Windows/Happy New Year

A nice pink house on 22nd Street with plane trees outside.

They demolished a rather down at heels hotel and are building this new glass palace on 23rd Street. I think the apartments are very expensive. Who will live in them?

These dresses would be ideal for going out somewhere fancy on New Year's Eve. How much fun it would be to have shiny metallic arms. (9th Avenue at 13th Street.)

Cannot tell what causes the exciting reflected 'X's' on the walls.

 
The waiting room window at Hicksville railroad station.

HEALTH JOY AND PEACE in the New Year

Sunset and Blogging

Looking out of the window provides hours of harmless entertainment.

On Sunday evening we had an unusually spectacular sunset.

My new camera picks up bright colors, unlike the last one where I had to crank up the colors every time. 

Tangobaby has a nice sunset today.

Willow of Willow Manor mentioned Tangobaby.

You see how we run in circles and cross-pollinate.

This is looking west down 23rd Street. The two alien spaceships, lower left, are the (one) light over the dining table.

This picture was taken between the other two looking slightly northwest, and the sinking sun is reflected in the windows of the buildings.

Meatpacking District

Heading down 9th Avenue on an absurdly warm evening.

December 28th and people are wearing sweaters.

The Gansevoort Hotel has a very Wallpaper moderne lobby. Hugely high ceilings and a great deal of pink.

Even the elevator is cool and I'm suitable impressed.

They put Claudia's name on her bathrobe. A perk you do not get at home.

From the Sky bar you look south down on a building whose facade is lit in different colors.

They change every few minutes.

Festivity Fatigue

A good time was had by all.

However, Joba's antlers no longer light up.

The paper hats have been crumpled up and thrown away along with the little pieces of paper with jokes and Trivia on. 

Example of Joke so old Methusalah might have laughed at it:

 Q. Why do bakers work so hard?

(Because they need the dough.)

Trivia. Q. Name four of the seven Von Trapp children from The Sound of Music.

Answer at the end of the post for those with time to waste pondering this.

A bouncy ball from the crackers has ended up with the rest of the tangerines.

After Lindt truffles and Toblerone, their simplicity seems rather attractive.

A. Liesl, Freidrich, Lousia, Kurt, Briggitta, Marta, Gretl

Clear and Bright

Christmas Eve

The battered and ancient angel still decorates the tree.

Holly on the windowsill.

More angels on the desk.

Season's Greetings one and all.

A Visit to a Friend's House

Crisp, bitterly cold morning.

The sky a very bright blue.

The house on Long Island welcoming inside.

The windowsills decorated with bits and bobs for the season.

Brown teapots.........

How the cat used to love little Christmas trees like the one above, catch it with her claws and fling it about.

Pink berries and a lamp-post fit for visits to Narnia.

But so very cold out.

Jim Lewicki's Christmas/Winter Solstice

In the 1990's we lived in a wonderful house on Long Island that had been purpose built by the artist and illustrator Jim Lewicki and his wife Lillian. 

Robert worked in the huge groundfloor studio where, when the wind was  exactly right, echoes of Jim's pipe smoke permeated the air. 

We have stayed friends with Lil --who is now in her nineties -- and their daughter Lisa Lewicki Hermanson.

For me, the best things of all were the two streams in the garden which backed onto the woods. So many hours spent tramping through them with the dog in all seasons.

Recently Lisa and her husband John have been looking through the archives and restoring some of her dad's images many of which were produced in the 1940's, 50's and 60's by the American Artists Group.

Here St. Nicholas arrives at New Amsterdam amidst much 16th century merriment.

Very much of its period, this last image reminds me of my youth.

For more information about the artist and the cards' availability contact Lisa by e-mail.

Lisa_hermanson@verizon.net

Various Odds and Ends

How dogs love the snow!

It puts a spring in their step.

So much important stuff being carried up on the escalator at Penn  Station.

And downtown at World Trade Center Subway. Everyone bundled against the cold.

Dallas Barbeque has a red Christmas tree and windows that reflect far too much stuff. As in New York in general, everything's happening all at once.

Retro Santa on 18th Street wants us to buy someone else's old ornaments. 

Then one would have to start pondering the lives of those who once might have owned them.

Quite enough to do already this time of year............

First Proper Snow Storm

8th Avenue and 23rd Street.

Lovely big soft flakes.

An umbrella and a long coat very helpful.

Bicycling not recommended but if your livelihood depends on it....

Lots of shopping still to do......

Way down town near City Hall..............

............the warm lights of Trinity Church look welcoming

Dining Table

Time to get out all the funny bits and pieces that live in boxes during the year.

The Santa with the little pink cellulose face and cardboard legs.

The musicians made in Japan some time in the dim past.

A petit chameau from Morocco.

Reading matter for the Season:

Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales

Truman Capote's Christmas Memory.

Animal Sightings and Spots of Red

The rhinoceros outside BestBuy on 7th Avenue was handing out leaflets. He looks a bit tentative and confused. Luckily Silent Bob has his back.

This exceptionally handsome dog was on duty at Penn Station. 

This mysterious cow loomed at me through  a very dirty window between 8th and 7th Avenues.

Unlike the sleek police dog, this poor creature seems utterly abandoned.

The city was looking rather gray yesterday before the snow came. New Yorkers were wearing their customary black so I was happy to see a red car to enliven the gloom.

Again in the 20's between 8th and 7th Avenues.

I hope whoever parked and chained Granny outside F&B on 23rd Street at least had the kindness to buy her a few beignets. I envy her comfy red shoes.

A Break from the Festivities to consider American Culture

Real snow as against the pretend stuff.

Quite unexpected.

Tuesday afternoon.

Looking west.

Looking east.

More of the diner in New Jersey.

Such architecture. Flag bunting in case we forget where we are.

Garden State brickface on the walls. Bows.

We are welcomed inside.


Since we are no longer young, we don't care if the breakfast will kill us. Butter. Syrup. Bacon. Sausage. Eggs. Pancakes. Sugar. Glasses of water to swill all this down with.

Diner coffee.

We are in heaven.

The George Washington Bridge is majestic and spans the equally majestic Hudson River which has suitably American proportions. Nothing tame and Thames-like here.

A rather dark and threatening "Blackbird" sits atop the Intrepid to remind us........I'm not quite sure of what.

This last picture just of light on a railway trestle on 9th Avenue -- for no reason whatsoever.