Beyond Hartford’s Town Hall in the foreground are city landmarks like the State capitol, Bushnell Tower, and Travelers Tower. The sunset is not an official Hartford landmark but it should be a skymark.
HDR Photography
The roof replacement at 1 Gold St. required a crane to reach above the 27th floor and deliver materials, and its emplacement closed Gold St. itself for a month. With all of that scale and drama, I guess I thought that the crane would be… taller? (Of course, it’s not in its “active” configuration in this shot.)
Though it may be a semi-intended consequence of Manhattan’s zoning rules regarding floor space, setbacks, and public space, public art in downtown Manhattan is still refreshing. Jean Dubuffet’s Groupe de Quatres Arbres and its curving lines fits so nicely against the linear structure of the building behind it that I’m naturally drawn in.
Given the catastrophic cost of real estate at the southern end of Manhattan, a look at the use of rooftop space reveals a sharp contrast: roofs are either lush garden spaces or barren mechanical utility areas. I had expected to see more “in between” spaces among the penthouses—casually or informally used rooftops. I guess nothing spends more than a few hours on a New York rooftop without a reason to be there.
I caught John Wick Chapter 3 in theaters this weekend; that movie’s take on New York City inspired me to finish processing my RAWs from my October 2018 trip to photograph its downtown skyline. Perhaps that sense of a hidden world lurking around every corner is captured in the details along the shore.