The long way home

It has seemed a long week and when Friday arrived it was most welcome. The idea that there was time to relax and make the most of things...to enjoy and savour the changing weather.
 I decided to make the most of the opportunity of only having to go a few stops to the end of the 6 line in the Bronx- one more thing of my 60 things I am working on.


Spring is in the air with some warmth and definite colour in the previously bleak surroundings.

The walk from 59th and Lex takes me across Park Avenue at some point depending on which way the lights are running I may merely cross Park Avenue but in this case I walked a long a little.
The florist near 59th Street has entered into the spirit of the flower art installation that is on Park Avenue (just been going back over my blog and found the post I did of the art installation).

The yellow-ness of it all is so cheery.

I meandered around and ended up walking along the edge of Central Park. The daffs are out but not huge plantings of things that I remember from previous years as yet but perhaps early in the coming week I'll find my way to the park and see some more flowers and signs of spring. The much photographed bridge was clearly in view from the street level.

 You really have to peer at this photo to notice it I realize but it is there.

My wandering took me along 57th Street and this wonderful planting of daffodils.

Andrew (brother) and Lynne (SIL) will miss the major blooms when they come here in June- a pity as Lynne's favourite flowers are daffodils.

Thursday night we went out for dinner with Marie and John. As there were five of us (not easy to get a cab or we'd need to take two so..) I chose to walk to and from the restaurant. It was pleasant out and it is not too arduous a walk so I enjoyed it. When I got to the corner of 48th there was this guy standing on the corner.

 

It is not unusual for people to be standing holding signs and poles with advertising for businesses but this was the first time I had seen someone with a neon sign around their neck. My immediate thought was "Aren't there enough lights in Times Square already?"

Another Friday rolls around

What with the snow day the week seems to have come to an end really quickly and unexpectedly.

I took my "model" to photography last night. We were doing portraiture and lighting. I was quite pleased with the photos at the time but think one is slightly out of focus- ah pride goeth before a fall!
But they are still nice shots I reckon ... thank Bernadette for agreeing to be my model.

 Another day at work and so a nice round about walk home. I had forgotten that in walking from 59th and Lex that I would cross Park Avenue near 57th St and there I came across the public art work of Will Ryman. I'd seen and heard things about it in the media. Here is part of how it was reported in the Wall Street Journal

Beginning on  Tuesday 25 January, Will Ryman's first public art installation, "The Roses,"  appeared along the Park Avenue Malls between 57th and 67th Streets. For many New Yorkers, its 38 colossal red and pink blossoms, blooming from stems up to 25 feet tall, will serve as an uplifting reminder of the tulips that sprout there each spring.
But to Mr. Ryman, 41 years old, they represent something else. A former playwright with an absurdist edge, he turned to sculpture in 2004 out of a desire to "let the play's scenery tell the whole story," he said recently at his Bowery studio. "I wanted to create theater with no lines or actors, but just the world itself."
"The Roses," presented by the Paul Kasmin Gallery is running through to the end of May.
"I like public sculpture because it exists outside of the gallery world, which can be pretty elitist," Mr. Ryman said, adding that outdoor installations reach a broader audience, and "the focus tends to be more on personal interaction than intellectualization."
Indeed, one can interact with "The Roses" from a variety of perspectives: the sidewalk, the surrounding apartment buildings, the seat of a car. People below the roses, Mr. Ryman said, will have a completely different experience than those above.
Of course, with greater exposure come tighter restrictions, especially in Midtown. City Hall, the Borough Hall Commissioners Office and the Park Avenue Sculpture Committee all rigorously reviewed Mr. Ryman's proposal. They accepted the dog-sized brass bugs—aphids, ladybugs, beetles, ants—that will adorn the steel stems and fiberglass petals, but rejected the coffee cup, Doritos bag and extinguished matches he envisioned strewn about the medians.
"We liked the idea," said Jennifer Lantzas, public art coordinator for the city's Department of Parks and Recreation. "But City Hall is doing a big anti-trash initiative, and we wanted to respect that."
Twenty giant petals will appear in place of the litter, she said, six of which will serve as lawn chairs. 
Unlike Christo's fabric panels, Mr. Ryman's roses are handmade. He showed up every day at KB Projects—the Greenpoint-based art fabricator whose clients include Paul McCarthy, Richard Prince and Louise Bourgeois—to shape and paint each petal. "If it has my name on it, I need to be intimately involved in its creation," he said.
As a result, the blossoms have a delicate quality up close, despite weighing approximately 250 pounds each. They're also intentionally out of proportion, lumpy and shiny—an effect created using several coats of industrial-strength boat paint.
Mr. Ryman admitted that the meaning of a rose changes when it's 25 feet tall, with thorns the size of dinosaur teeth. And so to the art work itself...

I had to wait for the tooting cars to separate to snap this first view

I got into the swing of photographing by walking to the centre median and then back straight away from whence I came

Some fellow pedestrians found it odd but I like the colour and chirpiness of them all

The walk along Fifth Avenue and the snow "capped" facades of churches.

enpoint-based art fabricator whose clients include Paul McCarthy, Richard Prince and Louise Bourgeois—to shape and paint each petal. "If it has my name on it, I need to be intimately involved in its creation," he said.As a result, the blossoms have a delicate quality up close, despite weighing approximately 250 pounds each. They're also intentionally out of proportion, lumpy and shiny—an effect created using several coats of industrial-strength boat pI walked along 5th Avenue- avoiding those nasty icy melting slushy ugly puddles as much as I could but view of the snow "capped" facades made it worth while.

