flora & fauna of the concrete jungle

excerpted from one of the greatest books about the big apple that i know of, colson whitehead's the colossus of new york:

"I'm here because I was born here and thus ruined for anywhere else, but I don't know about you. Maybe you're from here, too, and sooner or later it will come out that we used to live a block away from each other and didn't even know it. Or maybe you moved here a couple years ago for a job. Maybe you came here for school. Maybe you saw the brochure...

No matter how long you have been here, you are a New Yorker the first time you say, That used to be Munsey's, or That used to be the Tic Toc Lounge. That before the internet cafe plugged itself in, you got your shoes resoled in the mom-and-pop operation that used to be there. You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now.You start building your private New York the first time you lay eyes on it....

Our streets are calendars containing who we were and who we will be next. We see ourselves in this city every day when we walk down the sidewalk and catch our reflections in store windows, seek ourselves in this city each time we reminisce about what was there fifteen, ten, forty years ago, because all our old places are proof that we were here. One day the city we built will be gone, and when it goes, we go. When the buildings fall, we topple, too.

Maybe we become New Yorkers the day we realize that New York will go on without us. To put off the inevitable, we try to fix the city in place, remember it as it was, doing to the city what we would never allow to be done to ourselves. The kid on the uptown No. 1 train, the new arrival stepping out of Grand Central, the jerk at the intersection who doesn't know east from west: those people don't exist anymore, ceased to be a couple of apartments ago, and we wouldn't have it any other way. New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy."

the pictures that follow are pieces of my NY. not to hold it against itself, but to remember what I once knew so well. i've said goodbye for now, the way you tuck a child into bed: rest, close your eyes, but go on breathing, living, even while you sleep be active in your dreams, and tomorrow i will see you, the same two souls in a different moment.

city bird

beauty thrives

chain link

the carpet beneath my feet

by the river's side

fallen leaves

cause to reflect

crystal orbs

walk

fresh

in the shadows of the bright lights

jungle town

  

femme

the red balloons

occupy all streets

man in blue

graff scape

shelter me 

= ?

no time for sleep

straight chillin

river front sun set

halt

shapes

classic