIG.
I liked this, especially the last one about looking / seeing...part of the reason I'm doing this 52 Monday adventure!
They really don't have to work so hard to qualify for my "Interesting things..." page. :)
Pretty display of photography. I really need to print my stuff.
New York Life building on Park Ave...promptly got told that I could not take pictures there. Bummer because there's quite the gold subway station entrance; you would think a subway entrance is open to the public and free to photograph. Didn't feel like arguing (today).
I don't know...
Little Red Hiding Hood does Manhattan.
I had no idea what I was looking at here so I looked it up. It's called Metronome, it's an art installation. Right across from Union Square. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metronome_(public_artwork)
I avoid walking on these grates. I'm always afraid one will be loose and I'll fall through. I'm annoying to walk with due to the constant avoidance.
My main destination for the day, Strand Book Store in Greenwich Village. They say that they have 18 miles of books.
I was greeted by a friendly man who handed me an umbrella bag. First time for everything. :)
Politics, 2016 style.
This book was hilarious.
I went through some of Strand's photography books. It was overwhelming how many they had, but this one stood out. The book had no text, just pictures of Birgit putting on her makeup.
Pretty much every picture looked like this.
Yup.
The Strand owl keeping watch on the windowsill outside.
I met the author who was creating this flower sign-art for her book launch the next day. Her book was about flower essences. Her display smelled great!
After leaving Strand, I headed down Broadway to start making my way towards Washington Square. This was a curious place - a storefront with a wall of plastic wrapped sneakers. The metal security door had just open up as I walked by to reveal the sneakers. There was also a line of people waiting to go into this place. Sneaker wholesaler?
Outside the NYU School of Business. Would be fun to go back on a day that it's sleeting. :)
Just to be clear, like the red & white sticker says, there is no dial tone to be found here. Got it.
My favorite pic of the day.
Please let me know when it's Certain Time o'clock. Merci.
OK, so at this point I was really hungry and not finding a place for a slice of pizza (a new thing I plan to do each week for a while). I spotted Da'Vinci's across the street and hungrily walked over. It was an Italian shoe store. You can imagine my disappointment.
Success on finding pizza; reflection selfie of me walking down the street with my pizza. There was no place to sit in the 99 cent (literally, that's what it was called) pizza place so I walked and ate. And I got my money's worth because it was worth no more than 99 cents. Wasn't a fan.
My second destination of the day, Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. I look forward to photographing the monument in the spring.
It just struck me how you could see the Freedom Tower behind George.
Hi.
This is Kevin the Kite Man, we chatted for quite a while. He had a lovely attitude about kite flying. He saw it as a way for people to be "in the moment", and to share time with each other doing something as simple as flying a kite. I asked and he said yes, he makes his living selling kites and that he goes all over the country. He was quite sincere. I got his email address so I'll be sending him a few pictures and he said he was fine with me putting him on my site. Thanks, Kevin! Enjoyed meeting you.
Of course I bought a kite.
And then I came upon James Isaac _?__ (he told me his last name but I don't recall). He saw me snapping a pic so he called out to me. Said he was a bit down on his luck. He had a very [chatty] optimistic outlook. He did ask me a lot of questions, perhaps too many, but that was OK. He sang me a song and asked me to video him singing so I did (I will post at some point). As this was going on, a gentleman photographer came upon us as James sang and I video'd. He took pictures of us which is rather ironic since I'm supposed to be the street photographer. ;)
My fellow street photographer, David Zimand. He gave me his card so I look forward to connecting. Hi David, if you're viewing this web page. ;) I think the favorite part of today was having 3 conversations with 3 very nice strangers. David and I had a brief, but interesting philosophical talk about ideas and mass consciousness...you know, light conversation between strangers.
What I imagine the dialog between them is, each saying to the other: "Is that what you're wearing?"
2nd favorite photo of the day.
To be so young and expressive.
:)
I only noticed the bike at the time, but as I reviewed the photo I loved how the van across the street says "Innovative".
This balloon and I hung out for a while. It was bashful (and breezy) and refused to pose it's lettered side for me. Finally I convinced it to hold still for a moment (I can be quite charming).
So this image makes the cut because it was one of those weird "coincidences". The day before this trip to New York, we ordered a piece of furniture at Safavieh at Danbury Mall. The salesman happened to mention that they have a store in Manhattan although I didn't ask where and didn't look it up. As I walk, I will spontaneously go down a side street to switch which avenue I'm walking up every now and then, following intuitive impulses. I had done that a few minutes before, got to the end of the street to turn left and there was Safavieh. It's a huge city, what are the odds...a wink from the Universe perhaps. Appreciated.
Abstract of the day.
Dude, it's February 29th. The girl behind you is in a coat & Uggs. But I gotta say, you're pulling off the look.
If you need a place to hang out with your box, this is it.
Will explore photographing this area more on a future trip; stumbled upon it today, didn't have the right lens or lighting to do it justice. It's a crazy skinny building in person, more dramatic than I expected it to be. I'll be back...
Another stumbled upon place. Haven't decided if I will venture in here one day or not. I think it would be more fun to go with a friend.
This girl makes the cut because she's my "saw her twice in one day" person. A while earlier I had stopped for some water so my camera was in my bag. This girl walked by and her outfit and look were interesting, but of course I didn't have my camera. She was headed south and I was headed north. Maybe 10 minutes later I was walking by the Museum of Sex and poof! there she was again. I did just a quick snap of the pic because I was kinda stunned I saw her again, especially since we were going different directions earlier.
This makes me want to get my nails done, not eat whatever it is they are advertising (hamburger crepes?).
Just saying that this seems to be THE color for men's pants in 2016. I like it.
Congratulations on your acceptance in the "Interesting things..." page.
She was sobbing. I wanted to sit down next to her and let her vent whatever it was that was going on. Hope she's better now.
Probably as close as I'm going to get to doing nude photography. Although maybe going to the Museum of Sex will loosen me up. ;)
Bravo, your pizza looks 1,000 times better than my 99 cent slice earlier today.
Until the next Magic Monday!
xo,
~MC
Images © Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.
