update: this post has been updated.

My son borrowed my camera the other day.

“What are you documenting?” he asked when he saw the pictures I’d taken.

Good question. I’m not quite sure, except to say that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction—in this case, the bold and fast-paced transformation of a (formerly sleepy seedy, then sleepy) neighborhood via striking (and sometimes strikingly incongruous) architectural statements (some of which are artful and most of which are gut-wrenchingly bad) have propelled me out into the streets of Lower Manhattan with my camera.

When the inevitability of change gets in your face every time you walk out your door, it seems like a natural reaction to want to document those changes freeze the present, at least temporarily. I didn’t set out to hold off the future but rather to preserve my memories of the present (because we always think we will remember how things were, but we never do).

There is nothing conservative about me. I come from a long line of rebels. I am not afraid of change—as long as the rush to change isn’t so great that we are tempted to throw out all of the old to make way for all of the new. The old and the new can not only coexist peacefully; they can live together in harmony.

So: I have taken to documenting the changes in my photographing my backyard. I thought I was documenting the change, but that makes it sound too much like I’m trying to hold off the future. Which I’m not. I have always been intensely curious about the future.

This intermittent photo diary is an accompaniment to the hints of change that I’ve been picking up in the culture but cannot possibly document because of the dizzying pace and odd trajectory of that change. Are we taking two steps backwards at the same time that we claim we’re making progress?

the Gwathmey building at Astor Place, viewed from Cooper Square

NoHo, corner of Bond and Lafayette, looking north

April 2007

I’ve been keeping a brutal pace and I’m beat. Like Roger L. Simon, I’m also feeling that after paying way too much attention to politics (not my natural milieu), I need to take a long, hot shower. And I would be lying by omission if I didn’t also note that the Egyptian Sandmonkey’s announced retirement from the blogosphere has me in a deep funk.

In “Done,” the Sandmonkey explains that he has been too cavalier about his personal safety:

One of the chief reasons is the fact that there has been too treet and asking questions about me since that day. I ignore that, the same way I ignored all the clicking noises that my phones started to exhibit all of a sudden, or the law suit filed by Judge Mourad on my friends, and instead grew bolder and more reckless at a time where everybody else started being more cautious. It took me a while to take note of the fear that has been gripping our little blogsphere and comprehend what it really means. The prospects for improvment, to put it slightly, look pretty grim. I was the model of caution, and believing in my invincipility by managing not to get arrested for the past 2 and a half years, I’ve grown reckless. Stupid Monkey. Stupid!

No—not stupid. He was reckless in his pursuit of liberty. Born freedom fighters are like that sometimes. In the police state of Egypt, where the Sandmonkey lives, that is indeed dangerous. I worry for him.

I hope to come back refreshed after a breather. Meanwhile, I leave you with a message from New York City.

and here it is in context

corner of Thompson and Bleecker, April 2007