NEW YORK RAMBLES (page 42)

February 2019

A walk from Greenwich Village to Hudson Yards

New York is often talked about in terms of a mosaic; sometimes it is nearly literally so. Old brick buildings contrasting against glass and steel can yield unforeseen patterns. Ad in the proliferation of wall murals and you have a palette of unprecedented proportions. While my photography is grateful for all of it, I’m uncertain if I really like this new brew. I get excited when composing, but by the end of the day I am often left with a bitter aftertaste.

February 2019

A ramble about Flushing

I don’t know what happened to elegance. New cars rarely look as good as their ancestors despite all the hype found in advertising. The sleek bodies of ocean liners have been replaced by vessels more closely resembling overloaded container ships. There is rarely a home built these days that isn’t accented by some gaudy accessory. In our rush to become modern, have we forgotten how to make things well? Some of the most modest homes built a century ago look ten times better than what is considered luxurious today. I don’t think this is as much a matter of changing taste as the lack of it.

February 2019

A walk from Jackson Heights to Hell Gate

A neighborhood is made up of more than buildings and even the people who live there. It is also the space that surrounds those things and creates a feeling of . . . well of place. Everything changes so fast these days and sometimes the only thing that rings familiar is the feel of the air. This can sometimes stir a deep recollection better than any landmark.

February 2019

A walk from Midtown to Chinatown

Laid out on a such a predictable grid, it is always surprising to find a long alleyway carved out between city streets. Some lie well hidden behind fortress-like gates while others lie in perpetual darkness like the bottom of a natural fissure. On particular days, at particular hours, this dark fate is sometimes shattered by the sun. When positioned jus right, light will flood in as through the pillars of an astral temple marking the movements of the divine.

January 2019

A ramble in the Lower East Side

Construction has become such a normal part of city life that striped barriers, traffic cones and scaffolding can now be construed as another form of street art. While the narrative capacity of such objects are limited, their bold colors and shapes can turn any landscape into an abstraction worthy of study. Art does not flow out of a creator as much as into the eye that beholds it.

January 2019

An unexpected ramble in Kissena Hollow.

A dusting appeared at daybreak, one so fragile that it took flight with the first rays of morning light. Birdsongs were elusive, their echo so faint that I could not tell whether they were real or a dream carried on the wind. It did not take long to discover the truth. If I held doubts that the grace of birds in flight followed them to the earth, they were put aside as I stared into the snow. There, written by intrepid little feet were the notes to the most wonderful rhythms and harmonized duets.

January 2019

A ramble in Kissena Hollow

Yes, the thunderheads of summer may darken, but the blackest of black arrive in winter when the air is most crisp. They cover the sky like broad brush strokes of a heavy wet paint rather than anything resembling a cloud. They are never as ominous as they look, and they never look as ominous as they might. Sunlight being a common companion strengthens their mood by contrast while tempering their ferocity through pure joy.

January 2019

A ramble through Flushing

I’m not a big fan of minimalism, I find too much of it trite. While I do understand its ability to bring out the essence of things through reduction, it is used too often as a cover for the lack of true inspiration. I think that yards that have shrunken down from a size that can be traditionally landscaped could benefit from the better principals of minimalism, but usually they end up as a hodgepodge of components all vying for attention. It seems that few can deal with anything beyond the immediate object in front of them. All sorts of topiary or exotic miniature trees are popular now, bold plants that try make up for a lack of space but too often fail to make up for the lack of design. This however is countered by streets and yards on the city’s grid that carry some sort of imposed order. When this collides with the haphazard, sometimes, yes sometimes, marvelous things can occur.

December 2018

A stroll through Midtown on Christmas Eve

When it comes to attitudes concerning holiday decorations, and I mean any holiday, there seems to be a dichotomy at play. While some have gotten sloppy about it as if it is an unwanted seasonal burden rather than an act of celebration, there are others that show no bounds to their creativity and efforts to share. Such displays are worthy of pilgrims.

