Photos & Words

In London. Only few days ago I was in NYC. High up at the 86th floor of the observatory of the Empire State Building. Looking down I already described in an earlier blog how the people walking down on the street were small. Just dots moving in slow motion crossing streets and avenues. Stopping at a red light. Passing zebra crossing. Stopping at shops and thinking whether or go in and buy that nice desk lamp.

NY labyrinth of streets  is relative simple. All parallel streets going from East to West, crossing long avenues which cut Manhattan from North to South.  People in the form of tiny dots walking along this labyrinth. Here is one crossing the street. Another turning around the corner. There is another who stops in front of what seems a shop seemingly waiting for somebody else.

All these dots have a clear path behind them. A path which led them up to this point in this very moment and which creates and intricate webs of people lives.  These lines intersect in many points. Sometime casually. Coming from different directions and meeting at a corner. Stopping for a moment and deciding to continue along the same way. Other times they just cross for an instant. These lines are others people lives and it is great to see this intricate web from above. 

In few minutes I will be walking down there. Creating my line and continuing it along the way. Maybe 6th Avenue, maybe 43th Street. Who knows. I still have to decide from up here which direction I will take.

Jet leg is annoying but allows also for surprises.  Leave at 6:00 from the Gershwin hotel. Turn the corner of 27th St and follow the 5th Av. up towards Central Park. It is still dark and it is easy to cross the street. Still little traffic. Some 24hrs coffee shop have lights on and no customer. Just very tired waiters. Continue up. Still looking up to high rising. Streets are also been clean with water hoses. I jump over them. 5th Av climbs a little bit up. I can now see the trees of Central Park. Still 4-5 blocks to go. Looked at my watch. I have been running just 14 minutes. Daylight is very close now. Red traffic light and traffic coming form the left. So I stop at this corner which looks strangely familiar. I look at the building on my right. Thick wall with small windows closed by a thin small golden curtain. I looked at the two windows. It is a shop but has not a large window. There there is the entrance door. Very thick metal. I Look up on top of it I read T-I-F-F-A- N-Y-‘-S. This is Tyffani’s corner. The doors are closed. The windows have just a dim light. Day light almost there. I can see a yellow cab parking just in front to the door and Audrey Hebburn appearing with a elegant dress, a cup of coffee in her left hand and a paper back with two bagels in her right hand.  She walk to the window. She looks tired but wants to have this first moment of the day for herself. She walks slowly. Sip the coffee and gives a couple of small bites to the bagles. She turns around the corner and throws the paper bag in the dust bin and walks away slowly and tired.
Traffic light turns green. I cross the street and head to Central Park at sunrise.

Today for lunch up to the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. 2 min to climb 80 floors and then another slower elevators for the last 6. It was warm and not too windy on the observatory and the view stunning. High rise, low rise, avenues, streets, yellow cabs like yellow ants crawling in search of food. People like dots crossing zebra crossings. A Lego town just at the feet of the tower.

Walking to look for a place to have lunch and seeing what only this town maybe can offer. Two Muslim workers who lay on the pavement at the side of the of the walkway their mosque prayer map, put on top of it a kind of compass that indicates where the Mecca is and go on their knees with hands talking up to the sky. Closed eyes reciting the Koran while life flows around them.  Yellow cabs, people on mobile phones, a police woman regulating the traffic.

Then the shell of the Guggenheim museum. Like the interior of a Nautilus shell and which climbs gently in the shape of a bowl. I walked in. Looked up to the spiral structure of the interiors and the paintings of the Kandinsky exhibition all disappeared. I walked slowly up, following the gentle slope. Hands behind my back. Glancing at the colorful painting hanging on the white wall but did not stop much. I was rather soaking the soft noise of people talking to each other about the paintings. Asking questions to the museum staff. People of all ages probably unsure as to whether focus on the museum architecture of the art within it. I walked up. Turned and walked down. At one point the large painting called ‘Several Circles’. Black background and several colorful circles of various sizes that resemble a complex web of planets. Colors that merges and take a different tone when the circles overlap.  A mother is taking with her son who may be 6-7 years old about the paining and is asking him what he thinks. He likes it and described the various colors he can see. I feel a pang inside my chest, I wish I had Olga and Venla here with me in this moment.