10 on Tuesday

I enjoyed doing this process on Thursday last week so visited the blog again and the following was her list- again some things I would never venture to think about but interesting to walk in other' s shoes to think

1. Do you decorate for Valentine’s day?
I steer clear of this "celebration" although it is the day that I land in Australia this year.

2. Does your desktop have a picture or computer graphic? Is it organized?
I hate a messy desktop so mine is organized- I have one of my favourite photos from part of our trip along route 66 on my laptop desktop. Have to get a new image on my Desktop computer.

3. Do you use a paper planner, electric planner or no planner at all?
Paper diary/planner using Stephen Covey planning strategies.

4. Do you change purses or bags often or stick with a good thing?
I use a really small handbag and have been known to change it seasonally.

5. What’s your favorite YouTube Video?
At the moment my favourite You Tube is three year old Jonathan "conducting" Beethoven's 5th symphony

6. Do you use Turbo Tax or a real person to pay your taxes?
Have to have a real person for this

7. How many states have you set foot (or tire) in? Which ones?
Hmm need to get a map out and check- I have been to every state in Australia but in the USA?
California, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Illinois, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, New Hamphshire, Maine, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi... I think that is 30... only 20 left to see!

8. How many countries have you been in? Which ones?
Listing Countries I have been in is even more difficult... here are most of them
England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany (East and West), Russia, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Morocco, Tunisia, Switzerland, Belgium, Monaco, Estonia, Andora, Greece, Croatia, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Netherlands, Fiji, New Guinea, Japan, Vietnam, USA  and Australia. Perhaps that makes it 36.

9. How many pillows are in your house? (Sleeping or decorative)
Better things to do than walk around counting the pillows and cushions in the house!

10. How cold is too cold for flip flops?

Never wear flip flops or thongs as we call them. I hate how they rub your feet and have had nasty accidents when wearing them - getting  the edge of them  caught on a step... pain!

 Heading home...
 And so for the long walk home I started out from 117th Street and walked through the top of Central Park and through and down to 72nd St. Along the way I enjoyed the beauty of snow and park. Went along some tracks, carefully, watched some people skating at the rink in the northern end of the park, sought out the birds making lovely sounds- no idea what they were- then passed a waterfall and creek. After i while I began to feel that I could get lost so sought out the major road and path and headed out through a bit more "civilization" rather than wilderness. Felt quite intrepid really!

The waterfall- the sides of which are frozen

The bridge over the creek walking

It snowed again

 They predicted snow overnight and it was supposed to start at 9pm. Great thought I just when I am coming home late night from photography I'll be in a snow storm. Lucky for me it didn't commence until later- much later. But snow it did and it made for a very pretty if slushy "commute"

First up- capture the accumulation on the balcony

Bundling up is not too difficult when one has a great coat- The new one this year has a zip that "goes both ways" makes in so much easier on the hot subways and then out on the street.

Stop and savour the view down Broadway then head for the subway

 The bikes are used by the delivery guys from the restaurant...they do earn their tips when they deliver take out in this sort of weather- in most weathers really.

But then there were the bicycles covered in snow

 Up in Harlem the snow seemed thicker and fluffier and made for great photographic opportunities

The early morning light and the snow

A path had already been created in the school plaground

Love the dark tree and the snow

 By the end of the cold cold day the snow was still around and despite the cold and the snow I did my long walk home. There were a couple of snow flurries as I walked home but it was not too bad- other than the slushy puddles it was a great walk home, again.

Did the long walk home past 68th St "Square"

Friday in Manhattan

The early morning walk down Broadway to catch the express train

 It was a day at work in Harlem. In one room I was in the kids were writing about "Technology now and then". In a previous session one of the boys was writing about MP3 players and was wanting to know what had been before them. The kids thought it through a little and came up with CDs and stretched their digging back in time to come up with records- one student asked "What are records?"
This got me thinking about records and my experience with them...
A while back (like a year or so) I did a post about the first record I got which was a 78, one of the hard shellac recordings. Until I was doing a little research I'd forgotten the following aspects of the records...
Such 78 rpm records were usually sold separately, in brown paper or cardboard sleeves that were sometimes plain and sometimes printed to show the producer or the retailer's name. Generally the sleeves had a circular cut-out allowing the record label to be seen. Records could be laid on a shelf horizontally or stood upright on an edge, but because of their fragility, many broke in storage. (Wikipedia)
The thing I remember most is that they were hard and my first record was given to me by dad and it was My pony Whipstick. I wasn't a horse crazed little girl in fact was a tad nervous of them but the music was a great sing along.
My first record that I remember buying for my own record player was Deep Purple- Dark side of the moon. I didn't "need" to buy records before then as I have older siblings who bought records and the only place to play them was on the record played in the lounge room and that wasn't going to happen very often. I really only played records when I was doing my "jobs" for the week of dusting and vaccuuming the house. Needless to say I didn't recount all this to the student who would have become even more bewildered.
At one stage another student commented that before they had ways to play back music (hadn't thought of records and such quite in those terms) they used to go to the theatre to hear music!

Did the long way home walk again- five days this week!

The Lincoln Centre is close by and this closed amidst controversy or at least much complaint- the rent was too high

The final obvious part of the bump out- the sign came down