The Promenade and Pier 1

An afternoon walk below the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. The next couple of evenings will bring a beautiful moon. The locusts up there have barely begun to turn. It's hard getting used to calling tree a 'locust'. Grasshopper, cricket. Locust sounds like a plague...

Below, what remains of the old warehouses before they are turned into more of Brooklyn Bridge Park. Pier 1 and Pier 6 exist, at opposite ends, with these undeveloped piers inbetween. Pier 6 is just a five minute walk from us, if that. Home to pretty wonderful playgrounds, interesting plantings and sandy volleyball courts. Also the free ferry to Governor's Island, in summer. 

Phragmites opposite the Financial District, where Vince works, now.

And Pier 1 in its autumn colours.  I love this part of the park. The plants, the hills, the views, the stone steps opposite Manhattan. Everything except the damned light poles. I loathe them. It is impossible to take a picture without a light pole insinuating itself into the frame. I used to think - and hope - that they were temporary, but then read that they were the special brainchild of the lighting designer for the park. I couldn't believe it. They are hideous.

I counted nine bridal or quinceañera parties walking about in the cold late afternoon in the park, young girls in vivid turquoise (look on the steps in the photo below), pink or flesh-coloured, frilly dresses, their retinues trailing behind them in bare shoulders and high heels or in tuxedos (with matching turquoise, pink or flesh-coloured waist coats), and at least two photographers plus a videographer each. Posing smiling, not being cold, capturing this forever, with great big New York in the background.

Bloody light poles.