NEW YORK RAMBLES (page 48)
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February 2023
A walk from Union Square to Chinatown
The parade this Lunar New Year has returned but have the fears that pushed it off really subsided? The Year of the Rabbit may have filled the streets with golden hares but they are not able to overcome the malaise that matches the somber overcast. All of the city seems to be dimmed these days. Is there ever a return to normal after suffering a pandemic? Too many have whittling away at the city’s dynamic spirit for far too long. What seems indestructible can often be very fragile.
January 2023
A walk from Union Square to Soho
The city has no idea what to do with all of its dining sheds. Maybe the multitude of ideas afloat are the blame for inertia. Either way, while some are spruced up, others are withering into piles of unwanted curbside rubbish. The Mayor makes speeches, the city council takes votes, residents protest and yet the streets remain full of indecision. Is the age of good ideas behind us?
December 2022
A walk around Rosevelt Island then onto Long Island City
We like to make grand gestures believing nothing is as pure as those ideas in our head. Whole worlds are created this way but how real can they be when they disintegrate so easily.
December 2022
A Midtown ramble
The city always seems more colorful this time of year.
December 2022
A Flushing ramble
Continued warmth has slowed the exit of leaves. Most have already left like summer tourists fleeing a tourist town but there are always those willing to risk getting caught by the first frost. I am now graced by their imprudence.
December 2022
A walk Downtown
There are many reasons not to like the Oculus; a bit too opulent, perhaps too pretentious. It feels more like an elaborate shopping mall than a transportation hub yet there is no denying its ability to impress. I always approach with some reluctance in my step and then cannot hep but raise my camera to take a shot. The light it swims in is just magic. Perhaps I should forget the rest.
November 2022
A walk from Midtown to Tribeca
I cannot say if I like half the architecture I cross paths with or not. I simply do not look closely enough or if I do, I do not judge. This is my camera’s doing. I have become its slave, only catering to what makes it happy.
November 2022
A ramble in Kissena Hollow
Leaves from Sweet Gum fall like shooting stars framed against a night sky. How did I come to this place? I remember a time when I only sought out the dramatic. Familiarity then took me toward the small. Now it is nuance I seek. Perhaps it is something I have always seen, only now IÕve grown aware of how it makes a place.
November 2022
A ramble in Kissena Hollow
Fog rolls in with the morning. Places already harboring mystery grow ever more mysterious. They drown in it.
October 2022
A walk from the Upper East Side to the Village
A colonnade of perfectly matched trees has been planted below the steps to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They look grand but are noticeably untypical of New York. Beneath them are venders selling reproductions, artists selling their work, work which is unlikely to ever find its way onto museum walls. One of my etchings sits inside, a view of a very different type of tree lined street located in the East Village. Do the wheels that keep this system of mismatch grinding forward ever move toward purpose?
October 2022
A walk around Chelsea
Time rushes by in New York; no one ever seems to have enough of it. Can something that flows on endlessly really be considered rare. What is rare is space, an ever diminishing commodity as we are pressed into narrow canyons by ever rising walls, forced to scurry along under an endless maze of construction sheds. No wonder so many escape into cyberspace seeking the boundless. No wonder any street that can provide a distant vista appears to be a miracle.
October 2022
A walk from the East Village to Noho
Dinning sheds are helping restaurants make ends meet, but they are also adding to the perception that there is one city living inside another. I suppose there has always been more than one NewYork depending on your vantage point. Only now the boundaries are growing less distinct.
September 2022
A walk between Hudson Yards and the East Village
Construction is far from new in New York, but there seems more of it now than I can ever remember. What type of toll does this take on those who walk our streets, to see a city never as is but always in the process of becoming something else?
September 2022
A walk between Noho and Union Square
A slab of concrete; it is called a wall. It is more than a barrier for it can function as a platform for communication. This can also be considered an act of trespass, at least if you believe in property rights. Some believe that all are not entitled to have a voice that what we see and hear must be carefully controlled. Resistance to this view is labeled transgression.
August 2022
A walk between the East Village and Times Square
I never understood those who are fixated on the purity of photography. Exactly what about photography has ever been pure and without distortion?
