New York City Street Scenes: The Final Quarter of 2010 in Photos

From a earlier post at another blog. The year has already ended, hail and farewells have been said and the top ten in every category imaginable have been posted. For myself I looked back in pictures. I had already posted the first half and third quarter. Now the autumn and beginning of winter are all I have left.

This diary is fourth and long but let me see if I can paint a picture of Autumn in New York for you.

It's just a few months in Central Park.

October 1st was a Rainbow day in the Bronx. Something to celebrate since rainbows are so seldom seen here in New York City.

Autumn has always been my time of year and with the humidity of New York City summers it cannot come soon enough. Even though it once meant going back to school, I loved the earth tones of autumn even more as a child. Still all these years later I have the early reds and golds mapped out in my favorite parks. Long before the warm colors sets in I go looking and continue from start to finish.

To add to my repertoire each year when the Jewelweed begins to dominate the forest I search the deepest ends of the parks. This is a wetlands with no name in the northwest section of Van Cortlandt Park, not even a trail to it, bushwhacking in New York City.

That same swamp in late October.

Autumn flowers in the forest also seem so much warmer. The goldenrod above and the amazing aster below. Both bide their time and wait until the competition dies down. Does anyone have any idea what the name of the autumn flower in the middle photo is?

Here is a fun sighting on a late September day. While I know that air flowers are almost always tropical these flowers almost fooled me. These are not really bromeliads.

Some people just picked flowers and decided to decorate a tree.

Who knew?

Did you know that roses make an autumn comeback in New York City? I know just where to go. The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden that was designed in 1916 by the most fashionable landscape designer of her era, Beatrix Jones Farrand.

They didn't get around to building the garden until 1988 but since then it has become a favorite Bronx destination each year around the time of the summer solstice. Very few are aware that the roses then take a break for the hot summer and come back for an encore performance around the time of the autumn equinox.

Of course the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden is in the New York Botanical Garden but the lesser known botanical garden in the Bronx offered just as much color and and an interesting preview of autumn this year. An art project in the sun room of Glyndor House at Wave Hill this autumn.

Speaking of art, sometimes the light falls just right.

I’ll wait in this place where the sun never shines;
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves.

The photos below have been removed from The Third Quarter of 2010 in Pictures after learning that this was actually an October event. I posted a recap of the lion cubs in The First Half of 2010 in Pictures but this was the year of the Tiger in the Bronx. Six Tiger cubs were born in the Bronx Zoo this year.

This was also a photo that was actually from the last quarter of 2010.

Every now and then there is a moment to capture from a Manhattan street. I caught this one from my car while hunting for a parking spot.

Strawberry Fields was too crowded on John Lennon's birthday this year so I took a walk in the park.

It was a good day to frame Central Park.

Tricky, tricky.

October in Central Park.

Driving a little north to Harriman State Park where autumn comes a bit early.

This was a very good year for capturing a Central Park autumn and I was there more often that any autumn before.

A lone runner on the Park Drive just before the New York City Marathon.

That photo is from the roof of the Metropolitan Museum where I was making a final visit to "Big Bambú: You Can't, You Don't and You Won't Stop." It was sad to see it go but I loved the fact that the wisteria got into the five month long project.