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Catching a Precious Part of the Day, Pictures March 9 2016

With March advancing toward mid-month, Iit keeps getting dark later everyday, and on a fine day such as this one was, it was light until past 6:30. I’ve been under the weather, and so not riding my bike this week, but I got down to the Hudson River for the first time in several days late this afternoon, leaving my home office after 5:00. I left work on my desk, lest I lose the chance to see how today’s sunset would turn out, and I wondered if I’d catch much of the light. As many who know me and this blog may attest, I have an appetite for late afternoon light. The amazing thing about living on the west side of Manhattan? We happen to have great sunsets, especially right at the river edge, or standing on the bluff above in Riverside Park, peering across to the river, with New Jersey on the far shore, and the rest of the continent beyond. I live near the park, and appreciate this practically every day. My appreciation of the neighborhood—the enchanted landscape and majestic bridge amid all the urban-ness, with people running, biking, walking dogs, plus the noise, aircraft overhead, traffic rushing by on the West Side Highway, and the light—began in 1990. I moved to the upper west side that year and had a Senior Editor job with Prentice Hall Press, then a division of Simon & Schuster. PHP staff were located—not in Rockefeller Center as S&S was, and is still—but in the office tower just north of Columbus Circle known then as the Gulf & Western Building. I had a small office with a window that invited me to peer westward across the Hudson, out toward America. We were on a pretty high floor, above the thirtieth, and it used to really sway in heavy weather. They do that, one hears, but it felt a bit like being on a ship. The building overlooked Central Park on the side away from my office, a great nabe to work in from July 1990-July 1991.

Quick as I could, I scrambled down there on foot and found the light this evening was extraordinary, and still evolving as a long drawn out event. These picture were taken near the Oscar Hijuelos Tennis Courts, the handsome clay ones, located along Manhattan’s west side river at around 96th St. It was one of the finest sunsets in all the years I’ve been photographing the Great Gray Bridge, the shore, upper Manhattan, the New Jersey side, always reveling in the light and atmosphere, and it lasted longer than most. You may click here to see more from tonight. And, if you want to see more photos like these, you can visit my flickr album labeled “GGB/sunsets/Hudson.”

What My Neighborhood Park Looks Like This Week

With so much snow on the ground, I’ve had to sideline my usual bike-riding routine, but I am getting around on foot. Here’s what Riverside Park and the Hudson River look like this weekend. Now if I could just figure out how to handle my camera and IPhone and keep my gloves on at the same time…Riverside Park & Hudson RiverRiverside Park & Hudson RiverRiverside Park & Hudson RiverRiverside Park & Hudson River

NYC Pet Owner Grooms Dog in Park, Lets Fur Fly

Walking from the #5 bus stop at the Fireman’s Memorial opposite Riverside Park in my Manhattan neighborhood on a recent morning I saw a woman combing her dog on one of the site’s marble benches and letting the white fluff fall where it might. Walking past the bench, I picked a tuft of the furry detritus off my wool coat and asked her why she was making no effort at containing the mess. She said, “Oh, don’t you know, the birds use it in their nests.” Having in the past encountered this form of urban littering–and the same birds’ nest rationalization, a seeming urban legend subscribed to by some dog owners–I once asked a NYC park ranger about pet grooming in the parks. He answered that regardless of whether or not animal fur is used in birds’ nests, the stuff stays around forever and that they do ticket pet owners for such carelessness. On Thursday, I told the woman that actually she was littering and could be ticketed for it, and asked that she make the effort to clean it up. She ignored me and went on combing her dog, with white hair flying around like so many dandelion puffs. I walked away stiff-jawed, gobsmacked at how willing to break the urban social contract some city dwellers are.

I have heard some New Yorkers say they believe that commuters who clip their fingernails on public transit, a startling act, if you’ve never observed it, or heard it, may be the most anti-social conduct engaged in by our fellow urbanites. On the other hand, this pet-grooming–rationalized with the self-serving assertion that they’re somehow helping birds thrive–is, outside of violent crime, in the running for the most selfish and outrageous of all urban behaviors.

I think it’s fair for readers here to wonder why I’ve bothered chronicling such behavior. I’m not sure, except for the fact that I kind of still can’t believe a fellow NYer would do something like this, and then bat away responsibility with such an airy rationalization. By sharing it and calling attention to it, I’m hopeful it may lead to more social opprobrium. Sadly, though, this woman was incapable of embarrassment or shame, always a problem when anti-social behavior is afoot.