After posting this week's patriotic photo Friday theme, I quickly regretted it. It brought me no inspiration whatsoever. And since most of our friends left the city for the holiday, we had no plans for the Fourth to provide photographic fodder. However the day itself provided plenty of opportunities.
Charles and I had breakfast at the Greek diner in our neighborhood and the window display was, well, American, especially when paired with the discarded watermelon left by the path in the park. Later that day Charles caught Ike his first lightening bug using Genevieve's empty sippy cup, and we admired the newly opened Bennet Park, the highest point in Manhattan. It is built on the site of Fort Washington, from which the Continental Army delayed the advance of British troops in 1776—the second picture is a mosaic of images I took from the spot in the park commemorating this.
Finally, to see the fireworks, we headed up onto the George Washington Bridge. The bridge is within relatively short walking distance of us, and we got up there before sunset and watched the boats head downriver to see the Macy's fireworks. Ike was also very excited that we got to watch the trains running along the river, not to mention a number of semi-trucks loaded up with new cars cross the bridge. We also watched a lightening storm just north of us and a huge red moon rise over Manhattan. While we were not close to any one fireworks display, we could see seven or eight different ones, including those in Brooklyn, New Jersey, and up north along the Hudson. The last photo was taken of fellow Americans watching the display from the bridge: the top couple struck me as particularly "American" in that normal and nice sort of way one expects of Americans (they were also among the only people with the foresight, or perhaps just the extra storage space, to bring folding chairs); the bottom image was taken of some young men watching the fireworks. The three on the right are Orthodox Jews, probably students at Yeshiva University.
Next week's photo Friday theme: purple.
