Photo of the Day: Brookfield Place, Lower Manhattan, NYC

Damaged in the 9/11 attacks, the World Financial Center was reopened after extensive renovations and renamed Brookfield Place in 2014. I visited this massive mixed-use center several years ago, and had the opportunity to go back a week and a half ago. It has added a great deal of upscale stores and eateries to complement its lineup of office tenants. The visitor gathering point I photographed here also offers (outside the picture frame, to the left) a nice view of the Hudson River.

Photo of the Day: NY Harbor, Viewed From Vesey Street

Last week, on a retail tour of Lower Manhattan, my group stopped for a discussion in a building high above Vesey Street. We were delighted by the view of the Hudson River and beyond—especially since, less than 24 hours before, we would have seen the most common precipitation event of this season (the so-called “wintry mix”) at full blast outside the windows.

I felt the immediate need to document the brightness of what felt like a spring day so quickly after this winter nastiness. Watery, sunlit views like this are a reminder of why so many New Yorkers (or those nearby, like me) are drawn back repeatedly to the city, despite its enduring problems.

Photo of the Day: World Trade Center ‘Oculus’

A couple of days ago, on a tour of retail in Lower Manhattan, I passed through—and photographed—the transportation hub down by Westfield World Trade Center. The “Oculus,” designed by Santiago Calatrava, is certainly a striking architectural feature of a point in the city that now serves not only as a transit station but as a shopping mall, a tourist center, and a memorial.

There is an overwhelming feeling of brightness as one traverses this passage, aided not only by the white “wings” overhead but by the 335-foot-long skylight, which is designed to suggest the light that continues to come through an area of overwhelming tragedy that nobody in New York City 17 years ago on 9/11 will ever be able to forget.

Photo of the Day: Shadows and Light, Hudson River Park, NYC

I took this picture one Saturday afternoon in Lower Manhattan, early in the spring, while walking around Hudson River Park.

Photo of the Day: Christopher Street, NYC

I came down to Christopher Street in New York’s Greenwich Village on Saturday to attend a matinee performance at a theater. As I walked along, I was struck not just by the shops and active street life, but—as you can see here, in this photo I took—of its hint at a residential life, through the upper-floor porch with its overhanging ivy.