As you may have heard, some big stuff has been happening in the news, lately. It has made it super fun for me to get to and from the building I work in. Apparently every network on the planet had the idea to do at least one broadcast per day, live from WTC. This evening I snapped a shot of one of my favorite setups. That is a CNN camera set up so that the 7 World Trade Center Jeff Koons sculpture is the backdrop. Very clever. Although, if Mr. Koons catches wind of it, he may try to collect some royalties. I guess that Mr. President himself is going to be onsite Thursday. With what a zoo the FiDi has been on the non-presidentvisitdays, I may have to work from home that day in an attempt to maintain sanity.

In equally mundane news, JNB giveaways return this week. Tomorrow morning, to be precise. Spoiler: it is Madewell swag. So, check in if you are interested. I’m also going to do my best to have a Tommy Hilfiger photo hunt lined up for Thurs. Oh, the excitement. Buenos Noches.

A couple of weeks ago, I was doing some work on the north end of our building and noticed that 1 WTC  is now as tall (or taller) than where I sit. I managed to write a quick blurb about that observation on FB. My friend Jon read it and asked me to take a photo. So, Jon, here is your photo. It isn’t the sharpest image, because unfortunately, I’m shooting through dirty glass. But you can definitely get an idea. You can see that they are also making progress with the reflection pools. The one closest to the tower actually has water in it. Gothamist ran an article about it the other day.

As a bonus you can click here for the full resolution image (6.5 MB). Again, not the sharpest.

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.

I saw this gem about 20 feet up on the wall adjacent to the old First Methodist Church on John Street. I saw it on my way to the gym last week. I’m not 100% sure who the artist is. But I have a pretty good idea of who it was. This photo is with the b-berry cam (as if there was any doubt, judging from the super high res).

On a totally unrelated note: When I was downloading the photo above, I saw and remembered the shot below, that I took on Sept. 11, this year. These flags are in front of 7 WTC. I thought it was kind of cool.

Today started off great. The sun was shining through the curtains, when I woke up. The birds were chirping, etc. I went down to CP to shoot this race before church, and got an email, while I was there, that some stuff was going to be happening at work today.

The race was awesome. I wasn’t too stoked about having to go the rest of the way downtown afterward, to have to spend the rest of the day indoor. The biggest bummer is that a lot of what I’m doing today, involved a waiting around for things to happen. Since I had my camera with me, from this morning. Here are a few shots. The first one is the progress on the new 1 World Trade Center Tower:

The next one, is the view looking north, from one of the conference rooms that I’m working out of.

Not nearly as good as our southern views. But at least looking out this side doesn’t make me feel as bad about being inside today. It would be a different story, if I could see the promenade, and the water.

[Liberty Street footbridge that crosses over the West Side Highway. I kind of like it.]

One thing about living at the top of a walk-up building, is that I that I always have my daily dose of stairs. As if that weren’t enough, Reagan always coerces me into taking the stairs with her, even when we are in a (residential) building with an elevator. I don’t really mind it.

Today, more than ever, I could use a good stair workout. I have been having some weird stomach issues lately. I’m not really sure what they are all about. But, I read (and someone told me recently) that yogurt can sometimes help, if it is an ulcer or something. So I dropped by Gristedes today and picked up some yogurt and granola. I didn’t realize until I got back to my office that the type of yogurt I purchased was whole milk with cream on top. Whoa! I didn’t even know that stuff was legal. Anyway, it was really good. Needless to say, I’m feeling a bit sloppy after eating it.

On a loosely related note, Earth Hour is only a month away, so buy some Birkenstocks and incense.

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.