Duane Street and Elk Street

This is the view from inside the monument at the African Burial Ground. “The 24-foot-high Ancestral Chamber,” according to information at the site, “represents the soaring African spirit and the distance below ground from which the ancestral remains were exhumed. It is made of Verde Fontaine green granite from Africa…. The interior recalls a ship’s hold and provides a place for individual contemplation and prayer.”

55th Street and Madison Avenue

A bite of smoked salmon at Aquavit. The beginning of another dinner in New York City.

86th Street and Third Avenue

Paris or New York: which is better and what’s the difference? Take a look at this “tally of two cities.”

West Broadway and Spring Street

Soho street, Saturday morning, before the tourists have stumbled out, and the artists are just getting started. (I’m going off to be a tourist myself next week, although I might try to fake it.) So see you later.

North End Avenue and Murray Street

Slightly sticky toffee pudding with Talisker (a favorite scotch of Robert Louis Stevenson, apparently) at North End Grill. (Read some initial reviews of the restaurant here, where the consensus seems to be: worth the crossing into Battery Park City.)

17th Street and Sixth Avenue

Patterns in the window at the rustic-urban Canvas home store, which contains all sorts of things (olive-wood spatulas, gold flatware) suitable for a “simple sustainable style.” Nice alternative to the West Elm next door. Not that I don’t like West Elm, of course, what with their gold flatware and olive-wood boards.

Second Street and Second Avenue

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Spring Street and Sullivan Street

“Occasionally my sense of irony reaches Paris itself and then I like New York. I would go further: every time someone mentions Duchamp, I think my life has been a mistake from the start and, instead of living in Barcelona and being in love with Paris, I should have quit bothering about such nonsense and lived in New York.” —from Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas
            (That’s the Paris–New York confection, on the right, at the Dominique Ansel Bakery.)

Broadway and Warren Street

One red balloon overblown, now stuck in the branches. Trying to work itself up, into a flight of fancy.

Second Avenue and 9th Street

Getting ready for Valentine’s Day at Veselka. (Or maybe they always feel that way there.)

Barclay Street and West Broadway

Perhaps like me, you snap a picture every day. Of something, somewhere. I like to think they might add up. I never imagined this, however.

Hudson Street and Leroy Street

“Follow your inner moonlight….”
—Allen Ginsberg

15th Street and Fifth Avenue

A bit of guerrilla knitting in front of Lion Brand Yarn Studio. (“Guerilla knitting or ‘yarnstorming’ is the art of conjuring up a piece of knitting or crochet, taking it out in the world, releasing it into the wild, and running away like a mad thing,” according to London-based Knit the City.)

16th Street and Sixth Avenue

Overheard on the street: “No, I want to live on Mott Street. Mulberry and Mott.”
            And have you seen this video of other things New Yorkers say on a daily basis?

Hudson Street and Spring Street

This specimen of Flaming Cactus went up for the holidays but seems pretty indestructible. “My experience with public art, is that no one is in a big hurry to take down something that is making the neighborhood more beautiful,” says one of the artists in this Downtown Express article.

58th Street and Seventh Avenue

Tiny village perched in a windowsill. (Someone might be living in it.)