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.

Sunday bird blogging

The unexpected colors of the U.N. council rooms made me think we could use another mandarin duck photo. So here's Mandy in all his colorful glory.

The Economic and Social Council

Sweden's contribution to the Conference Center.

The Trusteeship Council

The Trusteeship Council doesn't exist anymore; it was set up to handle decolonization in the wake of the Second World War. All of the trust territories have now either achieved independence or joined with other former territories.

The room, Denmark's gift, is used as a general meeting room now. I love that ceiling.

The Security Council

The Conference Building, which can't be seen from the street, lies between the Secretariat and the General Assembly. The three meeting rooms we saw there -- the Trusteeship Council, the Economic and Social Council, and the Security Council -- were like a time capsule of mid-century design. 

More specifically, mid-century Scandinavian design -- the three rooms were gifts from, respectively, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. It's obvious they haven't updated much since the buildings were completed in 1952.

Somehow when I've pictured some of the events that have taken place in the Security Council -- Adlai Stevenson confronting the Russian ambassador over missiles in Cuba, Colin Powell's claim that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction -- I never realized that they were taking place in a room with blond wood and baby blue chairs, and lime green seating for the spectators.

The United Nations

The U.N. tour didn't allow wandering around outside the buildings so I couldn't get some of the views I would have liked. But here are two external shots of the General Assembly and Secretariat buildings.

The photo on the right is the view from First Avenue, with the ring of flags in front of the General Assembly seen through the trees. The picture on the left is one you can only see from inside the grounds -- the back of the General Assembly building and the Secretariat building seen from the side. 

Saturday reflections

Sphere within Sphere, an artwork by Arnaldo Pomodoro on the grounds of the United Nations, reflecting the city around it.

I very much enjoyed my visit to the UN yesterday, although everyone in the group seemed to find it hilarious that someone who lives in New York was taking the tour. If the government ever opens again, maybe I'll go to the Statue of Liberty next.

There will be many more pictures.

Urban poetry

I have never been even a little bit tempted to go to Times Square on New Year's Eve; it's one experience that I'm perfectly content to experience secondhand. (I can hear the crowd cheering from my nice warm apartment on the rare occasion that I am actually awake at midnight.)  But I do love walking through the morning after, watching the cleanup of confetti and party hats.

It rained last night and I slept late this morning, and I didn't even leave the apartment until mid-afternoon. Surprisingly, there was still plenty of confetti -- the winds were obviously making cleanup a challenge.

Astronomy Tuesday

I had several lovely images of nebulae to pick from for this New Year's Day offering, but these colors won. This is the Lobster Nebula, located, appropriately enough, in Scorpio. As usual, I don't really detect a lobster, but I could be persuaded that it's a giant crab.

Image Credit: Dean Carr