Murray Hill, 35th Street Between Park and Madison Avenues

Mary Sargent © 2007 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

Park Avenue South becomes Park Avenue at 32nd Street, thus injecting a bit of unnecessary confusion into mail delivery and address finding. On the downtown side of 32nd Street, the address is 470 Park Avenue South and on the uptown, it's 2 Park Avenue. This upsets my rational, orderly mind. What was the 1959 City Council thinking? I'm thinking of researching those City Council minutes. Just thinking.

See map.

Midtown, 35th Street Between Sixth and Fifth Avenues

Mary Sargent © 2006 ……………………….. click to enlarge

Another lady smoker. I used to smoke and I'm one hundred percent glad I don't anymore, but I do have sympathy for smokers. And a bit of nostalgia.

Midtown, 35th Street Between Sixth and Fifth Avenues

Mary Sargent © 2006 ………..........……….. click to enlarge

So, I needed a little more distance and backed up onto this stairway landing to get a better shot, looked down and, yes, there was a better shot.

Midtown, 35th Street Between Sixth and Fifth Avenues

Mary Sargent © 2006 ……………..........….. click to enlarge

Now I'm walking back east on 35th on the other side of the street. This is a pretty austere shot, but I do love austerity as well as excess, and it illustrates the point I made 2 nights ago, when I said these shots look like they are from different blocks. It is a long block, I admit.

Midtown, 35th Street at Sixth Avenue

Mary Sargent © 2006 ………………………….. click to enlarge

This is the end of 35th Street at Sixth Avenue, where it gets much more crowded.

When I moved to New York in 1982, I was amazed at the use of pay phones here. In Illinois and Michigan, we used pay phones to tell someone something important that had to be said at that moment. I drove the car into a ditch, come get me, is an example. But here, people would get on the phone and say things like, so how's it going? They stood in lines to get the phone. I remember going into the subway and seeing a girl on the phone arguing with her boyfriend, tears streaming down her face. Later, when the price went up to a quarter (this sure sounds quaint), I predicted usage would drop sharply. No way.

But now you may be looking at one of the last documented uses of a black pay phone.

Midtown, 35th Street Between Fifth and Sixth Avenues

Mary Sargent © 2006 ……………........…….. click to enlarge

Well, I lost two beautiful walking days last weekend, due to a miserable cold. I didn't leave my apartment the whole weekend. So yesterday, Monday, I desperately needed to shoot, but on my lunch break, I had to go to Staples on 34th to get printer cartridges, so could only manage ONE block: 35th Street between Fifth and Sixth, walking west and then back east, same block.

If I had time, I'd do every block that way; it's surprising how different things look on the other side of the street, walking in the other direction. I ended up with 11 photographs from that one block that I'd like to show, looking like they could each be from a different block. I'll pare it down of course. But here's a good one to start off.