-- --

Friday, July 2, 2010

On the Sidewalk in Chinatown and Ten Days a Year

Waiting, Chinatown
Photo by myself in Little Italy/Chinatown, at Elizabeth and Hester Streets.

Little Italy bleeds into Chinatown in this part of Manhattan. A woman was waiting on the sidewalk in front of a pizza place. You can see my reflection in the glass over her right shoulder.

--

I had a devil of a time figuring out what to post today.

It was a toss up between an inflatable sheep wearing a garter belt, standing on a fire escape, (sounds enticing but actually not the greatest photo) and some shots of the Washington Square Park arch taken from a cab the other night. Hm. I finally settled on the one above.

If you visit New York today, it is absolutely gorgeous. Actually, the tide turned a couple days ago. and we're having picture-perfect, sunny, temperate, beautiful weather.

It's hard to believe it's July. July means 'humid-beyond-belief-must-vacate-town' to most New Yorkers. Many a July 4th is spent standing in a huge crowd of sweaty people encroaching on your vision, waiting and waiting for the fireworks to begin.

I was at a job site recently and we were talking about installing the central air conditioning. The HVAC guy mentioned how humid it gets.

'Ten days a year', he said, referring to how nice it was that day. We all nodded in silent agreement. Meaning there were only ten days a year of absolutely perfect days in New York, and this was one of them.

Related posts: Soap Bubbles, Chinatown, Selling Grapes on Canal Street and Running Amok in the Streets.

9 comments:

Banjo52 said...

Hope you do at least one or two of the others as well--they sound interesting.

That Ten Days a Year idea is also interesting. I'll start counting now, in lower Michigan, where six months of winter and grayness don't help.

Ken said...

nice image and background story.. I see the words " Tops Cut Salon" in the image...was that across the stree where you were.

Kitty said...

Ha Banjo, I may still post the sheep photo. It's just too odd to pass up.

Not sure I could get through 6 months of winter myself without a lot of moonshine!

Thanks Ken
Yes, the Salon was behind me. Thank goodness for the internets because it helped me figure out where this photo was shot!

Leif Hagen said...

I wonder for whom or for what Mei Ling was waiting?

Unknown said...

I don't miss the hot humid days standing shoulder to shoulder on the subway which usually had no air (other than foul). lol I remember the black out. We lived on the 10th floor in Bronx River Houses - no water, no electricity and pregnant with my third child.

Your subject did not mind being photographed? Nice pic. She looks distracted.

dianasfaria.com said...

OK, so now, as of this very day I am going to keep track of exactly how many beautiful days there are a year in NY. I mean it has to be more than 10, right?
I must be in denial...
love this portrait btw!

Anonymous said...

Well, I like your photo though I am not able to decipher the message in the window. I think it must be in chinese. lol

I didn't order this weather we have had but it has been absolutely perfect. I can go outside and not drag a bottle of oxygen with me. That means I can breathe in it.

I sure didn't order the 90s with humidity but the man upstairs or his deity below is going to give us a dose of it tomorrow on fireworks day. That's not cool a-tall.

I have been good. I mean I feel good with all I got wrong with me. I never thought this would happen to me. I didn't think I was immortal but I was at least 73 and still bragged to the doctor that the only pill I took was a baby aspirin each day. He smiled and said I was "one of a kind," he guessed. I thought that made me special in some way.

Now, I take whiskey shot glasses full of pills.My biggest fear is how one pill doesn't dilute the effect of the one melting down in my stomach right beside it. I don't know how each pill knows what it is supposed to do or what it is supposed to be for when they are swallowed in bunches like that.

Somehow it all works out and I wake up each morning and look about the same in the mirror. I check my male parts when I pee and see they are not deformed any more than the day before. I still have to feel around to find it and would be alarmed if it poked through my pajamas some morning because I don't buy Viagra and wouldn't use it anyway.

Louis la Vache said...

In San Francisco, too, the borders of China and Italy touch: the still-very-Italian North Beach is adjacent to Chinatown.

Laura Cousins said...

I am so glad that you are able - somehow - to figure out what you want to post every day. I know I don't comment all the time, but I do look at every single post and I enjoy them greatly.