Thursday, September 16, 2010

A beautiful day and a tornado!

Oh. What a beautiful day!



It does appear to be getting a little bit cloudy. La La La!



It does appear to be getting a bit rough out there!





WTF is going on!



MASSIVE HAIL AND COMPLETELY SOCKED IT!





This is the part where the giant cranes start swaying, swinging back and forth really close to my window. That building was cleared and locked down tight.




La La La, oh blue sky! looks good. Wait, what did you say? A tornado? Nah, that's just a tornado warning.



Nope. A f%^king tornado ripped up our block this evening, ripping down trees and smashing cars. Other than a lot of water in our open windows and a blown in window (defenestration!!!) all is well in our little happy street.

I haven't been doing much more than working the past few months but I did manager to get out for a nice run along the Hudson. I stare at it all day long and it is so beautiful in the later afternoon that I couldn't resist taking my run after work along the water. You can't tell in the pictures but it was really hot and I used the excuse of taking pictures to stop a lot.

The path that I took is across the Vesey Street Bridge, turned south at the water and then jogged down through Battery Park City until I hit the Ferry Terminal.



This is looking north up the Hudson, West of the WTC site



Looking South, that little thing sticking up is the Statue of Liberty



Battery Park City is built on reclaimed land and was designed for mixed use: housing, businesses, parks, and tourists. It is swarming with tourists, commuters and has a lot of little restaurants and bar tucked into the scenic parks.






The Staten Island Ferry Terminal. The camera phone makes everything in the not so distance seem really tiny. Don't be fooled, the SI Ferries are huge!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Blame Work/WTC Progress

I've heard some grumbling from the peanut gallery that I'm not posting very often. And while that it true, I've been forsaking posting to earn money to pay for my expensive gardening habit. As you may know, I switched jobs back in July and have been pouring my heart, soul, and every ounce of brain power into getting this new venture up and running. It's been very rewarding but have left little time to garden and cook.

So, as a consolation prize, I've been taking pictures out my window at work. You may notice from the pictures that I work at the World Trade Center site and have the most bittersweet view on earth. When I wander around my office I have a 360 view of NYC from 40 stories up. I can see the GWB to Coney Island and spend a lot of time watching the ferries and helicopters stream by. When I look down I see the pit of the World Trade Center. It is an engineering marvel, a construction site the likes of which I've never seen. It is also a mass grave and site of unquantifiable sadness and horror. I thought I would get used to it but I find myself avoiding the windows with the most complete view and positioning my chair as to avoid looking in certain places.

Here is a series of shots (taken from my camera phone) of the progress of WTC1. There is an amazing Flickr feed of the progress http://www.flickr.com/photos/wtcprogress for you to check out too!