Photo of the Day: Times Square ‘Blizzard,’ January 2015

Last week’s blizzard, we were told, was the worst in five years. It got me wondering if I had any photos from around that time. The closest I came up with was the attached image, which I took in Times Square on January 26, 2015—a year away from the totals we were told about several days ago.

I have quotes in this headline for a reason: the “blizzard” didn’t turn out to be much of one at all. At the time, meteorologists issued dire warnings, but, after being downgraded to a “high impact winter storm,” all that fell in Central Park was 5.5 inches of snow. I took this photo in Times Square when it looked like it was going to be far worse.

This year, we have not had the same kind of drastic overestimates. In fact, in my area of northern New Jersey, it has been the exact opposite. I would say we ended up with 10 inches more than what the weather people were originally expecting 24 hours away. Similarly, for this past Sunday, instead of the three inches or so anticipated early on, we got more like seven inches.

In this winter of 2021, meteorologists have resembled dentists who assure you that a tooth of yours doesn’t look particularly good, but they think they can handle it. Then, as they get closer, their faces take on a doleful cast. It turns out to be worse than they expected or than you wanted. Sorry!

In a way, this photo makes me nostalgic. It has been 11 months since the pandemic induced my former company and other city employers into work-from-home mode. I have not ventured into midtown Manhattan—an area I had frequented for three decades—since then. The way things are going, I’m not sure at what point I will do so again. 

I can't say that I miss the possibility of slipping on the snow, but I feel a dull ache from no longer seeing the bright lights of Broadway.

Photo of the Day: Heart Squared, Times Square, NYC

Meet the winning entry in the 12^th annual Times Square Valentine Heart Design Competition. “Heart Squared” was created by MODU and Eric Forman Studio, using mirrors and light to create reflections of the “crossroads of the world.” The installation, which was put up on January 30, will remain in place until March 1.

Photo of the Day: ‘Wicked’ ‘Show Globe,’ Times Square, NYC

While walking away from my midtown office to get home for the long holiday weekend, I saw, on a portion of Times Square, a set of unusual objects. When I approached them, they turned out to be “Show Globes” of major Broadway musicals.

Though several musicals reaped this unusual tribute (Ain't Too Proud - The Life and Times of The Temptations, Dear Evan Hansen, The Lion King), the one that appeared to best advantage, in my opinion, was the show globe for Wicked, which is why I photographed it and am offering it now to you, Faithful Reader.

Photo of the Day: ‘Rumors of War,’ Times Square, NYC

Last Thursday, a massive limestone base inscribed "Rumors of War," along with the artist’s name, Kehinde Wiley, drew curious onlookers like me to Times Square. Whatever this was going to be, I figured, would be fundamentally different from any other public artwork in this midtown crossroads.

And, once I got a look at the bronze statue placed atop it the next day (and took this photo), so it proved to be.

This was not any old artwork in Times Square. No, this one got a lengthy article in the Arts section of The New York Times. Hundreds of miles south, even The Washington Post took note of it, in a piece equally long.

The lager-than-life coiled body atop the horse makes you think you’re looking at Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, or J.E.B. Stuart. You know: the Confederate generals lionized on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va. 

But that’s no cap on this figure’s head: those are dreadlocks. And that’s not a gray uniform he’s wearing, but a hoodie and ripped jeans. 

With a shock, you realize you’re looking at an African-American—a male descendant, you don’t have to think twice, of someone that Lee, Jackson, and Stuart devoted their considerable military prowess to keeping in slavery.

This is the first statue created by Wiley, a 42-year-old painter whose portrait of Barack Obama now adorns the National Portrait Gallery.

In a sense, the statue is undertaking a journey that reverses the movement of the Underground Railroad north. This time, once Rumors of War leaves Times Square in December, it will travel to Richmond, the capital of the short-lived Confederate States of America, to be placed near the entrance to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, just a few blocks from Monument Avenue.

The white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. brought to the surface the powerful emotions left over from the Civil War. In this context, Wiley’s statue would not only be seen as a response to the tumult two years ago but, by the revanchists in the area, as a provocation of its own. 

In various parts of the country, statues of Confederates—or, more broadly, slaveholders—have inspired desecration. Don’t be surprised if this statue experiences something similar—unless the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts decides to safeguard it in some kind of glass enclosure. 

The Civil War ended 150 years ago, but it's opened a new front in the culture wars of our century.

Photo of the Day: Yoga in the Rain, Times Square, NYC

The last couple of years, when the first day of summer rolls around, I’ve gotten used to seeing Solstice in Times Square. I’ve smiled indulgently as hundreds of bodies, even as they meditate in leader-leg yoga sessions at the crossroads of the world, twist their bodies into shapes I would not dare try lest I suddenly discover a muscle I didn’t know I had by wrenching it.

Doing all of that on a really, really warm day is not what I’m accustomed to doing. But heck, could this be what these practitioners have in mind when they talk about “hot yoga”?

But that practice took on what I could only think of as sadism this morning on my way to work. Not only were hundreds of people out around 9 in the morning, but they were doing so when the day was still rather humid. 

Worse than that, the weather was, as it seemed to have been most of this week, rainy. And here everyone was, squatting on the ground again amid a steady, dispiriting drizzle.

What was this, a new form of capital punishment?