Grey Days
So it’s down to this. The Canucks and the Habs are out of the playoffs. I should be cheering for the excuse to spend more time outside, but all we Montrealers have left to cheer for today is that the forecast for snow — yes, snow, in mid-May — is wrong. It’s cold, platinum grey, with a commanding rain falling on the city pavement as I look out my window.
All I can think about lately is my trip to New York last weekend. I had the fortune to see the very exhibition that I touted just a month ago, the Russian Avant-Garde Book at the Museum of Modern Art. I spent a lazy afternoon in Central Park under gleeming spring sunshine and crystal skies. Dined romantically in Greenwich Village and laughed away the cost after the exchange rate (to be gravely re-considered later). Gawked at skyscrapers and five-story advertising screens in Times Square. It’s hard not to be a tourist in New York.
I found a chance to visit Brooklyn, trying to remember that Manhattan is, after all, only one of five slices of the apple. After seeing all the sparkling, re-furbished subway stations up and down Manhattan, it’s amusing arriving at the first stop in Brooklyn to the faded signs, peeling paint and mysterious puddles of liquid — is it water or isn’t it? — that I remember from visits to NYC in the past.
In the end, I didn’t visit Ground Zero. You can see the lack of anything in the skyline when you are downtown, and that was close enough for me. There are enough flags and stickers in the city to remind you of what happened last September without the evidence first hand.
05/26 Update: I’ve put up a collection of photos from the trip.
Previously: Hellemarketing
Subsequently: Fancy the Footy?
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