December 2018

A walk in Central Park

While buildings have peeked over Central Park treetops for decades, they have for the most part only provided the occasional accent without interfering with my ability to escape into dream. The park is more than landscaped terrain; it provides the illusion of the wild where I can put the street behind me. Now with new needle towers rising on the horizon I feel under assault. Not only do their shadows span across acres to track me down, my eyes can’t get rid of them. If these towers look as if they are giving us the finger, it is because the developers who built them are.

November 2018

A walk in Forest Hills

Despite the sudden arrival of cold weather, there is an untypical amount of fall color about that just seems unwilling to say goodbye. I sympathize with this reluctance. It has been a good year for green, a summer of lushness; who would willingly step out of paradise. The sun will have none of this. It may bring warmth but it stays its course with a cold heart. It hangs low in the sky now, always in my eyes, refusing to let me forget the season.

November 2018

A ramble in Kissena Hollow

While a late fall and an early snowfall can result in interesting photographs, it is not a good combination for the health of trees. Littering the ground are broken branches that were unable to bare the burden heaped upon them. Half the leaves may still be on the trees, but the half that lay on the earth was transformed into a strange slushy stew that rang familiar but was otherworldly nonetheless.

November 2018

A walk from Midtown to Hudson Yards

While New York’s Veterans’s Day Parade is the largest in the nation, the participants probably outnumbered those lining the street. I can’t say this is due to the lack of appreciation, more likely a weariness for anything associated with violence. There is also a weariness for the constant manipulation. It seems that everything has become too neatly packaged in fear we might have an independent thought or feeling that can’t be controlled. The memorial to those who served in the Great War was not covered in a spontaneous expression of flowers but a neat line of wreaths so that the names of the corporate sponsors they held could not go by unnoticed.

October 2018

A walk from the Upper East Side to Greenwich Village

There are two parts to a good parade. First it should show off the creative spirit of the marchers for there is no substitute for spectacle. Second, the display must be met with enthusiasm. Excitement in a crowd is not only contagious, it can firmly set you into the moment. Both were clearly present at this years Halloween parade.

October 2018

A ramble in Central Park

There are plenty of famous landmarks in Central Park to fill a multitude of memories, but I find its true genius in the hundreds of little anonymous enclaves that are spread throughout. Each is like a self sustaining community that makes up a greater city. Keep your eyes open and go for the long view. There you will find countless vignettes, little islands of solitude that truly make this place wondrous.

October 2018

A ramble through the Lower East Side

With millions of people in the streets there are a million things that can be missed. Most of them are. Those things that seem out of the ordinary are often more common than realized. A slow shutter finger creates its own reality. I find that it is best to shoot before I know what’s going on.

September 2018

A walk from Long Island City to Soho via Williamsburg

Before there were famous skyscrapers there were industrial building built to massive proportions. Seeing one up close is like standing in the presence of a demigod. Their mass exudes a gravity that is almost impossible to escape. This is no loving relationship. Though filled with awe, I am pressed into the earth at the same time. Perhaps this is their true purpose.

August 2018

A ramble in Long Island City

With the public waterfront now extended out to Hunters Point, it was time to pay a visit to old haunts. I have to say a lot of work was put into the design but I’m having trouble warming up to it. There are overlooks with great vistas, secluded crannies to sit in and even tidal grass that all go to prove what I thought impossible; even the unique can look generic. What is missing is the Queens aesthetic that dominates my work. I do realize that what pleases my eye is just a product of my time, and the New York I know is coming to an end. Even so, I don’t expect to run out of grit and dirt anytime soon.

August 2018

A walk across Flushing

There have always been homes with gardens that are left to run a bit wild, but there seems to be an influx of new weeds that are straining this delicate balance. Of most concern are the large numbers of fast growing vines, wild grape to bittersweet, that are strangling everything in sight. Once confined to vacant lots they are becoming an unwanted presence nearly everywhere I look. I’m disappointed because I’ve always thought I had a good relationship with weeds, but now I’m the one feeling like an unwanted presence.

July 2018

A loop between Midtown and the Lower East Side

In some neighborhoods there seems to be an effort to cash in on the growing popularity of street art by assimilating it. One can argue the merits of different types, the quality of popups that appear in the middle of the night vs those murals installed in the light of day with permission or even as the result of a commission. The thing is, there are good artists and there are bad artists, and if your good it shows through no matter how it shows up.

