Memorial Day Weekend

Saturday…

Whew, it's pretty warm out.  After Leena and I took a cool shower then researched paneer pasanda on the web, got dressed and headed out.

I found two restaurants in Manhattan that listed paneer pasanda on their online menus, and one in Queens, but looking at photos of the one in Queens, I couldn't tell if it was a sit-down place, or take-out only.  I'm sure there's more, but not tied in with the GrubHub menu system...

 I decided to try the nearest one, on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village.  I took the R train from near my apartment.  I got lucky on the train, too, the R line was backed up and running behind schedule, the so the particular train I was on was going to "go express" and skip a bunch of stops, going over the Manhattan Bridge instead of the tunnels under the East River and jump up ahead of some other R trains to fill in the gap in front of them.  When it left DeKalb Avenue it was on the right track for me to see the artwork I've been trying to figure out which train to ride to see...  Cool...  It's two sets of underground cartoon animation, but only clearly visible from one track.

I got off the train at Prince Street, turned around a few times at the top of the stairs to orient myself and then headed up to Bleecker Street and over into The Village...

I almost didn't see Indian Taj because it was on the opposite side of the street, with a big truck blocking it while offloading...  But I did and went in.  It wasn't very crowded, only two couples at tables near the front, close to the buffet.  Since I was already sweating from the short walk, I asked for a table wherever it's coolest, so they seated me at private booth in the back.  I told the waiter I'd like to order from the menu rather than the buffet, so he came back with that...  I quickly found what I wanted, the paneer pasanda, and ordered that with two plain, sada naan.

There was a bit of a wait, and the booth was very close, with curtains running all the way to ceiling.  But across the restaurant, to the side was some nice Indian artwork to keep my eyes  occupied while I waited.

When he brought the dishes I was surprised.  I'd never seen paneer pasanda in a red gravy before, always white, and relatively dry...  But he set it down saying "paneer pasanda" then set down the bread bowl, saying "two orders of naan" so it's not like they got the order wrong...  And it was chunks of paneer, not thin layers with stuffing...  But now that I'm looking online again at their menu, the description is "cubes of cheese seasoned with authentic spices butter & cream, served with basmati rice" which is exactly what I got...

My eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach and I should've only ordered one naan, not two.  Especially since they were butter naan, despite ordering plain.  Same as last time, but maybe "plain" means "butter" here because that's the normal order or something.  The bill has always been for the price of plain, so maybe butter naan just has a lot more butter or something...  I couldn't finish it all, and in fact, I think I tried too hard because I was a bit uncomfortable from eating too much, rather than stopping at "fully satisfied."

I also think my capacity has gone down since coming to New York because I eat smaller meals all the time, so when faced with a big meal, I simply can't eat as much.  Not that that's a bad thing, just don't take me to any expensive all-you-can-eat places...

Overall, it's probably worth returning to that restaurant.  The dish was good, it simply wasn't what I expected, but I'm sure other stuff is probably good, too...

After I finished and paid I headed out to the streets again.  I walked up to Madison Square Park, near the Flatiron Building, where I found a park bench in the shade.  I spent an hour or so reading there on the iPad, occasionally sipping some of the water I carried with me, watching people go past, watching the squirrels and birds, etc...

While sitting there I cooled off and started to think maybe summer weather isn't so bad.  But once I got up again, I was uncomfortable in the heat before I was even out of the park...  Also, the allergies weren't so bad when I was sitting still, but once I got up to walk again, I was stuffed up, my eyes were running and I was sneezing...

I walked along 23rd Street, from the Flatiron Building almost to the river, and it's quite a busy street.  Lots of good looking restaurants to try there...  It also rained lightly, very lightly, unbelievably lightly, just a few drops from a single cloud overhead, for a few minutes till that one cloud blew over.  That single cloud didn't even block the sunshine...

Then down to the High Line again.  I walked the length of it, twice, but couldn't find a free seat in any shady spot because it was so crowded.  But at least I got to use the bathroom and the water fountain...

From there I walked over towards the river, because I saw an interesting ship at the dock, but couldn't get close, and the sun was awfully hot out there, despite the breeze blowing off the water. So, I headed back in on 15th Street, till 9th Avenue and then walked up 14th Street to Union Square.  I picked up a $1.50 cup of fresh apple cider from a vendor at the farmer's market there (the market is in Union Square Wednesday, Friday and Saturday almost every week of the year).

