Union Square, Irving Place & Gramercy Walkabout

Love the Union Square/Gramercy Park/Irving Place area - but who doesn't?

All year round it's buildings, parks and streets cheer me up.


Thomas R. Pryor Photography

Triple Duty Communion Suits & Central Park Reservoir

My favorite games of tag were played in front of Mother Mary in St. Stephen's yard. 1962, second grade, our communion suits and dresses did triple duty: at the communion ceremony, doing a waltz in the talent show (directed by a chain smoking Mrs. Otis & always had a puss on her face Sister Lorraine), and marching in the May Queen procession in the yard with all of us dressed to the Ts. Boys in blue, girls in white.

Photos from Central Park Reservoir last night.

Dog Steals Taxi ~ Coney Island Pier is Back

Hailed a cab yesterday. This dog stole it then she opened the window and said, "ha! ha!" The nerve.

Other photos are from the Coney Island pier on frigid Christmas Eve.

First Day of Winter on the East River

Saturday, I spent time reading in Carl Schurz Park and walking along the East River. Saw this bird catching last light on it's driver side on the first day of the season.

Calendar indicates winter has begun, but the mild weather says otherwise.

My framed photographs are on display at the Yorkville Creperie for a few more days. Please drop by.

Thomas R. Pryor Photography

hosted by Yorkville Creperie @ 1586 York Avenue 

Drive

coup

Best Hill in New York City

If you ask this New Yorker what’s his favorite hill in New York City: the bluff in Owl’s Head Park just north of 68th Street and Shore Road in the Bay Ridge neighborhood. The vista from this property has been the subject of art and photography for three centuries. Henry Cruse Murphy who helped found the Brooklyn Eagle and became Mayor of the city of Brooklyn built an impressive estate on this scenic glacial ridge overlooking the Narrows.

The bill authorizing the Brooklyn Bridge was composed and signed there in 1866. The second owner, Eliphalet W. Bliss, sold the land to the city and the property became a park in 1928. Unfortunately, the house was demolished in the 1930s.

When you think about this perpetually changing town and sweat over how little of it is left as you remember it, take the R train out to the Bay Ridge Avenue stop and walk due west past Third Avenue, Ridge Boulevard until you get to the corner of 68th Street and Colonial Avenue and enter this beautiful park and hike your way up to the top of the hill past the ancient trees where you see the bay open up before you.

Turn south and see the tops of the Verrazano Bridge towers, turn north and Manhattan’s skyline decorates the horizon, turn east on a snowy night and watch a young boy and his father sled a monstrous hill, the best one in Brooklyn, all by themselves. Stand alone at the park’s peak on a cold clear evening and see what Henry Murphy saw in the mid-19th century, the finest panoramic view in New York City. It’s easy, blink away the structures, roads and buildings, and see only the water and the surrounding topography. You’re looking at the main artery to the New World.

This is my weekly column in  Ask A New Yorker.

Here are photos from Owl’s Head Park:

Owl's Head Father & Son

Manhattan from Owl's Head Park

Owl's Head

Owl's Head

Owl's Head

city from Owl's Head

Narrows from Owl's Head Park

Night Snow in Central Park

It's 7am and snowing in NYC for the third time this week. So I put up some more photos from this past Saturday night in Central Park. Here is a link to the photograph album.









This coming Friday, December 20th @ 7pm, I'm telling a story at Eric Vetter's @ No Name... and a Bag O'Chips End of 2013 show  at Otto's Shrunken Head on East 14th Street, a FREE great time.

My framed photographs are on display at the Yorkville Creperie for two more weeks. Please drop and see them.

Thomas R. Pryor Photography

hosted by Yorkville Creperie @ 1586 York Avenue