July 2018

A walk between Union Square and Hudson Yards

You don’t have to be sandwiched in between giant skyscrapers to feel the city closing in. Any neighborhood can become cavernous under the right circumstances. The effect of this on New Yorkers is not consistent. It seems to make half of us reluctant to step out in the open where we might be caught like prey. The rest of us become overwhelmed with elation every time we discover there is still such a thing as unobstructed space.

July 2018

A walk in Long Island City

I’m not a big fan of placing athletic fields on the waterfront even though I know such large tracks of land are rarely available anywhere else. My objections however have more to do with aesthetics than public policy. Brooklyn Bridge Park is proof of that for the new fields placed over the old piers look so surreal that I find them disconcerting and mesmerizing at the same time. It’s the contrast between the vast open space and the tightly knit buildings just over the river that takes hold of me. This landscape should not exist, yet I stand here, enthralled

July 2018

A walk in Long Island City

Just like everyone else, I get caught up in the bangs, pops, and bright streaming colors of bursting shells on Independence Day. Although this is something best experienced in the moment, there is something to be said about photography that stills time. It is within those confines that I discovered frozen shots of decaying embers and glowing smoke. It was like a glimpse into another galaxy with a telescope I don’t have. What is to be made of these man-made nebulas? Is this the true appeal of fireworks hidden somewhere in our unconscious, buried beneath patriotic overtones that have been drummed into us? Perhaps we seek our origins, not in the depths of the sea but in the Big Bang.

June 2018

An eight mile ramble through Brooklyn ending at City Hall

There was a beautiful blue sky out today populated by high puffy clouds. Picture perfect as the phrase goes. For half the day I was barely aware of it, situated under the canopy of tree lined streets. With the sun sending its summer rays down like arrows from an angry archer the loss of the skyward view was actually welcome. Another world sits under the leaves; there insatiable thirst for sunlight creates a dimly lit cavern underneath their reaching, a fine refuge from the afternoon bright. Yards are turned into sanctuaries. Some seem at least a thousand years old.

June 2018

A walk around Coney Island

The Mermaid Parade does not seem to be shrinking, but I found many familiar faces absent. It is strange that I miss people I do not really know. I often hear people talk about how cameras separate photographers from life being lived around them; some sort of self-inflicted barrier, maybe even a way to hide. If this is true at all, I think it is more of a side effect. For me my camera is a point of entry, a way of sharing an intimate experience with the strangers around me.

June 2018

A walk from Union Square to Soho

Some of New York’s oldest structures stand in obscurity. At best they tend to be viewed as eyesores, at worst, impediments to progress. It seems that the more our heritage is preserved, the dirtier the name it gets.

May 2018

A walk from Forest Hills to Richmond Hill and on to Jamaica

There may be no neighborhoods typical of old Queens left, but every so often there is a house or a portion of a street that takes me back a century or more. Before I reach the corner with the traffic light, I can hear a horse carriage being made ready for a drive.

May 2018

A loop between Hudson Yards and the West Village

New York City has long been a balancing act between commerce and elegance with the result being a preponderance of style. It is one of the things I always loved about this place, it can be very seductive, but how much can a city be polished? This careful balance is now being tipped in favor of the stylish, which wouldnÕt be so bad if most of it wasnÕt so trite. There seems to be a mission to refine every nook and cranny of the City so that those with rough edges like me can never feel comfortable. I am moving from being a citizen to a spectator.

April 2018

A ramble in Hillcrest

Steep hills are often smoothed out in cities to aid development and movement. This is often done so successfully that unless the terrain is too dramatic to alter, it tends to disappear from out under out eyes if not from under out feet.

April 2018

A ramble in Forest Hills

How nice it would be if neighborhoods had carless streets that were lined with old trees, and each house had a garden filled with blooms. It seems a vision so remote yet there are such places sitting between faceless apartment blocks. How do we reconcile this? True explanations for the way we live seem more remote than paradise.

Copyright 2018   Alan Petrulis   All Rights Reserved