A view through

From Midtown West this morning: the "love" sculpture frames a street scene.

Another day, another walk

This morning, though it looked like it might rain and the wind was switching every which way, I went for a rather long ramble. The strange sights of the street rarely fail to make my day: in Sunnyside, a sticker with a phone number was slapped on a lamp post, and the words "Pranks accepted!" were written beneath; on Skillman Avenue, I found a discarded notebook filled with high school calculus, as well as a printout of lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" tucked into the front pocket; on a building in Greenpoint, graffiti hearts covered a door and were accompanied by a scribbled reminder to "buy candy." And the flowery chalking on a Brooklyn side street, above, was also quite charming.

Carte blanche

I'm as big a fan of New York's food carts as they come; right now, I'm particularly fond of a nice little cart at 53rd and Park where, for $3 or $4, you can get the most pungently delicious apple-carrot-celery-ginger juice in the five boroughs. Walking home today, near Northern Boulevard, I saw these two unadorned carts on the side of the street: such interesting structures, inside and out, even before cuisine and culture come into play.

Shadow country

Though it grew cold today, the sun's been shining brightly in the city since I returned from Portland. The bare trees cast long shadow of the brick as I passed by.

I saw the sign

Fact: this sign, from an old manufacturer on Steinway in Astoria, is incredibly cool, even in its current state of disrepair.

No beggars, no peddlers

I noticed this sign at the bottom of the front door of a building I walk by a few times a week. Hard to believe I've missed it so many times before! It's almost more entertaining than the signs with long lists of prohibited activities: sitting, standing, loitering, ball playing, and so on. 

Gone in a flash

A statue of Mary in front of a church on Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side is distorted in the haze of my iPhone's flash.

Roo

Loved this stencil -- saw it on some plywood on 35th St., near 35th Ave., in Astoria. (Anyone know the artist? Credit where credit's due!)