Happenings: MotorExpo at World Financial Center

I like auto shows, but sometimes I wish I could clear away the soccer mom vehicles and budget compacts and just bask in the presence of the luxury vehicles. I guess other people felt this way too b/c the MotorExpo is just that: an auto show with only luxury brands, like Mercedes, Jaguar, Audi, Bentley, and Maserati. On Sunday night, City Guy and I stumbled upon the show the night before it opened. It's open until Friday, if you want to see these babies up close. One thing I want to know is how they get all these cars up to the second floor?

Maserati:
Audi:Aston Martin:
Ferrrari:

Things I Love About New York: Battery Park City at Sunset

Had a bit of a rough day. It's Tuesday, but it felt like Monday, and I had a viselike headache that wouldn't go away. This evening, I took an hour-long walk along the Hudson River tonight to clear my head. Walked from the tip of the island at Battery Park up through Stuyvesant High School--one of my favorite walks in the city. On the return trip, I stopped at the North Meadow and lay in the plush grass and stared at the clouds in the sky and also the top floors of the Battery Park condos with their panoramic views of the river...and I realized--forget resale value or affordability or convenience to subways--that if I could live anywhere in the city, if all my dreams came true one day, it would be in one of those condos on one of those top floors facing the river.

I love Battery Park. I really do. The dogs and the parents with their babies in strollers, and the older kids laughing and playing on the playground, the contemplative loners sitting on benches staring at the river or on the steps of the lily pond or the determined young men and women running and roller blading and couples eating their picnic dinners on the lawns or the old people shuffling along, the Statue of Liberty in the distance, the yachts parked in the harbor and the sailboats off in the distance. The area feels protected from the hordes of tourist that plague other truly beautiful parts of the city. It's a haven unlike any other. Clean, quiet, orderly, but not in a antiseptic suburban way.

And I love the beautiful little discoveries you make each time--today I realized one of my favorite sculptures was designed by Martin Puryear. I didn't have my camera with me, but here's a picture I found on Flickr.

Anyhow, it was beautiful, and I wish you the peace, quite and tranquility I felt there today. Until tomorrow...

Cool Spaces: The Battery Park Bench

City Guy and I went walking in the neighborhood this weekend and found ourselves at one of our favorites spots. It's a bench--a very modern, well-design bench--that is set right outside the Battery City authority office and the river esplanade in Battery Park City. We love reclining on this thing and staring up at the sky and the tree that shades it, especially on a beautiful spring day. It really is one of the most relaxing, romantic little spots we know of. It's like having an outdoor bed. Anyone know how it got there? Or who designed it?