Week 33
August 22, 2016
The Oculus
9/11 Memorials
Train In/Out: Milford, CT
Miles walked: 5.85 (slacking!)
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M1 with m.Zuiko 17mm f1.8, m.Zuiko 12-40mm PRO, m.Zuiko 8mm fisheye
Only your own deep need to salvage something from the void—to act or to write or to create—
can keep you from the commonplace and from dying out….
Be careful what happens to your talent.
~ Stella Adler
I have a great story for you today!! A guy I photographed 2 weeks ago and included on the blog page...well I saw him again! 8.5 million people in the city and I saw the same stranger twice. More on that later...
Onward.
This is The Oculus. It's across the street from the 9/11 memorial and Freedom Tower. It opened to the public about a week ago. Thought I would check it out. It's the transportation hub for the PATH trains which go to New Jersey, and also connects to Fulton Center where a bunch of different subways stop.
By all means, bring your bike up the stairs.
Side view. The space is a Westfield Mall. I think where I'm standing a huge Apple store is behind me.
I love the juxtaposition of the moderness of The Oculus and the Amish (I think ?) people who were visiting in a large group.
Wings of retail space. I did change the image to black and white, but basically it didn't do much except lose the color of the clothing on people. It's very white in there.
These screens changed advertisment every few seconds. I waited for something I thought was pretty.
Made my way down to the ground floor. I was hoping to run into Captain Kirk but I never did see him.
It's impressive.
Cutest police dog ever! I always think of them as only being a shepherd breed. Apparently not. We bonded while Dad talked on the phone (I did ask the officer permission before taking his photo).
The 9/11 memorial is next to The Oculus. I was in the World Trade Center a year before they fell. Was visiting from Minnesota, went into NYC for the day with my parents. I still remember being on the roof of the trade center thinking how silent it is up there versus how crazy the city noise is on the ground.
It was interesting living in Minnesota when 9/11 happened. Of course the people of the Twin Cities were shocked and saddened, but I could tell many of my friends were not quite as rattled as I was. Perhaps because I was there the year before shook me a bit more. And I did grow up in Connecticut so there is always the bond you have with New York City. It still all seems surreal to me.
Freedom Tower
I believe this is the first photo I've ever taken with my lens cap on! I converted it to black and white to really give it a dramatic effect. ;)
Freedom Tower, looking up. I love the disappearing lines.
Finally found the American Express 11 Tears Memorial for 9/11. Wow, it was so beautiful / tastefully done. Truly amazing. It is an 11 sided fountain with a gorgeous rose quartz pendant suspended from above. It honors the 11 American Express employees that worked in the tower when it went down. They were a travel agency group working in a client's office.
From the ceiling, there are 11 water drops, one for each person, that drip randomly every few seconds. They are set to drip in front of each person's name.
Each person is memorialized with 5 phrases about who they were. It was an amazing thing to read about each person because, of course, we are all more than just a name. I was truly moved by this. xo
There was a short write up for each person. Again, very tastefully done.
This is Karen, she was sitting by the memorial as I photographed it. We chatted for at least 10 minutes. A native New Yorker she was full of information about the memorial, and also about the city in general! Gave me an author to look up who wrote a great book about the buildings of New York and some other tidbits. I shared my 52MM business card with her, hopefully I will hear from Karen one day. She is lovely.
Decided to head north on W. Broadway for a while, see how far I could go before needing to take a subway to get back to Grand Central for my 3:32pm train.
She was patiently waiting to grab the very tame pigeon. She did go for it, and I truly think she could have grabbed the bird, but she kind of pulled back and opened her hands realizing she could actually catch the bird (careful what you wish for, right?). She had feathers go through her hands though!
Dappled napper.
This place was adorable!
My most cheerful 52 Magic Mondays photo to date.
Don't tell me what to do.
On top of paying rent in New York, here's what it costs to keep a car in lower Manhattan. Even your bike will cost you a decent amount every month for storage.
In case you need to stock up!
You go girl!
I wouldn't dare.
Welcome to Interesting Things...
