I recently took a new job in Lower Manhattan, which is, in my belief, one of the most extraordinary Manhattan locales. An area totally unknown to me (I still can’t navigate it to save my life), I’m constantly taken aback by its dramatic landscape, harsh wind currents, and crappy lunch-spots. Here, then, is what I see every morning, from the Bowling Green stop to the office.


You know it’s time to get off the train when the day-glo orange bricks of the Bowling Green stop (why not green bricks, I wonder?) jolt you back to consciousness.




I take an escalator…down?




Killer black mold, assuredly.




An escalator…now back up?




A tiny hole that serves (or served, perhaps) some purpose, now acting as a tiny, inch-and-a-half trash can for tidy New Yorkers.




Up and out. (Cue howling wind.)




Pigeon, unfettered.




Currently wintry, leaf-less Battery Park.




Constant bus traffic at this corner threatens pedestrians. My first week in the area I was warned by another walker that I should watch out for the buses right here. As soon as I stepped back a bus rolled right over the spot I’d been standing.




More pedestrians about to be killed.




Safely across the street, nice peek toward uptown. Imminent killer bus at left.




Metal bear, painted.




Gothic moment on the morning walk.




‘Dead dead dead dead…’




‘…dead dead dead dead…’




‘Bela Lugosi’s dead…’ (end Gothic moment)




Future home of The Morning News.




Fumes purged from beneath.




Cross street, turn for a look down the river.




Magazine stand, art shot.




Pedestrians scurry, art shot.




Late to work, I scurry, art shot.




Not getting there any quicker, more scurrying, more art.