Mother's Day 2017

We spent a wonderful Mother's Day weekend in Connecticut.  Saturday we were in Wallingford to visit with Neil and Maureen and Tracy.  Today we went to my sister Betsey's and Karen and Sy were there and Joan and Kelsey and Jon and Lauren and the twins as well.  We had a lovely dinner and conversation and laughter - it was a wonderful Mother's Day!  Oh, and we posed for a family picture.

The Riddler

We are up in Connecticut, and some of the family went to dinner tonight.  This is Keera and her dad, and during dinner she started asking us to solve some riddles she knew.  Some were really clever, and beyond us to figure out.  Others were just plain funny.  She also asked us for riddles, but we could only come up with a couple of them..  So then she asked us some more.  At one point Keera asked her dad to look up a particular riddle for us.  It was a fun way to spend some time during dinner, and lots of laughs.  She is smarter than we are!

The Old High Line

I first heard of the High Line when I stumbled into a gallery in Chelsea, and saw photographs by Joel Sternfeld of the natural beauty of this abandoned elevated rail line, overgrown with all kinds of weeds and grasses.  It was like a meadow in the sky and it was stunning!  The rest, as they say, is history.  You have seen so many of my photographs of this wonderful garden and walkway in the sky.  They began the renovation by removing all the railroad tracks, and ballast and then cleaning and painting all the original steel beams and supports, before replacing ballast and tracks and soil, and then by planting gardens among the tracks.   But I discovered on my most recent visit something that I must have seen before, but which hadn't registered completely, and that was that they have left a long section of tracks in their original state at the north end of the park.  And that's what caught my eye on this trip.  I am so glad they realized the importance of what was there before the renovation.  It has a beauty all its own, don't you think?

No More Poco Loco

I was driving through Roslyn and this window flashed by.  I was in a hurry so didn't stop, but remembered the scene.  I stopped a couple of hours later on my return trip.  This building was the home of Poco Loco, a Mexican restaurant that we had dinner in maybe twice, but 20 years ago.  Well, by the look of the front windows, this restaurant is no more.  I thought of this photograph as an abstraction, rather than as a documentary photo.  It is all about shapes and sizes and colors.

The Cradle

I mentioned going to the Cradle of Aviation on Monday night for an FAA Safety Seminar.  This is an interesting photograph of the Cradle of Aviation.  When we took a break, I went outside for a bit and was stunned to see all these wonderful colors, and the foreboding sky.  So, since I always have my "toy camera" with me, I took this photograph.  The contrast of the scene was very high, so I must confess that I used some HDR software to make the highlights darker and the shadows brighter.

A New Park? Well...

At the four corners in the center of Glen Head, there used to be three gasoline stations and a tire store.  The tire store closed and was torn down, and has since been replaced by some stores and a couple of nice places to eat.  Then one of the gas stations closed, and was left abandoned for nearly ten years.  There was talk of building a Seven Eleven on the spot, but neighbors protesting shut that down.  Then there was talk of brightening the center of Glen Head, by building a park on the spot.  That would really have changed the feeling for the village and made it much nicer.  I thought that was the final decision.  I drove by the fenced in and obscured area a few weeks ago, and saw that they were doing some digging.  I wondered why they would have to dig down to build a park, level with the street.  The answer showed up the other day.  The hole was deeper and it is clear that a building foundation was being installed.  Turns out it will be another bank building!  Such a shame to miss out on having a beautiful green park.

My Friend Phil

I went to an FAA safety seminar tonight, at the Cradle of Aviation Museum.  If anyone is curious, the subject was aircraft operations at non-towered airports.  It was a great presentation by a terrific instructor from the Aircraft Owner's and Pilot's Association in Frederick, Maryland.  When the presentation was over, I heard someone call my name.  It was my friend Phil Dionisio.  Phil and I worked at Newsday together for years - he was an artist in the art department, and I was a photographer.  In the early years when we both worked evening shifts, if I didn't have an assignment at meal time, Phil and I would go have dinner together, usually at the Sizzler Restaurant.  He is a pilot and was great company.  It was more fun having dinner with Phil, than with the other photographers!  Phil has owned his own plane for years, and now lives on Block Island, and the plane allows him to easily fly back to Long Island.  I photographed him in front of two magnificent illustrations that he did for a Newsday book on the history of aviation on Long Island.  These reproductions are on display at the museum.