Urban poetry

A row of lamps -- one of them glowing in the middle of a sunny afternoon -- on a block of brownstones in Chelsea.

You'd expect these lush front gardens on an old narrow street in Greenwich Village (or maybe in the other Chelsea, in London) but what I've left out of this charming scene is what's just to the right: a wide crowded sidewalk and even more crowded street. 23rd Street is one of the four-lane, two-way, crosstown throughways, most of it undistinguished urban monotony, so this little bit of old-fashioned civility is a little incongruous. But delightful.