Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - Ninth Avenue at dusk: Between West 57th and West 50th.

Walking down Ninth Avenue at dusk it’s possible to see something new every day. By something new I do not mean different people, or different objects, or different cars, or anything else that’s always changing along the avenue.

In particular, I’m referring to the portion of Ninth Avenue that’s a downslope, which descends from West 57th Street on a slight angle and does not level-off again until one reaches West 50th Street. The descent, oddly, is less noticeable while walking north, and on an incline, than it is while walking south.

This is most true at dusk. At dusk, if you time it just right, and if you pace your steps at a rate that’s just slow enough to be gradual, yet not so slow that they’re belabored, then you’ll notice the way the sun sets against the fire escapes that stand upon the facades of the brownstones, mixed-used buildings, and multi-family walk-ups that line the avenue.

If Ninth Avenue were a forest, then the buildings’ facades would be the branches of its trees, and the fires escapes would be the birds perched, almost without moving, upon these branches.

I’ve walked this stretch of Ninth Avenue maybe one hundred times, yet for the first time this evening, at dusk, I saw the way the sun, row-by-row, casts its light across the side of each building in the distance, all the way down the hill. I don’t know how I missed this -––– it felt like living inside of a painting -––––– but I just never saw it before.