139-141 Orchard Street. When the steel workers reach their highest point they plant a flag.

The East River Promenade is still closed below Houston Street, though amenities in that closed stretch, such as more park benches, have been added since my last report. If you stay here for any length of time you will see many joggers and bikers disappointingly staring at this fence. There is no exit here, you need to go north four blocks to get out.

The fenced-off area, shot from the Williamsburg Bridge.

St. George’s Church is less obscured than I thought it would be.

Going up.

How many people can downtown Manhattan hold? The sidewalks in my neighborhood are getting that unpleasant moving-herd feeling of midtown, you know, that savory mix of stationary tourists and frantic commerce. The strain on the infrastructure (electricity, gas, water, sewage, transportation etc.) from these giant buildings, populating the spaces of former parking-lots and six-story tenements, must be huge.

And personally, having all these new eyes possibly staring down at my tenement apartment, from vantages only allowed before to birds and helicopters is unpleasant. But it is not all bad. I still have a six-story winter sunset horizon south of these buildings, something to cheer my early Winter evenings. And in the heat of Summer, sunsets are mostly blocked by these buildings, a good thing, considering the easy-bake oven factor of having west facing windows.  Educationally, having these urban monoliths to use as astronomical reference is giving me visceral feel for the seasons. The coated glass and flat sides of The Ludlow (right in the photo) often grant me a rosy reflected dawn.  But I’m not yet astronomer enough to know how often moonset now will be denied me.

Both shots, from my rooftop.