Then I took the subway home.  Back in Brooklyn I dropped my backpack off at the apartment, then went out once more to buy some allergy medicine Gary recommended, then out again to buy some groceries...

Now I'm in...  I took a long, cool shower that helped some.  I see I got some sun on my face, a light sunburn, not too bad...

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Sunday...

I slept in a bit later this morning, took a long, cool shower, a light breakfast, another cool shower and got dressed to head on out, with no particular plan in mind.

I took the R train and even into Manhattan couldn't decide where to get off and what to do, other than be outside...  It was blazing hot just walking from my apartment to the subway station two blocks away.  But not as hot as yesterday...  I was half considering getting off at 23rd Street and reading in Madison Square Park, or Times Square and doing who-knows-what, or Central Park and finding a spot to read, or taking it to Queens and check out Jackson Heights, or switching to an R or Q along the way and taking either of those to Astoria in Queens just to sight see...

In the end some other dude made the decision for me...  A one-man-band guy got on at the station before 57th Street and was playing a trumpet.  A trumpet!  A fucking trumpet!  In a subway car!  It was way too loud and hurt my ears like hell, so I got off at 57th Street, which is very close to Central Park.

So, I walked up to Central Park and figured I could use the bathroom there, except that it was packed and while shorter than the line for the ladies' room, there was still a line waiting to get into the men's room and I didn't feel like waiting.  So, I walked around the lower portions of Central Park a bit, stopped on a park bench in some slight shade, with the sun peeking through some of the trees and cooled off a little.  Even the fifteen minutes of walking before that were enough for me to get uncomfortably hot and sweaty.  It stank of horse manure there, but was kind of fun watching people walk by and take photos of some rather uninteresting rock formations.

Once I realized I wasn't going to get any cooler at that spot I got up and started walking.  I walked out of the park near the Plaza Hotel and the Apple Store, at 5th Avenue, then at 57th Street I cut across to 7th Avenue and caught the Q train down to 14th Street Union Square.

I got off there, in the mood for sushi at Shima in the East Village.  It wasn't a long walk from Union Square there, but it was pretty hot out.  I made my way mostly in the shade of buildings, and only out in the sun to cross streets.

Lunch was good.  None of the usual waitresses were working today, so the service was a little more chaotic.  There was one guy who I've seen before, I think behind the sushi bar, and he didn't seem too familiar with waiting tables, and another waitress who I've also seen before, but she didn't seem to be in the mood to wait tables or something.  Both were polite, but not efficient or cheerful as usual.  Still, the food was what I expected and afterwards I got two scoops of green tea ice cream.  The waitress also brought me a cup of green tea that I thoroughly enjoyed as well at the end.

From there I walked up to 23rd Street and across to Madison Square Garden.  It was jam packed with people and the first shady bench I found turned out to be too close to Jemmy's Dog Run, a place in the park for people to let their dogs run loose in a fenced in area (lots of New York City parks have these) so I got up and found another.  But it turned out to only be shady when the occasional cloud blew over, and when the sky was clear it was hot...  On the other hand, it was easier reading the iPad screen when the sun shone on it than when it shone on me.

I got up again and found another place, where I actually sat Saturday, and that was better.  I read there for a while, as well as watched people, squirrels and birds...  It was relaxing there...  Another middle aged couple eventually came and sat on the bench next to me and read for a long time (the guy had a book I've been thinking about getting...)

Eventually I was getting hotter and hotter as the breeze faded, plus I had to use the bathroom and there isn't one that I know of in Madison Square Park, but I checked on the internet anyway, and didn't see one listed.  So, I figured it was only 15 blocks up to 42nd Street and Grand Central Terminal, where there's also a shop, the New York City Transit Museum, with some artwork I keep planning on getting, but none of my wanderings have me ending up there at the end of the day.

So, I walked up.  By the time I got up there the sweat was rolling off me and my clothes were uncomfortably abrasive from sweating...  I used the bathroom but just missed the shop, which closed at 6pm, since I got there around 6:03pm or so...  And they're not open tomorrow because the holiday...  Ah well...

From there I wandered over to Bryant Park and sat in the shade to read for a little while, then got up and took the F train home from there.  In Brooklyn, instead of getting off at the 9th Street & 4th Avenue station, then walking uphill, I took it one more station to 9th Street & 7th Avenue, so the walk was downhill, and about the same distance.

--------------------------

Monday, Memorial Day...

Well, today was relaxed and interesting...

