Week 18
May 9, 2016
Battery Park area
Brooklyn Bridge Park
(night photography)
Train In/Out: Stratford, CT
Miles walked: 8.5
Subway: 4,6,R (a new one for me!)
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M1, m.Zuiko 17mm f1.8, m.Zuiko 8mm fisheye, m.Zuiko 12-40mm PRO
My photography friend, Ali, joined me on today's Magic Monday. Ali had an interest in seeing the graveyard at St. Paul's chapel down by the World Trade Center area. I was looking for a friend to come do night photography in Brooklyn so it was a win win. We did both.
Ali liked my Looking Up image from Week 17 - the 33 foot statue made out of roasting pans at Park & 53rd, so we headed there first before heading to lower Manhattan. I didn't find out until after I got home last week that Looking Up was made out of roasting pans, so I went to take a better image to show that.
Indeed, it is roasting pans! And different kinds and sizes.
It's intriguing to see the difference in design and cleanliness of the subway depending on where you are in the city. We're around Lex & 52nd, one of the nicer stations I've seen.
St. Paul's Chapel (“The Little Chapel That Stood”) is an Episcopal chapel located at 209 Broadway, across from the World Trade Center area. It’s part of the Trinity Wall Street parish. I took pictures of Trinity in Week 10. This chapel hosted recovery workers after the 9/11 attacks. It was not damaged during the attack depsite it's proximity.
Pretty inside. I'm used to seeing elaborate stone cathedrals in the city, this had more of a Connecticut church feel.
A corner of the chapel was dedicated as a 9/11 memorial.
You can see the new World Trade Center Hub (white ribbed structure) in the background. The hub will be the third largest transportation center in New York City, rivaling Grand Central. It will be apples & oranges to compare it to Grand Central, however. I will fully explore The Hub in a future Magic Monday (I don't think it's all open yet).
It was sad to see so many of the stones had no remnants of their lettering.
Next we made our way over to the "tunnel of white" that I stumbled upon during Week 5. This is the entrance to the PATH station which hosts the trains that take you to New Jersey (hmmm...maybe I will explore that for another Magic Monday). If you walk straight through this area to the back, there is a door that leads you into that tunnel area (that's what I call it!).
One of my favorite photos from this journey was captured on February 1st, 2016:
I was excited to show Ali this cool photography oppportunity today:
Fail. I was so disappointed. It's all under construction to put in a bunch of retail. :( I didn't even bother to try and make this picture look better, I was so sad that it wasn't going to remain a cool open space. Of course retail in NYC is lacking, so I can understand that they need the space.
[eyeroll]
At the end of the tunnel is a long escalator up to Brookfield Place (I was also here during Week 5). View of The Hub through the glass in the distance.
Backside of Brookfield Place (facing the Hudson). This is an action shot! If you look carefully, there is a guy tossing a rope up - he left his mallet on top of the wood structure and was trying to lasso it, I guess versus climbing back up on his bright orange ladder that's two feet away. Didn't stick around to see if he was successful. Kind of a 'careful what you wish for' attempt, if he did snag the mallet, I don't know if I would want to be standing there when it falls down and hits him in the nose.
The sailboats are part of a sailing school. I think you have to be fairly brave to learn to sail on the Hudson. There are water taxis, small cruise ships, huge barges. I grew up sailing on regular Connecticut lakes, that was challenging enough.
Cart people! This is in reference to Jerry Seinfeld's stand up routine from years ago where he had a bit about people in airports on the carts. I really can't do the joke justice but I did want to include the photo for my special Seinfeld friends (you know who you are). Oh, and I was snapping photos when the cart came towards me, almost ran me over. It was an almost got run over kind of day...
And now we know where baby doves come from. And that ducks are really nosey.
Yes, I was thinking the same thing. But it's a public art piece called "Eyes" by Louise Bourgeois.
You keep telling yourself that, Louise.
All the sizes make this image interesting to me. The little one was very sweet.
I've wanted to see this since I read about it. The American Merchant Mariners' Memorial sculpture, located just south of Pier A in Battery Park. It was designed by the sculptor Marisol Escobar in 1991. The bronze sculpture depicts four merchant seamen with their sinking vessel after it had been attacked by a U-boat during World War II. One of the seamen is in the water. He is covered by the water with every high tide (just his hand sticks out of the water). It was low tide in this image but you can see the water line. All died at sea in the attack this is depicting. :(
Had to include the traffic light with the red bicycle, another thing we don't have in CT.
We took an R subway over to Brooklyn Heights and started walking towards DUMBO. I liked how this CVS looked like a home and blended right in. This area of Brooklyn reminded us of Boston.
It's around 5pm and we're definitely ready for dinner after a lot of walking. I wanted to try Grimaldi's pizza because it's a "oh, you're going to Dumbo, you gotta go to Grimald's" type of place. There are usually lines out the door and around the block every time I've been by here. Today there was no line. They don't sell by the slice so I needed someone to share a pie with. :)
Ali seems to look skeptical although the pizza visually looks great! However, we both didn't care for it. The cheese had zero flavor. Nada. To quote Ali "it might as well not been on the pizza". But hey, pizza is a very subjective thing, to each their own. Glad we tried it.
This seemed to be a video photo shoot of a girl eating pizza. Not for Grimaldi's, I think for the place next door.
Speaking of the place next door...this place did have a llne out the door on a Monday night. Apparently there is a rivalry between Julianna's and Grimaldis. I will try Julianna's the next time I'm here.
I wanted Ali to be able to take the "iconic" shot of the Empire State Building under the Manhattan Bridge (I did this during Week 14 on April 11). When we got there a photo shoot was going on. The guy's face never changed expression, even when they were not shooting he kept the exact same expression. I suppose once you perfect the pout you've got to keep it up.
So I was puttering in the middle of the street trying to see if I could get something fun with the cobblestones, puddle in the metal rail, Brooklyn Bridge in the background when...
...I looked up and there was a minivan in my face. I never heard it coming! Fortunately they saw me and were kind enough to stop (didn't even blow the horn). I don't know if it was some kind of hybrid or my hearing is going, but it was a very quiet van. Oops on my part. Definitely my senses turn off a bit when I'm photographing.
And here's another example of me paying attention to one thing and not another. I went down to the water's edge to try a few shots, not realizing as I was setting my tripod up on a rock that some bigger waves were coming in due to a large boat that passed a minute earlier. Suddenly I got splashed as did the camera. Had to dry the lens. Fortunately my Olympus E-M1 and 12-40mm PRO lens are weatherproof! I liked this shot because it shows the water spray on the right and is blurred on the left due to water on the lens. A pretty fail.
Without water splashing at me. Better. :)
This was taken a little after sunset during what is called The Blue Hour. It did not disappoint! I did some light editing but really the image was blue right out of the camera. A favorite of the night.
Around 9:30pm we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to catch a subway at City Hall back to Grand Central. I love the lines in this photo leading to the Freedom Tower. I was suprised it came out as well as it did, this is a 4 second exposure and there was a lot of vibration on the bridge. Shaking cameras don't usually get very clear photos but this was OK.
Here's another shot from the bridge. This is a 6 second exposure x 5 rounds of Live Composite. Live Composite only adds new light that the camera detects for the additional exposures. It's one of the most amazing features of my camera!
Ack! My newspaper shop is closed so no New York Post today. It was 10:15pm, the latest I've been in Grand Central on this journey thus far. But that's ok, it was a great day and I was very happy with the night photographs. Enjoyed my time with Ali and re-exploring a few areas. Interesting to see how things change season to season.
Until the next Magic Monday!
xo,
~MC
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