Why I Love Where I Live

I love the quiet, the images and the light, and knowing that the hustle/bustle of Manhattan is just 5 minutes away.

I was a Communication Arts/Photojournalism major in college, oh so many years ago. Life seems to get in the way and years have gone by since I've taken any pix. Early this summer, I traded in my film and polaroid cameras and related darkroom equipment and bought a Canon EOS digital SLR...and it's been nice to see images right away and to be able to delete asap; saving room on the card. I warmed up by taking over 500 pix in Italy. I'm not quite a Luddite, but getting the images from the camera to the desktop and beyond is not second nature yet.

I'm a Long Island native and though I lived in Gramercy Park, downtown NYC for a few years, I have been living in Long Island City for 20 years. I like watching the gentrification (from a position of some longevity!) and I appreciate the juxtaposition of the old and the new.

I am drawn to graphics and words, and I love old company slogans that exist "hard by" the new buildings that are springing up. I wonder if the newcomers take that moment to read the signs and if they wonder what this area was like in it's industrial heyday.

This company has been around for decades, before area codes and when garbage and trash were called "refuse." No wonder English must be mindboggling to learn!

Urban prank!

The pix below are the view I have from down the street, at the edge of the East River, overlooking the Manhattan skyline. This morning I saw a seagull fly overhead with a live crab in it's mouth. How very Maryland! (Note added Oct 21...I told my neighbor Vinny about the crab, and he said, "The seagull probably stole it from the Waterfront Crab House." How New Yorky of him ;-)  I still like to think the river's getting cleaner...since I've seen horseshoe crabs and fish while kayaking out there!

The Circle Line tour boat cruised past and I could hear the guide telling the history of the Pepsi Cola sign. The story goes that the president of Coca Cola lived across the river in Manhattan at Sutton Place, and his arch rival made sure that the view out his apartment window was filled with a neon Pepsi sign. The Queens side is finally of some interest, and its in people's vacation photos.
We've come a l-o-n-g way!

Gantry Plaza State Park maintains the piers, open spaces, trees and plantings...and there is no fencing between residents and the river. I volunteer as a Citizen Pruner to weed the flower and tree beds, cut back the growth and prune dead and diseased limbs from the trees. A great excuse for me to wield a 14' pole saw! Roar. If you're interested in pruning in your NYC neighborhood, go to http://www.treesny.org/ to get information!

I was doing some banking last week and I noticed that next to the parking lot there is a view into the backyard of an apartment house. Laundry lines are fast becoming a thing of the past...but I spied this laundry drying in the sun, and I loved the shadow image. I took many pix of the laundry lines in Italy this summer. There's something homespun about that practice that is endearing to me, and I think the graphic representation is really cool.

LIC "lawnjree line"