View of Manhattan from the riverwalk

Spotted: Photo shoot on the steps leading up to the Roosevelt Memorial

Hospital skeleton

N and A heading toward FDR Four Freedoms Park

If you’ve never taken the tram over to Roosevelt Island, it’s a fun way to spend a morning or afternoon in NYC. These photos are from a recent quick trip back to New York, my first time there since last August (and almost exactly a year after we moved away).

I’ve always loved flying into New York and picking out familiar sights from above, the Statue of Liberty, the shapes of lower Manhattan, the Empire State Building, the dark rectangle of Central Park – all the obvious things that anyone familiar with the city would spot, but in my head is the soundtrack of Inner Julia oversharing memories as they occur to her:  “That’s where the Postcard Club got caught in the downpour that one Pride weekend!” “That skyscraper’s casting a shadow over my old office building. Hi, eleventh floor!” “Oh, Times Square. Remember that random night when Hannah and I had that heart-to-heart in the lobby of a big hotel? Why did we end up there, of all places?”

I love the view partly because I can remember the first time I independently recognized the boroughs from above. It was during a nighttime flight from Boston to DC in 2006 or 2007. I was staring out the window, deep in thought about my friends and how we live so spread out and our career paths and all of the things I get pensive about when I’m up disconnected up in the air, and then we flew over the city. I was disoriented at first; I had spent a little time there off-and-on but not enough to feel confident navigating more than a couple of subway lines or identifying bridges or even feel 100% sure that this was New York below me. But I started to make sense of the shapes. I started trying to understand which of my small pile of NYC memories fit where. I remember feeling humbled by how little I knew about this place but also suddenly sure I would live there someday. True story.

It’s fun to have added Roosevelt Island to the list of sights seen. And it was reassuring to take a trip that included both new and old patterns, commutes, people, foods, sights.

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Photos: 35mm, NYC, June 2013