Secret Garden on 22nd Street - There & Gone

A sunset, a smile, a tear, things we see that strike a chord. They may leave quickly but depending on our state of mind can stay in our memories forever with incomprehensible weight in our hearts. In the city there are spots that pop up, stay awhile and go away, and you're not sure why you feel so strong about them, but you do.

Two years ago, on the southwest corner of 22nd Street and Third Avenue was a dormant construction site with a blue fence and Plexiglas windows for peeking inside. I looked in and saw a secret garden. If you didn't stop, you had no idea wild flowers were putting on a show on top of the brick bats and debris left behind. It gave me comfort to take a break from my walks through the Gramercy area to stop and rest my mind on the beauty hiding from plain sight.

Recently, the garden disappeared when construction commenced. When the new building is done, I will hardly notice it and think about when nature took its course in that space giving curious pedestrians a visual reward.

The top photo appears in my book of photography, "River to River: New York Scenes from a Bicycle." On sale for @$12.95 @ Amazon & YBK Publishers.

My published short stories can be found in "Have a NYC 2," and "Lost and Found: Stories from New York."

Gramercy Park 2011