For a change I decided to wear the Birkenstocks Leena's mother got me in New York in 2007, but without socks.  I can't wear my usual black ones without socks because the foot liner isn't suede so my feet make a horrible sounding and uncomfortable sucking sound with every step.

I got out the door around 11:30am or so, and dropped my rent check off at the mailbox on the way to the subway station, feeling like I left only partially dressed because of the missing socks...

I just missed an R train when I got down to the platform, but then an N train came, which doesn't usually stop at the 9th Street station.  But there was no room to sit in the first two cars, and I didn't feel like standing all the way to Manhattan, so I skipped it and waited for the next R train, a few minutes more.

What luck, too...  I couldn't make out the conductor's announcement clearly, but due to some incident, this particular R train was going to take a different route.  At the next station, DeKalb Avenue, it was on the opposite side of the platform from where the R usually goes.  And as luck would have it, on the track that goes past the artwork underground I keep wanting to see...

I got my camera ready and as we passed the lit up art I took a bunch of photos.  Unfortunately, I don't think they came out well, though.  It was more brightly lit inside the train, so it's mostly reflections off the window, and the window was fairly smudged, too...  Oh well...

After DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn, this R train followed an F route through lower Manhattan, which is very strange.  I would've expected it to at least follow an N route, not an F.  One guy who'd been wearing headphones got confused when we exited the tunnel onto the Manhattan Bridge and asked "I was wearing headphones, what was that announcement?" so I explained it.

Then at one of the stations, where the R normally does not go, a woman looked at the signs outside and the map near my seat and asked, "I thought this was the train to Whitehall?" and I explained to her that there was some incident and this particular R train was taking a weird route, but that the conductor was still calling it an "R train to Queens".  I suggested she stay on it till it rejoined its regular route, then get on a Brooklyn bound R to get to Whitehall...  When we got to 34th Street at Herald Square, I told her that was the best place for her to make the switch...

I got off the train there, too...  I felt too stinky, sticky and sweaty to possibly go into Macy's and try on summer clothes, so I didn't.  I did check out the Manhattan Mall shopping mall, but it was a pretty lousy place, not much in the way of interesting stores (e.g. no music store!)

I made my way down the streets to Madison Square Park where I walked around looking for a cool, shady bench, preferably closer to the middle, but no luck and I got one near the north end of the park.

I took out my book and read a bit...  It was a book about travelers' tales from India.  After a little bit some scruffy looking, heavily tattooed elderly guy in a wheelchair, being escorted by a young woman, asked "are you planning a trip to India?"  I told him not right away, as I'd recently returned after about ten years there and was still thoroughly enjoying life back in the U.S. again...  We chatted a bit.  He'd never been farther from New York than New Orleans.  When I mentioned still being kind of new to New York City he asked me how I liked the park, and reminisced about how it's been cleaned up over the years.  He said when he used to be homeless he slept in that park for a couple of years.  Eventually he said, "well, you return to your book, I'm just going to close my eyes here in the sunshine for a few minutes..." and dozed off...

After they left some college students came.  One was a big, muscular black guy who took off his shirt a couple of times to flex his muscles and show off quite a few tattoos, the other was a long haired, fat white guy with a heavy metal t-shirt, spiked leather wristband, studded boots...  Once they settled down they started drilling each other on their anatomy homework, about various joints in the body, which are unilateral, bilateral, trilateral, some stuff about the thumb joints and things...  It sounded like they were preparing for a test or something in medical school...

I started getting hungry and got up to buy a pretzel from a vendor at the corner of the park (the line for the Shake Shack again had around 75-100 waiting, so I wasn't going to do that, though I really want to try it sometime).  When I returned I'd lost my bench...

So I took another bench nearby.  After a couple of bites of my relatively unsatisfying pretzel, a woman on the next bench asked "is that pretzel any good?"  I told her it was only mediocre, not the worst I've had, but not really very good.  She mentioned that she'd bought a cup of beer from the food fair across the street and she knew she shouldn't have it in park, but wasn't causing any trouble...

We ended up chatting for another hour or more, mostly about New York City, parks, computers, local food, dog walking and India.  She mentioned going to college in the mid-70's so I guess she fifteen years older than us, or so.  She took a year off then to live in India, staying mostly in villages to get "the authentic Indian experience" as she put it.  She was curious for my descriptions of how India has changed since she was there.

