“Brooklyn, Brooklyn take me in…” –The Avett Brothers
Every time I visit New York, in a weird way it’s like returning to some sort of home. But no, that’s not a entirely accurate. New York is foreign as only such a big, weird, lovely, psychotic city can be. However, I have forged many memories there in the past few years, and all those memories lurk into your bones and make you feel deeply connected to a place. As good friends little-by-little drifted to the east coast over the past few years, I felt like thin strings stretched out from me, here in Denver, to them all those miles away, and that connection I feel to the city strengthened.
Each visit makes me love the place a little more. This trip was no exception.
Originally I had hoped to spend a few mornings of my vacation wandering around taking photos, but due to factors wholly outside of all of our control (silly pipes leaking), I was only able to dedicate my final morning in the city to conducting a proper walkabout. I love wandering aimlessly. In college, whenever I was feeling cooped up and restless, I would load up my camera and simply mosey about the town. I never had a planned route or any particular destination in mind. I would simply set out and see where my feet led me.
I adopted that same mindset during my New York walkabout. Here are a few snapshots from the trip.
These last few all were shot in Union Square. I stumbled upon some sort of architectural, design, creative materials competition. It was only later that I found out a little bit more about it.
It was something called the Sukkah City competition.
From the Sukkah City web site: “Biblical in origin, the sukkah is an ephemeral, elemental shelter, erected for one week each fall, in which it is customary to share meals, entertain, sleep, and rejoice….The sukkah is a means of ceremonially practicing homelessness, while at the same time remaining deeply rooted. It calls on us to acknowledge the changing of the seasons, to reconnect with an agricultural past, and to take a moment to dwell on–and dwell in–impermanence.”
Oh and this, from the Union Square events page (which is how I tracked down more information; isn’t the internet amazing?): “Finalists were selected from over 600 entries from around the world by a panel of celebrated architects, designers, and critics and the winning designs will be on display together to create a visionary village that will re-imagine the ancient phenomenon of the sukkah structure and propose radical possibilities for traditional design constraints in a contemporary urban site.”
