It took us only about 45 minues to get to Paterson by train from Manhattan on Saturday afternoon (it can take longer for us to get to some parts of Brooklyn). At the end of our pleasant urban walk from the station at the New Jersey end we were rewarded at the entrance to "Escape from New York" by the sight of this pair of shapes kissing the surface of one of those familiar steel plates we see all over Manhattan covering temporary holes dug by utility construction workers.
The odd, shiny silvery glow and doubled light image attached to each shape, visible in full daylight, was so remarkable that I immediately assumed it was one of the pieces curator/impresario straordinario Olympia Lambert had attracted to her show, but I was soon disabused of the notion when I looked behind me at another old industrial structure towering above us next door. Like so many other handsome 19th-century mill buildings in this historic city, this one was being reinvented for tomorrow: The two shapes were actually reflections cast by the slightly-bowed surfaces of plexiglass panels used to secure window openings in the ancient brick wall.
Nature was cooperating with man's built history to shape the present.
So it goes.
My images from the Paterson show itself will follow in another post.