There are days in New York City when the simple act of living here turns into a love affair. When you become smitten with it in proportions larger than life. Or the Empire State Building. When it turns into a black and white film.
Today was not that day.
CJ and I had some errands to run around the city, from Gramercy Park to Greenwich Village. The temperature was throttling towards 100 degrees and it was the kind of heat that stuck to you like tar and left you feeling basted. I'm not entirely convinced there aren't tiny puddles of us splashed across Manhattan, especially at the corner of 18th Street and 3rd Avenue. Melted. CJ was pouting that our favorite streetside fruit vendor was out of peaches. That the sun was "being mean and making him hot." That his plum shaved ice spilled on his arm and made it sticky. That he didn't want water. That he did want water. No, not that water. The "Gatorade" water.
Today was not that day.
But in between a dentist appointment and a brief coffee meeting, we found ourselves with 17 minutes to spare. A grey area in between a day colored with things to do and places to be.
And then.
The love affair. The proportions larger than life. The black and white film.
We stepped onto an unassuming stretch of West 21st Street and into the cavernous Gagosian Gallery that was featuring an exhibit on fashion photographer, Richard Avedon. The ballooned images towered towards the ceiling in black and white. They were stark and stripped of color. Just what we needed. Still snapshots.
I have to admit, that some of the images weren't appropriate for small children, which I wasn't aware of ahead of time, and I steered CJ away from them.
After CJ peppered me with questions about why it was so quiet in the exhibit and how they got the pictures so big, we carried on and out past the frosted doors of the gallery.
We were back. The sun. The bright yellow taxis. A tourist in hot pink pants. The world caked in color. Everything looked the same as when we stepped inside, but somehow totally different. The things that NYC makes possible, pausing a day filled with the grind of errands to stare at stunning fashion photography in an art gallery with my three-year-old is still, three years into this whole city living journey, mind blowing. And you know what, flashy films boiling over in color are pretty good, too. Great even.
So there we were, standing at the corner of 10th Avenue, CJ whining that he wanted his sunglasses that were accidently smashed a few blocks back, melting.
Melting into this city.
{This isn't our first time gallery hopping!}
Friday, July 20, 2012 at 9:49AM 
