I'm situated here up in the most densely urban part of the North East. Its a honking horns, strip-mall, asphalt wasteland. The most beautiful things here are the decaying histories. The old factories, the steel, the iron, the massive construction fossils of the post-War boom. They are sprinkled with rust and graffiti. There are pigeons and over grown brush. The decay brings out interesting colors. Splitting paint and oxidation are decorous highlights on the patina. Sea birds and vast waterways that are overgrown, no longer industrialized.
I love how the nature here is always overgrowing the habitation of men. The trees burst the sidewalks, the grass splits through the cracks. The weeds, the fauna: in Washington square park the squirrels are hustlers. There are marks that identify the gangs. They run up hands out, dodging and weaving with the careful balance of a salesman as he caresses his clientele.
This life is what makes he speed and heart beat in this Nation.