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Storm Clouds - Chinatown - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa As storm clouds approach, the sun washes over the city showering its splendor onto the urban landscape like a brilliant star projecting its last bits of light into the vast universe. I love the light on the buildings in this section of Chinatown before a storm. This particular view overlooks the tenements that face the Forsyth Market under the Manhattan Bridge where produce and other food is sold daily in a sprawling open air market. ---
Staple Street - Tribeca - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa There are streets that I return to over and over again. These streets tug at memories I haven’t made yet while yanking memories I treasure from the deep recesses of my mind. They haunt me in all the best ways. They represent the New York City in my mind. Everyone seems to have a different version of New York City in their mind. It's the version that they look for when turning a corner and glancing down a street. My own version of New York City was formed early on. It's a result of falling in love with a combination of streetscapes in classic film noir cinema, futuristic sci-fi city environments in literature and film, and years of traversing New York City on foot. This is one of those streets that I could have only dreamed existed until I turned a corner one day and stopped dead in my tracks as I looked down the street towards the skybridge that crosses between buildings. It’s Staple Street in Tribeca. A tiny alley-like street, it contains one of the most fascinating pedestrian bridges (also known as a skyway, traverse, skywalk and a host of other terms) I have ever seen in New York City. Some history about this street: “In 1894, New York Hospital built the House of Relief, a downtown clinic, on Jay from Hudson to Staple, with an ambulance entrance facing Staple. In that year The New York Herald noted that the hospital was sending its ambulance out as often as seven times a day, sometimes on emergencies involving sunstroke, ”which so often occurs in the lower part of the city,” perhaps because of the large number of men working outdoors on the docks. In 1907 the hospital built an annex across Staple Street (replacing the saloon/row house at Jay and Staple) as a stable and laundry, connecting it at the third-floor level using a pedestrian bridge. Although Staple Street was then just an industrial alley, the hospital had the architects Robertson & Potter design a handsome little building with a terra cotta plaque bearing the ”NYH” monogram on the Staple Street side. The monogram is still there.” - from “Streetscapes: Staple Street in TriBeCa” New York Times By Christopher Gray, February 2001 ---
Streets of Summer Gold - Tribeca - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa The first whispers of summer are carried on warm breezes urged on by the sun stretching itself out from under the faintest cover of clouds. As cobblestone streets soak up each and every last bit of golden summer sunlight the buildings glow like fiery embers in the sun’s wake. ---
Density - Above Chinatown - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa There are streets that, for me, fill in the image of New York City that exists in my mind. I have spoken about this before in older posts. Everyone seems to have their own image of New York City that, for them, represents so much more than just the geographical spot that New York City inhabits on any sort of map. These streets are the embodiment of a core concept that has defined New York City for many decades. The sheer density of people that grace these streets with their presence seem to imbue streets like these with the weight of their aspirations. New York City has always been a destination for those seeking a generalized concept of a better life. As an economic lighthouse and representation of (the steadily crumbling, nearly non-existent concept of) the American Dream, New York City has attracted people from all over the world especially during the last century. I grew up the child of an immigrant to the United States. My mother's family fled Eastern Europe after World War II. They (including her) were victims of the war, concentration camp and labor camp survivors who carried with them mental scars so deep that it took years for them to gain even a small modicum of a foothold here. I have always felt disconnected from her experience though. My mother who wanted her children to blend in rather than stick out as she did when she immigrated here, did her best to give me and my brothers a fairly normal American childhood where we grew up in Queens. It wasn't until a decade ago when I started to ask her about her own immigration story after starting to delve into my own fascination with the history of New York City that I started to understand the gravity of what it means to come to a place like New York City with little more than a massive amount of dreams. And so, shortly after moving to the Lower East Side from elsewhere in Manhattan I came across this street (the one in this photo) since it sits in a neighborhood that borders the Lower East Side and Chinatown and it felt as if I could finally understand what it must have been like for my mother and for all those who came here to America with eyes full of hope. It's not that my mother settled here. But rather that it's as if this street has been steeped in a time when the world and New York City was a different place, one that held out vast amounts of heady fortune in its outstretched hands. The world has changed quite a bit since my mother first set foot here. It's harder (dare I say almost completely difficult) to come here with next to nothing and make a decent life for yourself. The hands are still held out but they are no longer outstretched for everyone. When I look at this street today, I see many of the original tenements that were standing one hundred years ago when waves of immigrants came to New York City following their own hazy image of what New York City embodied in their minds and those who traverse this street today are not so far removed from my mother who traversed the streets of New York City for many decades. It's as if, for the few minutes that I spend gazing at this street below as I often do, I am connected in a deeper way to all the dreamers that called and still call New York City their home. ---
Afternoon Sunlight on a Greenwich Village Street - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa The afternoon yawns with its mouth full of sunlight before it slips into the shadows of evening. Fire escapes catch the sun's gleam: staircases for dreamers propelling dreams skyward. And the trees bow graciously in the lingering glow of sweet sunlight: courteous hosts beckoning wanderers to bask in the shared glow and warmth of the city.
Wealth of Tales - Doyers Street - Chinatown - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa Out of the way streets tell a wealth of tales. The bright afternoon sun beats down on old decaying walls and fire escapes creating elongated shadows that seem to stretch indefinitely. If the well-worn awnings could talk, just think of the secrets they would reveal. This is one of my favorite streets in Lower Manhattan. It’s Doyers Street located in Chinatown. I have always considered it more of an alley. It’s a peculiar street that winds and curves around tucking itself away from the rest of Chinatown. At only around 200 feet long, Doyers Street runs from Pell Street to Chatham Square. It’s home to very old tenements and long-standing businesses like The Nom Wah Tea Parlor which opened in 1927. In the early 20th century the curve in the street was known as “the Bloody Angle” because of a plethora of violent acts carried out by Chinatown gangs. The expression ‘hatchet man’ is said to have come from this era and these violent acts which often included hatchets. While the street is not bloody or violent today, it’s been used in a variety of films and is definitely worth a visit. ---
On Rainy Evenings Like These - Chinatown - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa There is nothing like a rainy evening in New York City. The streets, darkened by the rainfall take on a beautiful sheen while walls and storefronts glisten. Couples huddle under shared umbrellas and inviting scents of dinner fill the streets. ---

Storm Clouds - Chinatown - New York City

- By Vivienne Gucwa

As storm clouds approach, the sun washes over the city showering its splendor onto the urban landscape like a brilliant star projecting its last bits of light into the vast universe.

I love the light on the buildings in this section of Chinatown before a storm. This particular view overlooks the tenements that face the Forsyth Market under the Manhattan Bridge where produce and other food is sold daily in a sprawling open air market.

---
Storm Clouds - Chinatown - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa As storm clouds approach, the sun washes over the city showering its splendor onto the urban landscape like a brilliant star projecting its last bits of light into the vast universe. I love the light on the buildings in this section of Chinatown before a storm. This particular view overlooks the tenements that face the Forsyth Market under the Manhattan Bridge where produce and other food is sold daily in a sprawling open air market. ---

Storm Clouds - Chinatown - New York City

- By Vivienne Gucwa

As storm clouds approach, the sun washes over the city showering its splendor onto the urban landscape like a brilliant star projecting its last bits of light into the vast universe.

I love the light on the buildings in this section of Chinatown before a storm. This particular view overlooks the tenements that face the Forsyth Market under the Manhattan Bridge where produce and other food is sold daily in a sprawling open air market.

---
See photo in original gallery.
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