Here I am sitting on a concrete barrier near the waterfront in Red Hook, Brooklyn, smoking a cigar, after having walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and back. I have my camera and am on my way to photograph Lady Liberty from the pier. It is a nice, sunny autumn day, a little breezy, not too hot. My favourite time of the year.
If I were back in Toronto, I’d smoke the heater in a park, but in here in New York, Bloomberg managed to ban smoking in parks, and naturally the tyrannically inclined majority went along with it. This follows the principle, noted famously by Mark Twain: “Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.” And so, rather than a luxurious park bench under the shade of a big maple, with an expanse of green in front of me, I am perched on top of a construction barrier beside a gritty street near a bus stop. But it is okay. It has its charms.
To my left is a construction project that I think involves drainage from the Gowanus Canal. The canal itself is a survivor from the great industrial age, and what looks like water in the canal is, in fact, toxic swill. Back in the good old days, you probably could light it on fire.
To my right is the harbour, and across that, if you walk around the corner from where I am, there is the skyline of Southern Manhattan, including the comical and beautiful Gehry Tower and the new incomplete World Trade building, that monument to resilience and resistance.
Drive past me in the more-or-less southerly direction, and you will hit the entrance to the Battery Tunnel. I think officials tried to rename it the Carey Tunnel, but it didn’t take.
Not a bad perch overall, despite the occasional blue and white city buses roaring in with a cloud of dust trailing. Interesting people to watch. And the cigar is good, too…Nicaraguan. Quite tasty if you are bent that way. I have no worries on my mind. A great afternoon, all in all.
I look down, and right at my feet I notice something I had not seen when I hopped onto the barrier: a pair of lovely satin panties, with delicate lace trim. A nice wine colour. Quite pretty, I would say. They are in good shape, though quite obviously they have been worn.
Now, how did they get here?