NEW YORK RAMBLES (page 41)
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May 2018
A walk from Union Square to Hudson Yards
It seems that as soon as a building empties in the City, it becomes the object of competing ambitions. I don’t mean between developers but street artists each holding a different agenda. While some just want to simply tag everything in sight, others want to create art or they see a blank facade as an opportunity to express a political statement. What is truly amazing is that all these goals often manage to lay side by side within the same peaceful though often agitated kingdom.
May 2018
A walk from Forest Hills to Woodside
Much of the day was spent walking under tree lined streets, often lush with spring blooms. Then there are those blocks where everything abruptly changes, where gardens are seen to take away from parking and trees only mess up streets with their leaves. Why have a garden when you can have a desert? Concrete is the new green.
April 2018
A ramble in Williamsburg
Street art is far more prevalent in some parts of the City than in others, so much so that you might think you were living in two different countries. I don’t mean simple tagging but actual efforts to create a pictorial narrative. In some places it feels so natural that it has become part of a neighborhood’s identity. I’ve noticed that is seems most common in places undergoing the most dramatic changes, a reaction to century old buildings being replaced with sterile facades. It is a reminder that a city is more than concrete and steel.
April 2018
A walk from Jamaica to Forest Hills
If glass and steel towers are the pride of modern architects, then texture and color exemplify most residential streets in the city. It is often applied generously with no regard to balance or subtlety. When left to their own devices, people prefer clutter over the sleek.
April 2018
A walk from Union Square to Hudson Yards
When the glass in the new skyscrapers stops reflecting the old skyscrapers of brick and stone we won’t know which way is up.
April 2018
A loop between Long Island City and Williamsburg
Weekdays, weekends, mid-day, rush hour, it doesn’t matter, there are cars everywhere these days. Half the time something catches my eye, I can’t get a good shot because there are two many vehicles in the way. Cars, trucks and buses are slowly becoming a natural part of my compositions, but I cannot honestly say if it is because I’ve learned to see them more abstractly or if I am just growing to accept them as part of the landscape.
April 2018
A walk from Jamaica Hills to Forest Hills
New homes, old homes, blocks of apartment building and garden communities are all compressed into a space so small that there are no transitions from one to another, only abrupt boundaries. The simple act of crossing a street can take you to a new world. This phenomenon also exists on a smaller scale, where the old and the new intermingle within a single yard as if there is no context to style. Someday this will be an archeologists nightmare.
April 2018
A ramble through Kissena Hollow
Spring has been slow in coming and the rising fog has muted its silent stirrings even more. The sere hues of the dead still shine brighter than the living. There are however signs that cannot be denied. Buds may be barely swollen but subtle clouds of pale yellows and reds filter through tangles of spindly branches. Daffodils pop in unexpected places like fireworks celebrating some obscure holiday. The cauldron is brewing.
April 2018
A walk in Kissena Hollow
The snow fell with such intensity that the warm temperature could not prevent it from sticking to whatever it touched. The life of this delicate lacework was fated to be short. It began turning gloppy as soon as the storm passed, and the snow falling from the tree limbs pelted me with a greater intensity than the tempest had shown. There was still beauty in this. A cake is just as sweet after the first slice is removed.
April 2018
A Midtown ramble
I cannot deny that there are good designers around, and many people today are as creative as they ever were if not more so. The question that remains is why I am so attracted to all this retro fashion that fills Fifth Avenue during the Easter Parade? It dates before my time, and I’ve given up on style in favor of comfort years ago. I guess true elegance is just timeless.
March 2018
A walk from Madison Square to Hudson Yards via Central Park
I used to admire old buildings that managed to successfully integrate modern architecture into their design. The ability to do this no longer seems to be a valued art. City streets are now nothing more than oversized sculpture parks. I have to say that I often find these abstractions appealing, but just like the derelict structures I’m drawn to, I don’t want to live among them.
March 2018
A walk in the Iron Triangle
As the City clears out unwanted businesses in the Iron Triangle through eminent domain, this isolated neighborhood reverts more and more to its formers swampy appearance. Let their be no mistake, this is no refuge for wildlife but a bayou for the forsaken. Dreams now float on pools of toxic waste while waiting for the condos to come.
March 2018
A walk from Flushing to Jackson Heights
Architecture that is out of scale with its surroundings is no longer an aberration, it has grown to become the norm. Then again, isn’t every block entitled to have its own castle?
March 2018
A walk from Union Square to Hudson Yards
Sometimes the City seems to have a thousand more eyes than it really has.
March 2018
A walk across Flushing
The snow ceased falling at daybreak but the sky remained dark. There is a strange balance between clouds and snow laden branches; one moment the sky is darker and the next it is the trees. At those times when both are in perfect harmony, I can feel myself walking onto the page of a fairytale.
March 2018
A Flushing ramble
The Nor’easter brought no snow but by morning many trees had toppled or broke in two. The Pin Oaks were the hardest hit; giant trees with a lot of weight. They in turn shattered others on their way down, branches scattered in every direction as if hit by a bomb. It was a sad sight to see. In the broader scheme of things the damage was light but it doesn’t feel that way. Where do you mark the loss of something you love on a measuring stick?
