NEW YORK, NEW YORK – It’s possible to walk most of the way around Manhattan on the water. This is a relatively recent development = there are gaps (for example on the East side in the 50s) but construction continues. To an important extent this relieves the sense the Manhattan is cut off from the water by major highways (the Westside Highway and the FDR Drive). Anyway, here we are on the East River in the 60s.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A truly beastly day. We’re suffering under a record heat wave in the Northeast. I sought refuge in the shade of the plaza of Lever House and shot passers by against the backdrop of Hello Kitty. Not a good day to be outdoors.
NEW MILFORD, CONNECTICUT – I decided to drive back to New York early. The light in New Milford was interesting so I stopped to photograph. One of the grandest buildings on the green of this slightly troubled town is the Lillis Funeral Home. Here’s a link to the iMortuary entry for Lillis: Lillis Funeral Home.
The Lillis’s are evidently a prominent New Milford family. A Google search identifies a Deputy Chief of Police named Lillis; the town has a Lillis Road; the school board was housed in the Lillis Building which is now apparently abandoned.
I’m going to go out of my way to collect mortuaries over the next few months.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Well here I am in Warren for the Fourth of July. A quick personal inventory: Maria, my wife, is in Capri at a literary festival (no kidding); our son, Alexander is in Puerto Rico on vacation proposing to his girlfriend (she said “yes” so she’s now his fiance); our daughter is in Southampton with an old friend of hers. So I’m here by myself doing the lonely guy thing. After the excitement of Ecuador this seems dull. I picked up a different camera hoping for inspiration – not much came of it.
Sunset Warren
NEW MILFORD CONNECTICUT – I went to Clamps, a roadside burger stand on route 202, for a burger for lunch, arriving just before the 2:00 PM closing, in time to place an order. By the time that I got my wits together to reach for camera the closed sign had gone up.
Clamps is a dying breed: a roadside hamburger stand that’s seasonal, has limited hours and isn’t part of a chain. The following is from Roadfood: “The business card of Clamp’s Hamburger stand says, NO SIGN, NO ADDRESS, NO PHONE, JUST GOOD FOOD. In fact, there is a sign about the size of a license plate on the side of the wood-frame hut: “Clamp’s Est. 1939.” Despite the lack of a billboard and a street address, you will have no trouble finding this place because there are cars and people crowded around any time it’s open … which is late April to early September every day from 11am to 2pm and from 5pm to 8pm.
“Edwin and Sylvia Clamp started the business sixty-six years ago, and now their great-nephew, Tom Mendell, is the boss. Tom told us that since 1939 Clamp’s has never advertised and never had a phone (and therefore was never in the phone book), and while it did have a prominent sign, when the sign blew down in a windstorm back in the 1960s, it was not replaced.”
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Our travel from Quito finally ended this morning after an all night flight with a layover in Miami. I managed to keep a lunch date with my son, and I managed to stay awake during the drive to Warren to arrive in time for dinner with some old friends.
Here is the sign for our house that we put out on Rabbit Hill Road after a number of guests were unable to find us. We used the wild turkey theme because . . . well we have a lot of wild turkeys.
QUITO ECUADOR – We’re not supposed to be in Quito – we had a 8:30 AM flight to Miami. It was unfortunately delayed for 13 hours so we found ourselves back in Quito for the day. We explored on foot and stumbled onto the National Assembly building. I say stumbled on it because it doesn’t show on printed maps or Google maps. Odd. Perhaps this is a residue of the long-running (60 years) border dispute with Peru in which Peru’s president, Alberto Fujimori, threatened to bomb Quito – a dispute that was finally settled in 1999.
This is Harvey Stein photographing a police show of force in front of the National Assembly building. They were there in response to a demonstration by teachers seeking more funding for education (as far as I could tell with my pidgin Spanish). This is the front gate of the National Assembly. At the rear gate there was a group of film makers and students seeking federal funding for the Ecuadorian film industry. Demonstration - Ecuador National Assembly
