Seven feet off the ground, and Darth Vader

One of these days I will figure out how to take better pictures of running whippets. Watching the pair of them in a good chase is a fine way to start the day. They really do fly, and my ambition is to take a clear picture of them with not a single one of their eight feet on the ground. This one is seven out of eight. Next time.

Unlike those many residents of the outer boroughs who commute to the City every day, I manage to spend most of my life in Brooklyn, and I like it that way. My travel time to work is around 15 minutes, and in spite of too much high rise development along Fourth Avenue, you can still see big swaths of sky out here. In fact, I spend most of my life in the stretch between Green-wood Cemetery and Grand Army Plaza, and it's rare for me to get on the subway, which I dislike, to go to Manhattan. Yesterday I had to do it though, and as I approached the bridge over Fourth Avenue at Ninth Street I noticed some sad art deco details, grimed over and disintegrating. Aside from the Central Library building, one doesn't see much deco in this neighborhood, which is better known for its nineteenth century brownstones. A cursory glance at online sources proves that I am far from the first to see this. Of course Francis Morrone has checked it out: in an article in the NY Sun he writes, "The Art Deco station is handsome, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but is desperately ill-maintained, and given the transit authority's budgetary woes, the station will get even worse before it gets better." Right. There were rumors of a coming facelift, but nothing seems to have happened yet. That Darth Vader lamp would look scary if it actually worked.