Autumn, in the Air

“A sky as pure as water bathed the stars and brought them out.”
 ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

A little confession: I am obsessed with the sky. This is nothing new; thirty years ago, when I was thinking about moving to my then-dodgy neighborhood, I turned a corner, looked up and saw this. I was sold.

No matter how many times I see it, the way the sky opens up above New York City thrills me. I can't stop taking pictures of it. It elevates even the roughest architecture to something approaching elegance. Look at this jumbled scene — a squat commercial building and part of the Queensboro Bridge are in the foreground, with two of Manhattan's less distinguished towers beyond. Somehow, the sky pulls it together the way some people can pull an outfit together with the perfect accessory.

Below are some photos I took today — the sky as seen from the walkway of the Pulaski Bridge, which connects Queens to Brooklyn.

This is the view to the south, toward Brooklyn. The huge sky helps me remember that out there beyond the far side of Brooklyn is the continental United States.

 

The wind was making it hard for me to hold my camera still. You can almost feel it when you look at the clouds' sharply defined strata.

The Empire State Building dominates the view to the west, where the clouds were gray and heavy today.

Do you see the tiny plane? I didn't until I looked at this on my computer.

who knows if the moon's 
a balloon, coming out of a keen city
in the sky — filled with pretty people?
~  e. e. cummings