Civic Center, Pearl Street from Centre Street

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I just finished my second week of Grand Jury service. Two more to go.

This is generally the way it goes: you get summoned, you go down to 100 Centre Street along with many, many other people, you choose morning or afternoon and they pick jurors by lot. Both times I've been summoned, I've been picked. But here's the thing: I like jury service. I wanted to be picked.

I like being downtown; it has a quieter feeling than other business districts in New York. I like big old temple-like government buildings placed at odd angles on oddly shaped blocks. I like being close by Chinatown. I like doing something different and meeting new people. And I pretty much like jury work. It can be boring at times, but much of the time, it's interesting.

You might think I feel this way only because I'm unemployed, but I also felt this way when I had a job. Of course I understand that many people are in difficult situations and it can be a real burden. But I'm not! So I'm having a good time. Plus you get $40/day. That will more than pay for lunches in Chinatown.

Morning sessions are 10:00-1:00. I'm still adjusting to early morning hours. It'll be good for me. It only takes an hour door to door from Inwood to Civic Center on the A. Not bad at all.

I want to get in lots of photowalks while I'm down here, but that means I'll get more photos than I can handle. I'm just gonna do it. We'll see what happens.

Last Friday I went on my first walk. Last Friday was a truly glorious day, even better than today. Crisp, sunny fall day, warm and cool. I shot the buildings around Foley Square and then walked Chambers Street straight across to Battery Park City, stopping for a wonderful lunch at Acappella. Since my new camera uses more pixels, I needed a bigger card, so I had a new 4 gig card which held 239 photos and I filled it up. Something about that card . . . I can't access the photos on my computer.

This goes a way toward explaining why I was grumpy on Tuesday, when I started this walk. You can see it was a gray day. I was basically doing a reshoot under worse conditions. So after I shot (reshot) Foley Square in a gloomy mood, I decided to forget about Chambers for the time being and go somewhere new. I'll show you Foley Square another night because that will take more writing and we've all had enough for one night.

So one photo: Pearl Street





Mary Sargent © 2009 …………………….. click to enlarge



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