Why yes, that is the Geary building, again, taken from the High Line. After another afternoon of torrential rain, which I got soaked in, we'll start the High Line tour with what may in fact be my all time favorite building. Until I see Geary's Bilbao museum, if I can ever bring myself to get on a plane, to Spain, again. Wait, did I hear Henry Higgins?

No rain today. Hot as hell, but not as hot as Vancouver or Seattle. It is just bad enough that it's pointless to put makeup on or dry your hair because you're just going to get all sweaty anyway. I had a big bowl of delicious chilled watermelon for dinner after a scalding bath, and you?

More of this, accompanied by Armageddon type clouds and bowling alley thunder. Even I, who usually will brave nasty weather for my evening walk home, took one look at the towering, boiling blackness barreling up from the direction I was headed in and decided that the filthy, stifling mob scene that is the subway at rush hour was the safer choice. Got there just in the nick of time too, before all hell broke loose.

Almost gone. Finally got up on the High Line with my camera but the battery died before I downloaded images, so it'll a day or two before I get around to editing the pictures. It will be worth the wait though, it looked like a storm was coming so it wasn't too crowded, well, more than just me is too crowded, but I moved around easily without some tourist in my view screen. And it didn't rain either, which was nice.

Still stormy here, after the really bad one I wrote about yesterday, we had another bad one around midnight and then two more so far today. Unlike other places, this does not tend to cool things off. It is the end of July, almost August, after all, the weather's supposed to be like this.

I don't know if you can tell how hard it is raining in this picture, but it appears the tornado weather that moved across the midwest recently arrived here in a big way. Thunder, and lots of it, rattled the windows for a good half hour, and the wind was whipping the branches on the tree outside my window so violently, I thought the glass might break. It's stopped now, maybe I can run out and take a few sunset pictures.

Another lovely summer evening stroll downtown by the river, there's a storm front coming though. I chose not to shoot those clouds, north, or right, of this image; but my arthritic left ankle and right wrist are unhappy and hurt now. Human barometer, just like my grandmother.

No bricks used here, Avenue of the Americas or Sixth Avenue for short. Upper end of Midtown, hate it there. It's been referred to as a canyon of skyscrapers, very accurate. The street itself is quite wide so there is open sky that one doesn't have in other skyscraper areas, and I don't think any of those buildings are half as tall as the Trade Towers were, but there is something about being up there that I find uncomfortable.

Here's more demolition and construction, this time it is in the Meat Packing District near the High Line. Two old original brick buildings, one has a bricked up window too, with that Tyvek wrapped highrise going up beside them. Clearly something else was in between the brick structures at one point, and something else was once in front of that.

Another demolition site, in Soho, how old is that little grey building anyway? The red structure is actually build on top of it, and looks pretty old too. Way back before Soho was Soho, it was a make-shift Italian neighborhood. In fact, when I first moved here in 1975, there was an Italian farmer who came across the river with a horse-drawn wagon to sell his produce in the street. You'd hear them coming, the horse clomping along, him yelling about tomatoes and strawberries.

Brick work means construction, which here in New York, also means demolition. That white structure is all that remained of a Deco Era parking garage the Preservation Society tried to save. Alas, Progress. That bumpy wall to the right under the white line below the bricks might have been where a building was before the garage was put in.

Akin to water towers, at least to me, is the interesting brickwork that is usually part of the buildings the towers are on. This is in Chelsea a block or two south of the gallery where I work. It's a gallery as well, most of the businesses in that neighborhood are, and I think was once a garage. The ones behind it were probably waterfront warehouses.

Yes, these are familiar, I showed them to you from another angle on our last water tower tour. These are on the block where I work, they were seen from the front of the building before, this view is from 11th Avenue, through the big construction site with the enormous orange crane. Not there today, off doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle.

Much better today, thank you. Sunshine like this, we were busy all day at the gallery, and I sold a $20,000 painting. Phew, I really needed to. Scarlet O'Hara was right about tomorrows, and mine, Sunday, will be the chance to sleep until noon. I won't, but I could if I choose to do so.

Let's have a nice bright sunshiny picture since it has been none of those things today. I won't go into it, but I'm just glad it's almost bedtime and it will soon be Saturday. I've learn one really valuable lesson from watching movies, and that's tomorrow is another day.

Someone, John Foster maybe, asked a while back for pictures of old painted signs on the sides of buildings and I was aiming at that with this image. Although, it did turn into a photograph of water towers, I think. I like the mix of styles and eras, very much a New York scene.

