Saturday reflections

The back of the Winter Garden, where I bought my tea on Monday.

So many reflection shots of buildings end up being layers of blue because of the sky, so here's a black and white version.

Looking through the eye

The new One World Trade Center, seen from -- and through -- the Oculus.

Oculus detail

More of the Oculus

A view from outside.

Because it's long and narrow in shape and gets wider below street level, the Oculus looks surprisingly small from the street.

Except for those enormous wings, of course.

Urban poetry

It took me a few years to get there, but here's the interior of the World Trade Center transportation center, also known as the Oculus, designed by Santiago Calatrava.

Monday I was looking through architecture photos online and saw an interesting photo of the exterior. It reminded me that I'd always wanted to go back there after it opened, but the few times I've been in Lower Manhattan in the past few years -- for classes or jury duty -- I never had time.

Now I've got nothing but time, so I hopped on a bus and went downtown on a whim. It was a clear sunny day, cold (because January) but not unpleasant with a cup of hot tea in hand, even by the river. I walked around, drank my tea, took some pictures, then got on another bus and came home.

I loved being able to do that.

Astronomy Tuesday

M100, seen in a recent photograph from the Hubble.

Monsieur Messier may have felt a thrill of accomplishment when his famous list of Celestial Objects That Are Not Comets hit triple digits, but hélas, he never got to see it in all this wonderful detail.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble

Sunday bird blogging

The green blades of grass are a clue that this is another picture from last summer, but one of the consolations of winter in New York is that cardinals stick it out with us and provide bright bits of color in the dull landscape.

Saturday reflections

You can tell from the green leaves that this picture, of an apartment building lobby on West 44th Street, was taken last summer. In January, the city palette is all grays and browns with cool silver light.

I bought an Instant Pot several weeks ago, and it's wonderful for making soup -- just chop up a bunch of vegetables, brown some meat if desired, and push a couple of buttons. If the vegetables are watery enough -- onions, cabbage, peppers -- you don't even need stock as the pressure cooking extracts a tasty broth.

If the seasoning is insufficient, I just pour in some Buffalo sauce, and voila! Hot and spicy cabbage soup, perfect for lunch on a gray January afternoon.

Urban poetry

The slow line of cars heading for the Midtown Tunnel on a rainy evening in New York.

Astronomy Tuesday

This vaguely creepy looking blob -- like an evil snowman come to life -- is Ultima Thule, the Kuiper Belt object 6.5 billion kilometers from the Sun encountered by the New Horizons spacecraft last week. Technically Ultima is the larger of the two blobs and Thule is the smaller; they probably teamed up as the result of a collision shortly after the formation of the Solar System and have been held together by gravity ever since.

Image Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins University APL, Southwest Research Institute

Mid-century tech

The earphones for the simultaneous translations in the General Assembly. I'm sure it works, but it does look quite retro.

The General Assembly

The General Assembly is obviously much larger than any of the council rooms. This chamber was a collaborative design by the eleven architects, led by Niemeyer and Le Corbusier, who designed the U.N. headquarters.