Apple Store 5th Ave
North Conservatory Garden @ Central Park
The crisp, inchoate autumn draft rustles the leaf. It wavers on its perch on the old oak tree that has been rooted to the same spot for too long. The leaf yearns to see the world, to go beyond the branch it has learned to call home during the warm summer days. As if on cue, a sudden powerful gust of wind tugs on the leaf so it dangles haphazardly from the bough. “Please, please, please,” whispers the leaf to the breeze. Another tug, and it severs the splinter that fastens the oak to the ginger foliage! The leaf soars and wheels in the wind, ascending higher into the air! It spots its reflection in the ripples of the water, and dips low enough to skim the surface. The breeze picks up and it nearly cries with jubilation as it floats across the diagonal alternating pattern: light, dark, light, and dark…The leaf neatly skirts above the head of a tourist drinking in the scene with his camera almost as greedily as the leaf! He crosses the black iron gates that shield his home from everything else like those tall marble and iron giants that reflect the sunshine. The draft is dying down, but the leaf doesn’t mind because he’s now seen so much more to the city, his city.
I really like your second photo of the North Conservatory Garden. It creates a great juxtaposition and shows the inner beauty of the city that surrounds it. The lighting is what makes the photo as it glorifies the garden itself.
I agree with Chris.The North Conservatory Garden shows an entirely different and not normally expected aspect of NYC.
In context of Steve Job’s death, the statement “Still open 24 hours” is really interesting. It shows that NYC always moves on. (I know the statement refers to the recent renovations of the building, but I’m just saying that it could be taken from a different perspective).
It would be an untruth to say I know what or where this leaf is and why it matters so much. I’m not sure whether to take it as an animated real thing (I would be more likely too if I could find it in the pictures) or as a metaphor. If a real thing, I think the story around it is quite charming and light and almost cartoonish. I would just have a better idea if I could see it because it seems so specific. If it is purely hypothetical and imaginary, I think a clue is needed to let the reader know this is a kind of daydream.