As the gloom slowly slips away – Scroll Down for Spring

100th Post!!

This is that “just 10 degrees warmer please” time of year, when the long, gray drudgery of March starts to crack into early Spring.  People are sick of it – you know it’s April in New York when it gets just a hair above 60 degrees, and the sidewalk cafes are packed with bundled-up diners pretending not to shiver.  But as the flowers begin to appear, first tentatively, then explosively, we know sweet May is not long off.

These are some photos tracing the end of Winter and the first baby steps of Spring.  Near the bottom are pictures of the almost-complete 1 World Trade Center

“Death of Time”

Forest Hills, Queens
Zorki-4

A pretty estuary it must have been before urbanity took hold. Probably not unlike similar coastal creeks I’ve kayaked along. Today, this is the border between the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn – a Superfund site which ranks among the most polluted waterways in the US. The snowy weather today tempered that fact for a little bit, and high above on the Pulaski Bridge it’s easier to imagine it as it once was.

Queens Blvd
Zorki-4

cabland

Rivington St.
Lower East Side

Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

33 stories above Lower Manhattan

5Pointz
A world renowned graffiti/street art mecca, the exterior of this former-warehouse-turned-artist-studios-space is covered in amazing pieces which are constantly changing.
It is currently threatened by developers who aim to build a sterile, glass condo complex on the site.

180 ft below Washington Heights

Icy Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

Century-old Skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan Gold

Verticalia – World Trade Center, early April, 2013

A climb out the window and a few flights up the fire escape to the roof is a treasure which makes all the b.s. of daily city life go away for a precious few moments.

Into the Blue – World Trade Center, early April, 2013

Washington Heights

sudden sweet sultry haze of spring.
Ft. Tryon Park, Manhattan

“April King” – by Snazz Mammoth

A 2-part set of songs by my solo cello-rock-electronica project –

 

we were gone

 

looking back on our regrets

playback on an old cassette

you will be blamed

for taking off too soon

waking up the neighborhood

piling in the backseat

hit the gas and

off we go

 

we’re gone

 

we were gone

none of us were wrong

 

another bridge is calling

the playing field has been

all leveled out

 

we know we’ve been untrue

never wanted you to be disappointed

 

we’ll drive on

and on

and further

 

 

A Thousand Different Sighs

 

We have been gone so long

the pull’s too strong

out here

open road

 

We don’t know when

when we’ll be

be back home again

 

We sigh

a thousand different sighs

 

We every stop we make

our mind does wake

Under open sky

 

We wish we knew

Knew when we’d

We’d be back again

 

We sigh

a thousand different sighs