In the Streets
Saturday I made it to the last day of 2013's Summer Streets, and I even got there at 11:10 a.m., 20 minutes before they'd be closing down the Park Avenue Tunnel, walking the tunnel being the whole reason I went to Summer Streets this year. In fact, I waited 20 minutes to get in and heard the volunteers(?) yelling that the tunnel would be closing down just as I got in.
I would've been happier without the "art installation" inside the tunnel. The streaks of light were fun, but the voices used to trigger them came out very shrill through the speakers and there seemed to be some kind of siren sound coming out sometimes. I would've been much happier if they'd just turned the regular lights on and let us through. The photo on the left made me far happier and is from the end section of the tunnel they didn't have any of the Voice Tunnel stuff running through. This is the kind of thing I wanted, and several people nearby apparently had the same feeling.
(I'm kind of thinking I'm in architecture fandom, though the fic would be... weird. Like the Empire State Building figuring he'll top all the time since he's tallest.)
The ceiling ventilation fan also really caught my eye. If my camera could've handled it properly, I wouldn't have gotten good shots of the occasional person standing in the beam of light under the fans in the otherwise dark while the Voice Tunnel lights were off.
I didn't enjoy this Summer Streets anywhere near as much as I did 2011's, mostly from how thickly congested the crowds were. Here's 2011, also the final day of Summer Streets. Here's 2013 at about the same time of day. There were more cyclists too, and they were as entitled as ever, one of them barking at me to get to the right side of the street even though I was all the way on the left against the median and not in her way. (I had just arrived and hadn't seen the signs reminding me to stay on the right so the cyclists wouldn't run me down.) Cyclists: making me hate them even more, one cyclist at a time. They were also riding at such speed that they subtly pushed the crowd along more, cutting down on everyone's ability to amble. I couldn't relax.
I have my Summer Streets photos up at my Flickr account and my deviantArt.
As usual for Queens trains on the weekend, the M line wasn't running while the R line in Queens had no local stops Queensbound, so to get home I had to go four stations further, get off, get on the R train going in the opposite direction, and ride back over those four stops to get to my home station. This kind of thing is why I drive all weekend long, Mayor Bloomburg and MTA.