Osler's Razor

In New York, I spend most of my time above Canal, for one thing or another. Once in a while, though, I love to go to the bottom of the island. It is almost a different city, a European one. Because the southern tip of the island was built up in the 17th century, the streets are locked into ancient patterns-- narrow alleys and byways, barely passable and often filled with pedestrians rather than cars. It's striking that our center of finance is set in such an old-world place, which is so different than the rest of the country. While uptown there are always splashes of green, near Wall Street the palette is grays, which show up wonderfully in the light of morning or late afternoon.

[As always, you can enlarge the images by clicking on them]

The angles of this part of the city are fascinating:



The collections of people, too, are wonderful, as Chinatown bleeds into Wall Street, with statues and schoolchildren:



There is street life, too, in little nooks and crannies in the gray. There will be a noodle shop tucked into an alley, or a patch of cobblestones, places where the sidewalk seamlessly bleeds into the street:




Underground, too, it looks somehow different. I waited for six trains to pass (even though I needed to get somewhere), because I wanted to get these pictures exactly right. I love the way the guy looks up as the train comes in:









It's a world of grays, not black and white. Maybe that really does fit the financial world, that shadow and grayscale are the metaphorical realm in which finance fits best.

Uptown, the beauty can be less stark, even in Bryant Park a half-block off of Fifth Avenue:



Light, shadow, color, love, hate, beauty, life.