More Garment District windows

Garment District has so many windows full of all kinds of decorative items...whole fairly large size shops full of beads of every kind and description, for instance.
These are just a few of the ones I passed by today....as for the beaded torso outfits, I just wonder who ends up buying them....be interesting to know ...

Tacky Medical Advertising

I AM NOT THE JUDGE of the services this place provides, but this seems to me like some of the tackiest advertising I have ever seen...

Fourth of July

Fourth of July in Midtown was hot and very quiet. Only flags I saw were around a bush. People hung out in front of Kips Bay Plaza shopping area as usual...and new kinds of flowers were in bloom ( I like flowers, but know so little about them really...I wonder what all these are).

Courtly entrance

Gramercy Square area has some really neat buildings...

Have always loved this fantasy world entrance to what is now a very expensive condo off the Park.
Years ago, it was rent controlled and their were battles between the tenants and the landlord all the time...

But that was a different era,--now Manhattan is becoming, alas, just a place for the rich and for those (usually older) people who have rent stabilized apartments, or some other kind of affordable housing which is specially subsidized..

One reason Manhattan has become so inflated in terms of real estate values is that it is seen as a safe investment by rich people from all over the world. This has always been true to some extent, and waves of people from different places have "bought into" Manhattan over many years ( after a low point in the late 1970's, when so many people left the City for the suburbs-- crime was soaring ( especially muggings), the subway had become a place of dread and horrific graffiti, and the Bronx was burning down ( mismanaged ridiculously by experts brought in from the Rand corporation.
The Rand approach was based on all sorts of assumptions that just did not fit well to the Bronx nor take into account enough of its variables).

Meanwhile, at Astro...

One of my favorite places for just looking at window displays is Astro Gems and Minerals, on 34th Street at Park Avenue.

Besides all kinds of fascinating mineral, coral and gem displays, they always have artistic objects made from gems and minerals...like the delightful bird shown here.

I do not collect items like this, this is sheerly window shopping...that's one of the great things about Midtown Manhattan, there are hundreds of fascinating store windows to look at, many of which update their displays fairly regularly...and even the mundane storefronts often have something to recommend them visually, sometimes because they are survivors of a bygone age, others for little touches in the displays ( store window designers in Midtown are great for that).

Nutty Amstel Light Ad

Copy of this Amstel Light ad pretends to be about making a good hamburger or something but adds up to being mostly complex gibberish...way to get attention.

When I used to drink, I thought Amstel Light was pretty good beer. I would not like it now...I have reverted back to way things tasted before I started drinking and the smell of alcoholic beverages in a glass turns me off.

Apartment Building Top-- Park Ave. & 34th Street

Lower 30 floors or so of this building are more or less regular, then setbacks and different floor plans appear up at top....

Almost always very interesting to take a good look at tops of buildings in Midtown.

Dzogchen Meditation

Meeting room downstairs at Armenian Cathedral is venue for this session on advanced Buddhist meditation... ( all sorts of groups meet in Cathedral's downstairs facilities).

You can read more about Dzogchen Meditation at their website

http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/x/nav/n.html_1870389411.html

It is funny, I have just completed a workshop in self hypnosis and meditation...nothing like the one shown here, though, I am sure. I have a CD of our last session, the "Group Trance," which was sort of a guided meditation by our hypnotherapist...

Man alone in wheelchair...what next? Big City Story.

Man appears to have fallen asleep in wheelchair...is he OK? Is he homeless? Unwritten code of the City is that everyone will just walk around him under maybe someone decides to call in to report him...he could be dead, who knows.