I took this shot of the construction at 1 World Trade Center, last night on my way home. It is weird sometimes how certain seemingly random things will set my mind in motion, wandering down equally random paths. Last night, for example, after observing the construction, admiring the workers, etc., I started thinking about the days when I used to do construction work.

My family comes from a long line of masons. All of the men in my family have performed some sort of back-breaking manual labor during some period in our lives. It is kind of cool, the way that those experiences shape your thinking and who you are.

One time my brother and I were arguing about how to “lower” one’s gas-mileage. What we meant by “lowering gas-mileage” was actually, lowering fuel consumption. My dad was in the room, reading the paper or something during the conversation. At some point, he decided to point out our backward terminology, and chimed in “I can think of a lot of ways to lower your gas mileage. For starters, you could tie a pallet of cinder blocks behind your car.” After which my brother and I both proceeded to make fun of my dad, saying that his brain only thinks in terms of bricks and cinder blocks (which is more funny when you take into account that in reality, my dad’s brain is like an organic super-computer).

I hope that some day my kids tease me for talking about bricks.

One of the blogs that I keep tabs on is called Public Ad Campaign. Before I started reading it, I had no idea how heavily regulated sign placement was. Jordan, the author, is very opinionated about advertising being visual pollution, etc. I don’t necessarily subscribe to his views in every instance. One thing that has come of it, however, is that I have become more acutely aware of signage. It is amazing how much of it can be found, while looking in any direction, on the streets of Manhattan. I have decided to start sharing some of the stuff that I see, as I have time to shoot it and post it. The shot above is on the corner of Liberty Street and Greenwich, on the south end of the WTC construction site.  It is also right on the corner of the embattled Deutsche Bank Building, which has become a huge blight on the FiDi. I think that it’s great that I could get 6 or 7 signs framed into one shot without even really trying. There are even signs, about not putting up signs, like the one below. These are just a few that I took this afternoon, when I was on my way to fight some parking tickets. More to come.