She mentioned she used to be a writer, and had written a book about New York City's parks, but is now a professional dog walker to the wealthier people in Manhattan.  At various times other people walking dogs greeted her when passing by, and she'd point them out as another professional dog walker.  She said she has keys to apartments where many owners don't even know her last name, she's just "that weird lady with the green flour on her hat" that their building doormen recommend as a dog walker...

She was pleasant and friendly to chit chat with.  But a little weird, in a not-quite-right manner...  She was totally paranoid of the government and kept pointing out people in the park who were covert government agents.  At one point a couple of guys came a bit closer than normal to photograph some squirrels that were actually being a bit cuter than normal, right behind the bench she was sitting on, then the guys drifted off...  A little later she asked if I remembered the two black guys with the camera, and I said I did, but not that they were black or anything, just a couple of other tourists paying more attention to squirrels.  She told me they were government agents and on the way over they'd flashed her with a "laser refractor" to hurt her eyes, and the squirrel photography was just their cover, to look like tourists...

She asked if I ever read science fiction novels, which I do.  She said writers like Heinlein and Bradbury weren't just speculating on future things, like government control of citizens, but they were actually involved in it and had first hand knowledge.  I asked if she'd ever read any books by Philip K. Dick, but she didn't recognize the name and agreed to look for some of his.  Some good Philip K. Dick novels should blow her mind...

Around 4pm, I still hadn't eaten more than a few bites of my pretzel, that had gone totally stale and I didn't want any more of it, and I figured I should be heading back to Brooklyn, do laundry and all that...  As I was walking away, she called me to come back for a moment, then she gave me advice on buying a pair of Birkenstock sandals with a strap at the back because she said I was walking funny...

From Madison Square Park at 27th Street I walked down to Union Square, then across 14th Street to catch the F train back to Brooklyn.  I like returning on the F because I can take it one stop further and my walk home is all downhill.

First Weekend of May

The full set of photos is available on my Picasa page...

Saturday

Whew, long day out walking...  I actually got off to what felt like a late start after a shower and reading stuff online for a little bit (I'd drank a can of soda while Leena and I were on the phone so I wanted to make sure it went through me before going out...)

Just a random scene while
I was out walking...

I got on the R train and at Atlantic Avenue - Pacific Street there was an N express that pulled up right next to it, so I went across the platform to that one, as it's faster and goes over a bridge instead of in the dark tunnel under the river.  The guy sitting across from me was sleeping with a bottle of soda in his hand and actually looked a bit like Fred Flintstone on his t-shirt.  At one station he got up and walked to the door, but then seemed pretty drunk or something because he couldn't stand up, then ended up sitting back down and closing his eyes again...

I got off the train at 49th Street, sort of right behind Times Square, and walked up to 55th Street and Lexington Avenue to the shoe repair shop to get my Birkenstocks.  I waited in line while a woman in front of me kept the clerk busy answering questions about what they could do if she didn't like the new dye she was getting on her shoes and all that...  The woman who wasn't paying attention to customers, just polishing shoes, saw me and took my receipt, but had a lot of trouble finding my sandals.  Once the woman in front of me finished, the clerk helped the other woman find them.

She was going to put them in a bag for me, but I said "no, I'll put them on".  My feet were aching slightly from the walk up there in the other Birkenstocks, with the softer footbed, and at first the freshly resoled pair felt a little weird, since I hadn't worn them with these particular socks in a while.  But it was good to get them back.  After a few blocks they felt just as comfortable as an old pair of shoes (which they are...)

I like this sign!

I wasn't sure just what to do, so I walked down Lexington Avenue from there...  I kept my eyes open for lunch, too...  And about fifteen blocks down I found it...  I passed an Indian restaurant and saw dhansak on the menu outside and thought, 'hmm....'  Then I kept walking, saw some sushi and a good looking burger place, then thought "dhansak...  Dhansak!" and turned around to get that...

The place was called Nirvana.  I walked in and it was totally empty.  The maitre'd didn't tell me they were closed, so I indicated just one person and he led me upstairs to the restaurant, which was totally empty, too, not a single other customer.  I pointed to a table and I asked if I could sit by the window, but he said "no, the window tables are for parties of four or five only" and then pointed me to a table for two not far from the window.  He said they closed at 3pm, and by then it was 2:20pm...  To be fair, though, it did get a lot busier, the crowd actually doubled before I was done...

As soon as I was seated I ordered dhansak and naan.  He asked "do you want rice?" and I said no, just naan.  He asked if I wanted butter, garlic or spicy naan and I said "just sada naan" and he acknowledged plain naan...  So I sat and waited a few minutes.

