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.