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Blimey, its 10 days since I got back home, I'd better get on with posting about my travels before its all too distantly past.

excursus:
[I'm not checking the dictionary at all for "blimey", its a word I use quite a lot and I refuse to be intimidated or dictated to by a dictionary. (still wondering about that bunny though...)]




A few of my favourite things (about New York):

Fire escapes. I couldn't stop taking photos of them, especially in the sharp sunshine with their clear and complicated shadows etching stripes and angles on the buildings.


Colours and reflections. Red brick and painted brick and fire hydrants and blue blue sky and stone and steel and glass and yellow cabs, graffiti, adverts, almost-luminous spring greens, cherry blossom and redbud against brickwork, clear white dogwood brightening shade and all again reflected again... and cross-hatched by the shadows of the fire-escapes.


Buildings. Yes. Of course. Eclectic, elegant, ultra-modern and medieval-looking and encased in scaffolding, sophisticated quirky, sleek, grand and mundane, pristine and decaying. Peeling paint, I love peeling paint. And - especially all the little twiddly extra decorative fantasy embellishments, unexpected balconies,friezes, turrets, blank blank expanses of glass full of reflections.
Many of the most interesting "bits" are way way up high. Is that to make one look up? or to ensure that the penthouse gets the best view?
And then, theres the Chrysler Building. Sublime.


Water-towers. I love them! And there are so many of them! They look so incongruous and rural homespun and yet so perfectly at home in the cityscape, sticking out of near and far horizons and nestling in the tumbling blocks of roofs and towers and the corners between. This is a picture of our hotel, with water tower in the distance.





Parks. I walked and sat and talked for a while in Central Park with dear Lynne, my first blog-date of the week - so lovely to meet face to face and talk, and like my other U.S. blog dates this felt like meeting an existing friend rather than meeting someone new. But not long enough.

Also Madison Square Park, Union Square, some fabulous community gardens... There is something very special about green spaces in a city.


Taking photos in the museums. I couldn't quite believe photography is allowed. Not so in London. I loved it not so much for taking pictures of the art, though I took a few - but watching other people taking photos of, posing for photos in front of famous art. "... and here's me and a Starry Starry Night..."
Photo on lost camera: the back of a tall young man taking a photo, very high arms stretched, very close up (macro) in front of a Rothko.
I love seeing art but also watching people interacting with art and the cameras added a new dimension to this.
Second telling off: in MOMA, not for taking photos (as I kept expecting) but for walking around in bare feet.





All seen from:

street level, walking and walking and walking. My third blog-date of the week, our personal walking-graffiti tour of the lower East side and Alphabet city with Steve & Bob. Couldn't have been more fun or more relaxed or more cool. Some of Steve's photos from that afternoon are here, uploaded about May 11th and ff.


top of the Empire state building, gobsmacking even though we've all seen it on film: I loved seeing the roof gardens and building sites and water towers (even a few chimneys!) and streets and traffic amidst all the above and stretching out all the way to the river (and on the very topmost edge a felt-penned "eeek! don't fall!";


the river - boat trip around Manhattan at dusk, breathtaking and beautiful;


Metropolitan Museum of Art's roof garden. The spring tips of the trees stretching out and away in waves and lapping at the feet of the skyscrapers, whilst behind us Jeff Koon's giant balloon dog glared outrageously fabulous gold and bright reflecting back people, faces, feet. "Us" being myself and the lovely Chedwick (date no.2) to whom lots of big thanks for all the photos in this post. And (even more) for a great few hours.















cable car across the 59th Street Bridge; (definately groovy) (also with Ched, who is also groovy)





















Brooklyn Bridge. Spectacular - and different - views of the city. Loved Brooklyn. Could have spent more time there. Excellent lunch. Missed the Brooklyn museum, closed on Tuesdays. Big disappointment. Poo.

But - we went instead into the Botanical gardens next to the museum and that was more than compensation. The gardens were awash with cherry blossoms, masses of luxurious pink and white pom poms, delicate wisteria-like weeping cherries, blue skies, green grass, little heaps of blissful turtles sunning themselves in the Japanese garden. The gardens were also full of families enjoying the blossom, families with little heaps of children - siblings dressed in matching outfits - running, playing, laughing, climbing trees - orthodox Jewish families dressed so beautifully for the holidays mainly in black and white amidst the pink and white frothiness; truly wonderful atmosphere and visually stunning. Judy Chicago and Georgia will still be in the museum next time, and I'm quite sure, I will be back.