The dhansak wasn't like Leena's family's cook's at all...  It had chunks of chicken in it (which I expected, ordering it from the chicken section of the menu) but other vegetables, like green beans, carrots and peas.  The waiter also brought a dish of rice, saying "compliments of the house" (I assume it was just part of what was left from their lunch service to get rid of).  It was good, not exactly what I expected, but good.  While I was eating another guy came in and sat behind me, he also turned down the rice, but then when his meal came got a complimentary bowl of it as well...

I finished right around 3pm, paid and headed back out...  I continued on down Lexington a few more blocks, then started heading towards the west, knowing one thing I was looking for was on west 34th Street, but not exactly where.  Around there, too, I figured I could use a bathroom, and knew there was a public one in Penn. Station, on 32nd Street and 8th Avenue. On 34th I found the Affordable Art Fair, in a fancy building across the street from the Empire State Building, and the sidewalk and entrance to it were packed with people.  After going a few blocks further to Penn. Station I didn't feel like walking back into that crowd, so I didn't make it there...

I exited Penn. Station on 7th Avenue, heading southward.  The Fashion Institute of Technology has an interesting looking building, so I drifted that way, and found FIT had a street circus going on outside of there.  I wandered through there a few minutes, enjoying watching people do karaoke, and play some of the games, then kept going...

A couple blocks from there I ran into another street closed off for a carnival, too...  It was more crowded and had lots of kiddie rides and things more geared towards small children, was noisier and less interesting...

I made my way over to the High Line.  The northern-most stair case was absolutely full of people, with a line waiting to climb up and a crowd up at the top waiting to go down.  I skipped it...  By the time I got to the next one down, it was pretty crowded, too.  So instead I went to the Chelsea Market thinking I'd get a ginger popsicle from the stand inside, People's Pops, that specializes in them.  There was a little line there, but the guy in front didn't know what he wanted.  First he asked if there was anything sugar-free, to which the guy working there said no, all flavors had a little bit of organic cane sugar in them, then the customer asked "oh, they all look so good, which should I get?" and the worker said "they're all good, it's a matter of what you'd like" and the customer asked "well, if you wanted one right now for yourself, which would you get?"

At that point I gave up, I didn't feel like standing in line for all that, and I left.

I walked up 14th Street towards Union Square, but then decided to check out Madison Square Park and see if there was more to that artwork I saw the crew setting up last weekend.  I also figured that would be a good place to stop and sit for a while and sip some of the water I'd carried in my backpack.

Madison Square Park was indeed crowded, though less than last weekend when there was a Sikh festival in it.  Lots of people were examining and photographing a huge, 44 foot sculpture in the main lawn, Echo by Juame Plensa.  Small leaves were falling off the trees, and every time there was a breeze they blew around like a snow storm.  I sat on a bench there for a while, not sure how long, just relaxing, playing with my camera and trying out some different techniques.  After a while, though, I started to get congested and sniffly, maybe from the stuff from the trees blowing around...

Once I got ready to move, I changed lenses on the camera and walked down Broadway to Union Square. In Union Square I walked a full circle around it, then used the public restroom there.  Three days a week there there's a big farmer's market, with fresh produce, meat, honey, wines and things.  One stall had fresh made apple cider at $1.50 for a cup, so I got one and it was really good cider.

A shop near where I went the
wrong direction...

By then it was close to 6pm and I was getting a little tired.  But I decided to walk back to Brooklyn over the Brooklyn Bridge...  It was some walk down Manhattan, but I took the subway from Union Square to Canal Street.  Only once I got out at Canal Street, I got turned around and walked a few blocks in the wrong direction before I figured it out.  I was waiting at a traffic light to cross along with another couple when one asked "what bridge is that?" pointing to one to our right a few blocks and he said "the Manhattan Bridge."  I thought about it and realized, that it being on the right would mean I was facing the wrong direction, it should've been on my left...

So, I turned around and headed the other way, through Chinatown and down along a street lined with government buildings and courthouses.  I saw the plaza I found late last year that was pretty interesting, but once I bought the 11-16mm ultra-wide angle lens, the plaza was closed for some construction.  The construction permits posted listed an expiration date of April, but today it was still blocked off with construction barricades...

Near there I passed a fountain with three young women horsing around and after I'd passed one of them came running and asked "can you take our picture?" and gave me a camera.  So I took a bunch of photos of them posing on the edge of the fountain, then gave it back and continued on my way...