I upset myself with the geese yesterday, I realize the comment about feeding the hungry came off flip but I meant it to be serious. So maybe I'll do a few posts about the ever present and beloved water towers. Wave to Martha everyone, Ms. Stewart has an office in this building.

Geese, geese and more geese. Oh, and few of their little duck companions. I like birds, I have a parrot named Pacino. But I've digressed, there's a nasty controversy brewing here about the geese getting caught up in the engines of airplanes, the solution seems to be to poison a few thousand of them. It makes more sense to me to catch them for soup kitchens. Lots of hungry people live in Manhattan.

More seagulls, this time harassing the men who are fishing off the pier at Houston Street. This reminds me how last Christmas I walked to the Battery with hundreds of gulls flying up and down the waterfront between Houston and Chambers. Some flew close to the river itself while others were hundred feet up and swooping through the air like acrobats. A very Hitchcockian moment, and me without my camera.

What's the waterfront without a few seagulls? This character and its mate were busy claiming that roof top across from the gallery where I work as their own the other day. And for the record, they are huge, not Canadian Goose huge, but they could carry off a big fat New York City rat is they choose to. And they would be welcome to have that rat too.

They're back, those bad old clouds, big storm is on the way. And since it's a weekend, those brave-hearted kayakers are out there again too. Maybe it's fun for them, but it looks torturous to me. The river is 100 feet deep in the center and almost a mile wide, way more water than I'd want to be floating on in a shoebox, NYC is scary enough already.

There was actually a crystal clear sky today, which doesn't make that interesting a sunset, so I confess, this is from a while ago and I'm just getting around to posting it. No matter, I still like it. If you click on it, you'll see one of the many airplanes that are always flying to Newark.

After a lovely day, the evening looked like this and I'm a bit surprised it isn't raining now. I mentioned El Nino to somebody the other day and then read an article on that scary old Drudge Report (okay, so I follow General Hospital and the The Bachelorette too - that Kypton is a fox but I think Ed might be more appropriate for her) that El Nino is back. Ah, well. Does that mean more or less hurricanes this summer?

It's that time again friends, and now that we have had several days of serious sunshine, the tiger lilies are here. Many years ago, when I was a hippie living in a cabin in the Ozarks, I woke up one morning to find wild blue irises everywhere and I knew it was spring. The same thing happened a few months later, only then it was these gorgeous things.

Another evening without rain, we did get the briefest shower earlier in the day, but compared to the torrential nightmare of the last few weeks, it was barely worth opening an umbrella for. Maybe you will recognize this shot of pier 54 off the edge of the Sanitation pier from the Chelsea tour I gave you recently. That thing sticking out like a diving board is part of the ruins there and a choice perch of the geese.

Haven't been here in a while, what with all the Chelsea postings, but it's not only still gorgeous down at the Houston Street pier, but it's also summer. Officially, since there are two party boats hanging out with our old friend the Lilac. One of the party boats caters to the gay scene and the other to a Harlem crowd, but interesting, their music is basically the same. At least to my ear, it's loud with a great disco beat.

Seems to have finally stopped raining, at least for the 4th weekend, so here's a hazy but not so lazy Hudson River sunset with some kayakers braving the current. I've seen people get into serious trouble out there, best to do in groups like this. Almost went to see the fireworks which were on the west side this year in honor of Henry Hudson's voyage up the river, but the kids in my neighborhood were too busy blowing up things on the sidewalk for me to go out. I did hear and smell it though.

One last Gay Pride image, the blue feathered man again with his companion from the first photo in the series. Can you hear the samba music they are dancing to? After I got across Fifth and out of the chaos, I went two blocks south to Washington Square and entered the half naked freak show that was going on there as well. I was glad to get home, too much of that lovely hot pink for me.

I took the photo to the left at 53rd Street on my way to meet a friend at the Hilton Hotel, it would be several hours later when I took the shot below as the parade turned west off Fifth Avenue at 9th. It's hard to believe that's a man, those look like real breasts to me. Maybe it's a woman who is okay being almost naked, a stripper perhaps, who came to support her friends in gold lipstick.

Not everyone at the parade was a gay man, there were plenty of lesbians there too. Not everyone had a good time either, in fact I didn't it when it became clear that I was not going to be able get home without a hassle. But look at the man in the white t-shirt walking towards the camera below, tell me he's not miserable. And the woman covering her face may be laughing or just appalled.

Nice mix, perhaps the tamest group below with one of the more elaborate outfits in the parade. I have several shots of the blue feathered man, but this is the most complete. Wonder which bothered him more by the end of the day, the headdress or the shoes. I bet that blue glitter got annoying too. Ah, what price beauty. I was known, when I was younger, to make that same sacrifice myself.