Whoa!! I've seen you before. First time on Week 31 on 5th Ave not far from the Empire State Building (picture below). Today, Week 33, on W. Broadway in Tribeca, basically 40 blocks south of where I saw him 2 weeks ago. That is very very very bizarre. I know for sure it’s him because of his arm tattoos. I quickly took the picture of him in the Parisian shirt because I thought I recognized him, he wasn't that interesting otherwise. FYI: 8.5 million people live in NYC...and then there are the people who commute in for work, tourists, etc. The likelihood that all my wandering would take me to this corner at this moment...and to even be able to recognize him, well, it's just beyond what my little brain can handle.
Here he is on Week 31. I commented on how I thought he needed more coffee.
And this bizarre cosmic day continued when I stepped into an art gallery about 10 minutes later...but first, a few more pics. I do go in order as my day unfolds.
Fine. I'll admit it. When I looked up, I thought it said Booger. I include it only for that reason, it still makes me laugh.
This is my favorite photo of the day because I love how his eye is just peeking over to me PLUS I'm in the photo, reflecting in the doorway. Almost looks like I'm leaning back to sneak myself into the photo (I was not, this dude was a tad scary looking so I clicked and kept on moving). And there's a guy apprently right next to me as I can see in the reflection, he's looking at what I'm photographing.
So here's the continuation of my strange cosmic universe-giving-me-weird-signs kind of day. It was a few minutes later after running into asian tattoo guy. I randomly stepped into a small gallery that had some very large photography displayed. When I got to the left side of the gallery, there were all these large photographs of big cats; a cheatah, tiger, lion and BAM!
A dream from last night came flooding back to me.
I had this very strange dream where I was in a cabin looking through a large window into a glassed in porch and there were all these large cats that started appearing in the porch...a cheetah, tiger, lion...(ok, and then my 2 cats were on the porch).
I had this deja-vu kind of moment where I realized the dream was a premonition of me going into the gallery. I think the large window in my dream was the plain glass frames many of the photos were in.
I remembered at the end my dream, a lion appeared to the left on the porch. So I looked to my left as I stood in the gallery (jaw slightly dropped)...
The last photo on my left was a lion.
So that happened! :)
I'm reflected in her left eye.
Another warm welcome to Interesting things... As if the water bottles weren't enough, let's top it off with an awkwardly tall box, just for giggles.
The little pug did not break eye contact with me at all as I walked by. I think we were married in a past life. (kidding!)
And I thought, gee, you do kinda look like your dogs! :) Thin, lanky...
Merlin here jumped up, took off his hat and held it out and asked me for a donation. He said he wasn't just out here to look pretty for me. I did not make a donation but I did look him up when I got home because he had a book on his table so I was curious if he was an author. Turns out, he is. And he's a well respected psychic in the city! I may seek him out and get a reading next time I'm in the area. I'll ask forgiveness and show him the photo (after the reading, of course). I'll let you know how the psychic reading goes if I get one! Here's a little info on Kyler (who could use my help building him a new website): http://www.kylerjames.com/ACTOR%20TURNED%20PSYCHIC.htm His book is called "The Secret of the Red Truck" by Kyler James. Hopefully this little plug makes up for my lack of donation to his fancy hat.
And I absolutely LOVED the quote on his website page, so I used it on mine today at the top.
She wasn't looking at me, she was looking at the sign noting the upcoming subway stops. I like that her head is up and the guy next to her head is down. And as I'm proofreading this page, it's a little freaky that she kind of looks like the photo above. Hmmm....
Lots of them!
Blurry, but it's too funny not to use. Welcome to my T-shirts of New York page.
A good day overall. I'm still a tad freaked out about asian tattoo guy and the dream premonition. I have one friend who spent some time researching the coffee shop tattoo guy was sitting in front of on Week 31 to see if maybe he showed up on their Facebook page in photos but she didn't see him. Who knows if his "home base" is up by the Empire State Building or down near the 9/11 area. I'll ask him next time we bump into each other. Ha!
Here's something fun I've been working on. I've put favorite images from Weeks 1-7 and 8-13 to music and posted YouTube videos. They're each around 4 minutes long. The songs are powerful and I think they add to the imagery. I've created a Video Slideshows page on this site so you can always check that page for new videos. I'll post the two I created here so you don't have to click around today. Enjoy!
Do leave me a comment below...ESPECIALLY if you know my asian tattoo friend!!!!
Weeks 1 - 7
Watch full screen on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRNsxZQN4_o
Weeks 8 - 13
Watch full screen on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7CwblYzFH4
Until the next Magic Monday...
xo,
~MC
{rsform 36}
