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The weather has been great in Fairbanks so far. Sunny and in the 60s. As you can tell the sun sets a bit later in the evening this far north. I'm at a meeting for the next day and a half before my vacation begins. More photos once work is done and I get a more proficient with Picasa.
Alaska beckons. I'll be away until June 7th. I'll post if I find the time and internet connection.
Mr. Met gets excited whenever the Mets play the Yankees. As I was trying to eat breakfast this morning he started jumping on the Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez baseball cards yelling "The Evil Empire will be destroyed! I will also stomp Anakin Steinbrenner and Darth Torre!" When I suggested he might be a little confused he screamed "If you're not with me, you're my enemy! The force is strong with Pedro and Obi-Wan Floyd!"
Mr. Met is going to be resting for a few weeks.
One portion of the stairs.
On top of the Palisades. It's about 300 feet above the Hudson here.
I think these are lowbush blueberry blossoms.
Barge being towed downriver.
Hudson panorama looking east. There's no bend in the river here, that's just an artifact of the panorama. Click on the photo for a much larger version. Hastings-on-Hudson is just to the right of center. Dobbs Ferry is to the left of center. The Tappan Zee Bridge is all the way to the left but almost impossible to see.
The campus where I work is connected to the Long Path, a hiking trail that starts at the George Washington Bridge and reaches northward almost to Albany. Interestingly, the path was the vision of Vincent J. Schaefer, who is best known to atmospheric scientists for his pioneering work on cloud seeding. The southern end the trail follows the edge of the Palisades, where there are great views of the river. Hiking along the trail makes for a good after-lunch break.
On the side of a farmer's truck at the Union Square Greenmarket. For more "i love you" action see Bluejake on flickr.
All the abandoned bicycles chained to the fence on the north side of First Park, First St. between 1st and 2nd Avenues. There are more bikes locked to trees, poles, and the fence on other sides of the park. There were also a few bikes that did not appear to be abandoned. I did not take photos of those.
Double-sized photo here.
I think that's enough of the bicycles for a while.
The food was pretty average here, but...
it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the pizza here was out of this world.
Where do bicycles go when they die? To heaven where the angels fly? To a lake of fire and fry? Or to 126th Street near Old Broadway? On the south side of the street there is a dilapidated building with scaffolding erected in front of it. The scaffolding doesn't seem to be there because construction is going on, but to prevent building pieces from falling on people below. Beneath the scaffolding is a bicycle graveyard. The bikes are skeletal, only the frames are there. No wheels, no cables, no gears. Virtually no rubber or plastic.
Where did these bikes come from? Why were they stripped of the unvaluable stuff and the valuable frames put there? The person sleeping a few feet away may have known but I didn't want to wake him.
More bikes:
Sad bikes on fotolog.net and flickr, and a couple more graveyard photos (one and two) from me.
Mystery somewhat solved! A day after I wrote about the skeletal replacement Alamo sculpture I walked through Astor Place and saw these Parks Department signs had been added to the corral. That certainly answers who is providing the upkeep, but I guess the bigger question, why, is still unknown.
May is Bike Month in New York and I'm doing my part by updating the abandoned bicycles album. There's a bunch of new photos and I'll be adding more during the week. Two of the new photos aren't of abandoned bicycles but this mysteriously growing collection of tires and wheels on Spring Street:
29 April 2005
It's growing! 14 May 2005
The tires are on the eastern end of Spring, across the street from the Jen Bekman Gallery. If you like the abandoned bicycle photos you should pay the gallery a visit. From now until June 11th, the gallery is exhibiting John Glassie's photos of "Bicycles Locked to Poles". Yes, there is more than one person who takes photos of forlorn bicycles. I learned about the exhibit from Jake's photos of the opening. Mr. Glassie was at the gallery today signing copies of his book of photos, so I went to see the exhibit and introduce myself. He tipped me off to the bicycle art being shown at the Anthology Film Archives, where the Bicycle Film Festival is playing (today is the last day).
If you hurry down to the AFA you might be able to score one of these:
No, not a rusty Columbia, but a delicious bicycle wheel sugar cookie baked by the girls of the Lower Eastside Girls Club. Or you can visit Sweet Things Bake Shop on Avenue C between 8th and 9th Streets.
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