Woke up again at 5:30. So I waited a bit and put then my running gear. Wanted to run up to Central Aprk. It is very easy to find direction.  So out from hotel, pass 6th Av, reach 7th Av passing by the Empire State Building. Then down to the park, passing the lights of Times Square. Seems a bit like being in one of the movies where I have seen all these places. But no, this is for real. It is me running along these streets. Looking up at the top of the skyscrapers.

I reached the park where daylight broke. So many people where already there either running or cycling. Nobody knew me, I did not know anybody. Just people together running each one with the mind in own thoughts. I followed a path where people were running and reached a lake. Not sure it is the main one or one of many. Took the jogging paths that in 20 easy minutes runs around it. Soft surface. At some points body guards and a group Latin American people in jogging gears, among them catching up his breath after a run, Evo Morales the Bolivian President who is here for the General UN Assembly.

I continue the path. Look at my left towards the lake. On the other side of the lake, the green of trees and above them the old high rising built maybe 100 years ago. the sun rising west, painting the windows in gold. Amazing. I slowed down in a kind of emotional state. It is not easy to run and at the same time feel tears and emotions.

So I kept running. Reached the entrance. Climbed up 6th Av. Tomorrow again, Central Park after all is not far.

New York City. The Big Apple. Manhattan. Its skyscrapers, Its rectangular intersections between streets and avenues. Yesterday evening after checking in at the hotel I walked from 27th East down to the the New York University campus area. Walked in a kind of trance due to the jet lag trying to keep up to go to bed late enough. And yet, I first woke up just after midnight after dreaming of my brother and his son Antonio. I got out of bed went to the toilet and when I cam back into the room the wide open eyes of Picasso were looking at me from the huge poster which hangs on the wall behind the bed in this small and old hotel room at the Gershwin.

I sat on the right side of the bed. My feet resting on the wooden floor. Took a sip of water from a plastic bottle. Checked the time as I was unsure about it. Went back to sleep. Now up again and it is almost 04:00 am. Meaning that I will go for a run at around 06:00.

Yesterday walk was nice, especially in the university area. Young people coming from the departments, exiting the library and sport centers. Some talking in mobile phones: ‘I told you to I would be late…’, said a guy.  ‘I am no longer talking to him because ….’, spoke a girls. One black guy passed with a mountain bike at crazy speed singing as loud as he could. In Union Square two students set up a session with drums and saxophone which was quite impressive. A guard looks bored outside a fancy apartment house but says hi to me moving slightly his head up. Two girls are dressed in roman clothes and are either going to a  party or a performance. I opt for the first.  A homeless sits on the pavement, grabbing his knees into his harms, he is barefoot, next to his feet a small cartoon box with a handwritten message I cannot read.

This city breathes life in all its sides. The happy, the poor, the glittering, the dull, the sad, the aching, the worried, the stressed, the love, the pain.

I walk past a university dormitory. Maybe 6-7 floors high. I look up at the widows. Most have the light on, some don’t. A girls is typing at a computer. In another two guys are drinking  a beer form a can.  Another window high up has a woman mannequin wearing a very sexy and pants and the obvious red light coming from behind in the room. I used to look at similar windows in Glasgow at our dormitory. I liked to stop in the evening when coming back from the university in the evening. Looks at the lights on in those one rooms and imagine the life of the students within them. Some of them I knew, other I did not. It all looked more like a huge bee nest with all its boxes where honey was stored.

This was the New York City I saw yesterday evening walking randomly. Listening to the amazing number of languages that people talk in its streets.

It is not 04:17, I should maybe try to get some light sleep before my morning run.