Photo of the Day: Fifth Avenue, Source of ‘Some Semblance of American Unity’

Among the many photos I have taken over the years, I searched unsuccessfully for something with the wide vistas that Kathryn Jean Lopez mentioned in the following contribution to a National Review collection of articles from Sept. 9, 2019 on “What We Love About America”:

“Freedom, in fact, is what I feel like I’m breathing in as I see the blue of the sky or the road that leads down to Washington Square Park. Anything seems possible on Fifth Avenue. And one miracle in particular: some semblance of American unity. At some places on Fifth, the Stars and Strikes seem to be everywhere. It’s as if America does, in fact, still mean something we can all agree on. I keep looking and I think about [Abraham Lincoln’s phrase] ‘the mystic chords of memory.’ Fifth Avenue inspires gratitude. I don’t want to look at my phone. I want to keep walking. American culture today can be overwhelming with noise and soil-crushing images. But here, even with the traffic, things seem quieter.”

Then I came across what you see here: a photo of a Tom Ford shop display at the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store in Midtown Manhattan, which I took a few days before the Fourth of July six years ago.

In one way, it seems a bit crass to transform the Stars and Stripes—something people have carried and even died for—into such commercial fodder.

But at least, the instinct this window display appealed to was pride in America. These days, the most powerful instinct is fear.

Maybe, at this current perilous moment in American history—when the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been critically wounded in their home, when Capitol Hill lawmakers of both parties and Supreme Court justices are investigating, as never before, security arrangements for themselves and their families—it would do well for us all to catch our breath, and remember the “gratitude” and “semblance of American unity” that Ms. Lopez evoked.

In a tweet from last night about the assault on Paul Pelosi, Ms. Lopez also noted that “Sometimes it’s better to pray for fellow human beings and that by some miracle the temperature of hate and anger is turned down.”

Well, I suppose that’s a start. But more than a few of us are getting tired of hearing “thoughts and prayers” or their equivalent evoked for victims of violence.

More basically—and painfully—we need an examination of conscience, and a commitment to the “mystic chords of memory” and “firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right” that infused President Lincoln with the political courage to take on those accepting aggression to tear the Union asunder.

Photo of the Day: St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Fifth Avenue, NYC

When my company was located at the Rolex Building, I used to pass by the house of worship located catty-corner from it on Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, St. Thomas Episcopal Church. The fourth church for the parish, it replaced a prior structure destroyed in a 1905 fire. 

Many other congregations might not have recovered from a blaze that consumed interiors by John LaFarge and sculptures by Augustus St. Gaudens. But architect Ralph Adams Cram announced that the new structure would probably be “the most expensive church per square foot built thus far in the United States.” St. Thomas rebuilt rapidly, with the first service in its new home being held Oct. 4, 1913. 

Like St. Patrick’s Cathedral a few blocks to the south, St. Thomas, with its French High Gothic architectural style, stands out from the modernist, glass-and-steel cathedrals of commerce that now populate Fifth Avenue. From its triple-arched entrance way to its stone quarried from Kentucky, it awes even from the outside—an impression only enhanced by a preservation project completed a year ago that saw restoration of its stained glass windows and the cleaning of its facade.

Photo of the Day: Evening at Tiffany’s, Christmastime, NYC

Usually after work, I am intent on going straight home. But about a week ago, I decided to walk around Fifth Avenue, a few blocks from where I work in midtown Manhattan, to see the window displays. 

Even before I got to that point, though, I was impressed by how the stores appeared all lit up at night, as you can see here in this shot of Tiffany’s

Photo of the Day: Art by the Park

I took the image accompanying this post a few weeks ago, on a Saturday morning, just outside Central Park on Fifth Avenue, around 85^th Street.

Photo of the Day: On Fifth Ave., Awaiting Xmas

I took the photo here last week of the window display in the Fifth Avenue Build-a-Bear store in New York.