February 2018
A loop between Jamaica Hills and Jamaica
If history has become more than the story of kings, has including the rest of us only made us more indifferent to the past? This City is filled with hundreds if not thousands of little gems that are just waiting their turn to meet the wrecking ball. When only opinion and judgement rule, we fail to see.
February 2018
A walk between Jamaica Hills and Auburndale
It seems that the too big has become even bigger. Why do behemoths go up on lots that can barely contain them? I suppose they are not about providing more space as much as fulfilling some empty need to draw attention. Modesty has no place in our new paradigm. Then again, exaggeration has always been the American way.
February 2018
A ramble across the Lower East Side
A bike races into my composition just when I need it. Statisticians will argue that the strange concurrences that populate our lives that may make us feel special are really more common than we realize. Fair enough; I do believe in coincidence, but it seems that there is always someone trying to explain away the unfathomable as if mystery is a disease to be cured. I am far more suspicious of people who think they have the answers.
February 2018
A ramble in Kissena Hollow
The wet snow that fell throughout the night is the type of snow I dream of. Whatever it touched refused to shed its weight allowing delicate patterns to build in the shadows. By morning it really did seem all a dream for there was nothing left but a gloppy mess. Snow however is still snow, and I knew I could still count on contrast.
February 2018
A 12 mile walk between Midtown and Maspeth
The bright blue sky of morning made me too complacent to deal with the heavy overcast that followed. I became directionless as I wandered down new streets and into new neighborhoods I had no intention of visiting. Despite many previous walks through this area, I somehow managed to avoid every known landmark that might have set me back on course. Instead I was met by a steady stream of compositions that found balance amidst the chaos. Sometimes the correct path is not the one chosen but the one given to us.
February 2018
A brief walk in Jamaica and Briarwood
The sky was threatening all day but unable to resist the unexpected warmth I flew out my door. The air was filled with that wonderful winter balminess that occasionally arrives before the first sprout breaks ground, before the sleepy buds swell with color. The promise of spring is sometimes more exhilarating than spring itself. Today the air’s dampness turned to rain the moment I began my walk. Just troubling enough to make shooting difficult, but not enough to drive me inside.
February 2018
A walk in the Village
Construction is New York’s only real monument.
January 2018
A walk in Kissena Hollow
The moment I stepped out under the night sky the moon rushed at me through the trees. I can’t ever remember being assaulted this way. I have never seen the moon this bright. My numb fingers fumbled though my camera’s controls trying to find the right exposure that would capture some detail. It was a fools errand. The radiant light was just so intense that it seared itself into the heavens and I had to content myself with an orb of pure white. It was only near dawn, when I caught up with it kissing the horizon, did the moon take on a determined blush, a hint of dark where the eclipse ate away at its edge. I was so absorbed by the super blue bloody moon that I did not realize how cold I was until it disappeared from sight.
January 2018
A loop between Flushing and Murray Hill
It is obvious from the effort put into them that many people really care about their yards, but it is questionable if they ever really look at what they do to them. Then again what would I do without them? There is a real aesthetic to be found here, one that has certainly taken hold of my eye if not completely over my yard.
January 2018
Wandering Kissena Hollow
When the artist Turner strapped himself to the mast of a ship during a storm, was it just to observe the light? Storms have a mysterious pull on some of us as if the answers we seek lie somewhere deep inside their rage. It is hard to resist the sirens call, and their song is ever more powerful when heard through the veil of troubled thoughts. With my mind swirling with as much intensity as the snow outside, I head out into the dark of night. I do not know what I hoped to accomplish in these conditions. I do not know what I did accomplish. Once back home, the journey seemed to be more like a dream than the work of my cold feet. My photographs were there as evidence, but of what? I had returned with more questions than when I left.
January 2018
A loop between Union Square and the Battery
IÕve noticed it for a long time, but it finally hit home today; so many of the nearly empty neighborhoods I used to travel through are now crowded with residents, shoppers and tourists. I must now proceed with caution through territories that once provided me with the loneliest of landscapes so I do not collide with all those on the street. Collide I do, for I am feeling increasingly out of place. I stand and stare at those walking around me with their noses buried in cellphones and tablets and ask who are they? Am I becoming a foreigner in my own city? The street answers by beckoning me onwards.
January 2018
A ramble in Williamsburg
Whether tearing down a building, putting up a building, making repairs or ripping up a street; scaffolding, cranes, construction barriers and day-glow colors have become the norm in New York. The end of one job only leads to another, and a state of unpredictability fills the streets. While this gives me endless subject matter to shoot, there is a sense of unease in the air. It is as if there is no goal to be reached, just and endless stream of doing. In the moment this is fine with me.
January 2018
A walk from Long Island City to Williamsburg
Concrete, glass, and stainless steel may be the new textures of the city but it is far from supreme. In between lay a whole other world that is often grimy and filled with scars, but one that still resonates because it knows how to speak to us.
January 2018
A walk in Kissena Hollow
I’m out at dawn to meet with the birds. There is only one opening in the frozen lake so I know where to find them. What a rancor the morning blush brings; the din is so loud that it seems to be coming from a large machine, its gears grinding and churning, badly in need of oil. The ducks, geese and swans are not just marking boundaries or calling out to their mates; they are telling the world that they are happy to be alive on this frigid morning.
Copyright 2018 Alan Petrulis All Rights Reserved