New York, New York
Third Avenue in the upper eighties, 6:40 AM.
I'm lucky to be able to stay at a friend's apartment on the east side in the lower 90s when I teach at The Center for Alternative Photography. First, because the honorarium a not-for-profit workshop center pays is not exactly compatible—not at all compatible—with New York hotel prices. Also, it means that Friday evening, Saturday morning and evening, and Sunday morning, I get to walk about 70 blocks of New York sidewalk, because CAP is at 30th just west of Park. To the millions of people who live there that might not seem like much, but because I don't get "into town" all that often (I spent much more time in Manhattan as a teenager growing up just twenty miles to the west than I do now) all that sidewalk seems fresh and interesting to me.
This was Saturday, a big shopping day, but the gates on these shops are hours away from opening. New York keeps adolescent, night-owl, hours. The workshop center insists on running the sessions from ten in the morning till six at night, which throws off my circadian rhythm as much as several time zones worth of jet lag.
But that means having, invariably, woken up at about quarter-to-six, I can dawdle and wander around practically forever making my way down to CAP.
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