June 2022
A walk at Coney Island
Yes, the wind is blowing crazy and less than friendly clouds are filling the sky. Does any of this matter when an incoming tide of mermaids flow down the boardwalk, when my feet leave the ground?
June 2022
A walk from Downtown to Union Square
How intense can light be? Today, even the drabbest stonework, the greyest slab of concrete is sparkling with colors I would have previously denied existed.
April 2022
A Midtown walk
While my photographs are largely about composition and balance, they are also about being on the move. This means I don’t have time to get fussy while walking, relying instead on instinct for that perfect shot. I must confess, it’s hit and miss, which I suppose is the price to pay for being so lax. On the other hand, spontaneity has its own rewards.
April 2022
A walk across Flushing
I’ve been told that Degas only captured the likeness of ballet dancers as an excuse to work out his abstract ideas that were otherwise too unconventional for his time. My problem with this notion is the word only. Wether it be Degas or Lautrec, there is an overwhelming element to spectacle that I doubt any artist can resist paying homage to. This Easter Sunday brings out more than decorative hats. What is there on the avenue is a celebration of life that refuses to be cowered by formalist concerns.
April 2022
A loop between Kissena Park and Bowne Park
Once familiar with a place, its scars are more noticeable than to those who look at it with fresh eyes. This is inevitable when memories refuse to lie dormant. The blossoms that abound should arrive with hope, singing praise of change. Impermanence however can carry a melancholy that is difficult to shake.
April 2022
A walk in College Point
I was drawn out by the blossoms and white canopied streets. I tried, yes I tried, but found no room in my heart for this romance.
April 2022
A Midtown walk
The air is damp, the canyons dark. Feet shuffle past mine as my pace slows. Most have their faces buried in their phones. A few give a glance back, confused as to why my gaze is upward. High above, the skyscrapers are making their own weather. High above, a plume of molten sky rips away from a wall of glass and is sent ricocheting back toward the heavens.
March 2022
A walk across Flushing
Well, it finally happened; I arrived at the scene of a fire before cold charred ruins were the only thing left to greet me. At one time this would have meant something, a time when people did not all walk around with a camera in hand. Was it the dense acrid smoke that drove me away or was it the idea that I was truly lost in the crowd?
March 2022
A walk from Cypress Hills to Ridgewood
Although views up a tree lined residential blocks were already used as a familiar trope a hundred years ago, there is something inherent in this prescribed geometry that refuses to release its grip. I would probably have a few thousand shots of such streets by now if the perfect balance were easier to come by. Imperfections abound when you leave a dream.
February 2022
A ramble in Kissena Hollow
Ice storms can be dangerous and destructive. I fill with apprehension whenever I hear one is on its way. Losses can be more than my heart can bare. Yet, when branches bow but do not break, my heart rises. It is not just a reprieve, it is a chance to live with magic.
February 2022
A walk in Kissena Hollow
When a delicate snow falls it will bring out the hidden rhythms of winter like invisible ink brought to light. What failed my eyes yesterday is revealed today as a true lyric marvel.
February 2022
A walk from East New York to Bushwick
Some of my walks are purposely confined to a few streets to make it easier to retrace my steps on a map once back at home. This method has practicality but IÕm more inclined to wander about through all sorts of byways until I no longer know where I am. Getting lost also has its benefits.
January 2022
A walk from Midtown to Noho
A rhythm in blue or a regimented dystopia? My eye first seeks out poetry; meaning follows.
December 2021
A walk through Central Park and Midtown
My childhood memories of Christmastime are filled with images of neighborhoods come alive with decorative holiday lighting. While the tradition has not completely left us, it seems very lackluster these days. Fewer partake and those that do often seem to just be going through the motions. Not all have succumbed to the latest store bought convenience. A certain balance is still maintained by those homes and store windows that are decorated beyond reason.
November 2021
Zig zagging through Elmhurst.
Although the streets of Queens are filled with old and new, the gaudy and the elegant, their visual vocabulary is still limited to what can be written down in a modest dictionary. Why is it then with this constant repetition that only particular intersections or portions of streets come to emblematize a whole neighborhood? I think we must see past the mundane and come to recognize the way the world is put together without ever realizing it. Understanding is too often camouflaged by our search for meaning.
Copyright 2022 Alan Petrulis All Rights Reserved