Outside City Hall I got onto the path to the Brooklyn Bridge.  It was pretty crowded, lots and lots of people, but not the most crowded I've seen it.  I've seen it before with so many people that walking on it was like walking in a crowd leaving a movie theater.  Today was a little better.

I took a few photos on the bridge, but with some of the construction it's hard to get a good view over it, and with all the crowds, many are blocked by taller people...

On the Brooklyn side of the bridge I walked around a bit, walked down by the water, under the bridge.  I found the big park that I've seen in movies, that I couldn't quite find before, with a great view of lower Manhattan.  It was cool down there.  I got a few photos of the sunset reflecting off the Empire State Building in the distance, as well as some of lower Manhattan.  Definitely nice down there.

But it was getting chillier with a breeze, probably from being right by the river.  I didn't quite know how to get home from there, other than a general south-east direction, but not which streets go through and which don't.  I partially retraced my steps to get up near the Brooklyn Bridge close to where I left it for the ground.

Then there was a park I recognized from the last time I was in that area, so I went through there.  The other side of it has big businesses and government buildings, courthouses, Brooklyn Borough Hall, a university and things.

At the edge of the park, when it was getting dark and there was hardly anyone there I ran into a couple who were lost.  They asked me if I knew where the nearest subway station was.  I said I knew it was in the park, but when I used it before I entered the park from a different place.  But I whipped out my iPhone with its map, located where we were with the GPS and from there I showed them where the subway station was.

A few blocks and I figured out where I was and remembered how to get home from there.  I walked through the Fulton Mall district, full of retail shops closing up for the night, and then to Flatbush Avenue and down there till it crossed 4th Avenue, where I headed up a couple of blocks then up to 5th Avenue all the way to my apartment.

Whew, quite a walk.  But it was fun.  There's some places I definitely want to go back with a different camera lens...


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Sunday

Well, today was shorter...  After Leena and I got off the phone and I  showered, I got dressed and headed on out.  I didn't really have much of a plan...

So, I got on the R train near my apartment.  At Atlantic Avenue - Pacific Street there was a D express train across the platform, so I hopped over to that, knowing it would go over the bridge instead of the tunnels.

I kept imagining it would stop at Canal Street, despite knowing that the D doesn't, it's the N that does. When it got across the river and stopped at Grand Street, I got off there, since I'd never used that station before.

Grand Street was near Chinatown, not far from where I'd been yesterday and pretty close to Canal Street, and most of the shop signs had Chinese writing, the smell of Chinese food wafted all around, and a city street sign had an arrow pointing away from it all and said "Chinatown". I walked around some of the less crowded streets around there a little, took some photos.  The lens I carried wasn't good for some of the things I wanted to photograph, but then none of them does it all...

I walked north on some street I'd never been on before, and through Little Italy, which had some interesting looking restaurants and shops.  Mostly I tried to stay on the shadier sides of the streets because the sun was blazing hot out.  Eventually I crossed over into the East Village, where I've been quite a few times.

As I got closer to 12th Avenue I decided to stop in at Shima for some sushi and worked my way over there. There were hardly any customers and I got a nice table by the window.  This time the waitress actually recognized me and remembered that I wanted a window table last time.  The sushi was great, as usual.

Back out on the street I walked up to 14th Street and to Union Square.  In Union Square I caught the crowds from the Asian American and Pacific Islander Culture Festival going on.  There was some Thai sort of performance going on in one part of the square, and a big stage set up at the back of the square.  People handed out pamphlets related to it so I got one of those.  I watched some of the performance, but couldn't really get close enough through the crowds to see more than a glimpse.

The Andy Monument -
for Andy Warhol...

From there I walked up towards Madison Square Park, which is about eight blocks up Broadway.  Just before the park I took some photos of the Empire State Building and crowds and then my camera's memory card ran out of space and the camera shut down.  Actually, in the nearly four years I've been using that camera this is the first time I've filled the card...

When that happened I turned around, went back to Union Square, watched the performance a little more then got on the subway to head back to Brooklyn.

Back in the apartment I offloaded the last few weeks' photos from the camera and started a load of laundry and that's that...

Night Time in 8th Street Apartment...

This is what my apartment looks like at night when the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses across the street has their outside lights on.  The lights are evenly spaced, so the window frames cast dramatic shadows inside.  It completely changes the shape of the room, making the ceiling feel sloped.