Crosswalk Empire

I like the way the Empire State Building lives among its Midtown neighbors. Knowing the story of it being built during the Great Depression by many who were day laborers, desperate for work, adds meaning to its elegant aura over 70 years later. The detailed Art Deco symmetry in the architecture remains graceful. Nearby neighborhoods seem gritty, but ESB still belongs among them.

Walking Midtown neighborhoods on warm October evenings is a special pleasure. Just as it did this weekend, crystalline skys will become overcast. Blustery winds will soon swirl through the streets. Darkness will soon hunker down in the concrete canyons as the Sun retreats southward. On this last Thursday evening, none of that was a worry. Sometimes it seems every block of the city is another world. It's not all one place. It's countless lives and planes and dimensions pressed ever so tightly together. Cross to the next block, and there's something new to discover.

Across the Schuylkill

From the west bank of the Schuylkill River where the train trestle crosses at Montgomery Drive.

From the Beginning

While Tenstellium is in flux, the redwoods of Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve offer some needed stability. At least for a time, Tenstellium is likely to be different from one day to the next. Thankfully the redwoods (technically, "coast redwoods" or sequoia sempervirens) will probably be looking much the same. There's lots to learn about the redwoods; read up at the state parks site linked above and Wikipedia, too. While the "tallest living thing" label is groovy enough, more impressive to me is something about their peaceful endurance. It wasn't quite fair to spend only an hour or so there. It probably takes longer than that to hear them say what they have to say. At least we have this picture. It will have to do until I can go back.