Zoë Sharp
For most of October I was in New York City, via Toronto and Chicago for Bouchercon and for a bookstore event at Centuries & Sleuths. It’s been a year or so since I was last in Manhattan, and this is just a collection of snapshot memories of my visit this time, in no particular order.
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| A memorial to 9/11 in downtown Manhattan - part of the structure of the twin towers turned into modern art |
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| A pocketful of loose change. I found a bag of quarters I started collecting some years ago, when they were bringing out different ones for each state. Never did collect them all, so brought it with me this time and gave them all away, a couple at a time, to every homeless person I saw on the street. |
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| Why is it that nobody on the New York subway can resist a smiling picture on a poster when they have a black marker pen to hand ...? |
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| Central Park as the leaves start to turn. Autumn (sorry, Fall) is a beautiful time of year to be in New York, especially as the temperatures were more like a UK summer. |
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| The iconic Flatiron building in Central Manhattan. No longer the home of my publisher (they're still there, I'm simply now published by someone else) but still a fabulous piece of architecture. |
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| Everybody reading on the subway, mostly on their phones but the occasional 'real' book too! They have free wi-fi, and even a free library available. |
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| I'm sure this area looks familiar - isn't it where the French Connection was filmed? |
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| Why not just 'restroom'? Political correctness strikes again ... |
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| Giant black cat loose on the streets of New York! Oh, maybe not ... |
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| Piles of books waiting to be signed by me and John Lawton at The Mysterious Bookshop on Warren Street. |
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| Never annoy anyone who works at The Mysterious Bookshop, for 3214 very good reasons ... |
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| Old as well as New York, with cobbled streets and beautiful old low-rise buildings, south of the financial district. A lovely place to wander. |
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| A quiet day on the Hudson River. Lovely to see such a pretty yacht making the most of the sunshine. |
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| 'Manspreading' is alive and well on the New York subway, more's the pity! |
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| Spot the rat - one of many seen on the subway. |
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| Amazing what you find abandoned on the streets of New York. I wonder what the story is behind this? |
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| The Washington Bridge at sunset. |
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| View of south Manhattan island from the Staten Island ferry - one of my favourite views. |
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| Caught snapping. |
This week’s Word of the Week is Zugswang, meaning a position in which one player can move only with loss or severe disadvantage, usually associated with a chess game, from the German, from Zug a pull or tug and Zwang force or compulsion.
Upcoming events
On November 23rd, 6:30pm, I'll be appearing as part of DarkFest Portsmouth at the Femmes Fatales 2 panel - Diana Bretherick, Alis Hawkins, Liz Mistry and Zoë Sharp.
Thank you for these lovely pictures of my hometown, Zoe. I only wish I had been able to see some of them with you. :((
ReplyDeleteRegarding those signs for the loo, they may have been part of the NYC protest against a political hooha here in the States several months back. To make things hard for transgender youth, some schools in the more conservative places in the country were forcing transgender students to use the bathroom for their sex-identity at birth. President Obama weighed in on the side of youth. Those states started passing laws against transgender bathrooms. Public places in NYC put up signs showing their solidarity with the trans young people. We New Yorkers are always showing our political stripes, even on our way to the loo.
Ah, that makes sense, Annamaria. I just thought it was over-complicating things when it would have been easier just to say 'restroom' and let everybody use it!
DeleteAnd it would have been lovely to see you in NYC as well as Toronto, but I got to see your big brother, Jeff while I was there -- and the lovely Barbara, of course!