Four Buildings

1. The peak of the roof, a false fourth floor on an otherwise unremarkable red brick building, festooned with what looks like flowered terracotta tiles, reads "1886", which I can only assume is the year of construction, but the the thing looks so humble, ordinary, nondescript, that I can't believe it dates from before Brooklyn was even a part of New York City.

2. Yellow breeze block, industrial squat and businesslike, but framed above in blue sky and scudding clouds, with a sluggish green river below, all viewed through a lattice of scaffold.

3. Swimming with hard-hatted workers, swathed in funereal gray netting, like mirrors shrouded for a shiva house mourning the death of the old West Side.

4. There's a crack that runs from the street, through the sidewalk, and up the front of my building, and at least once a year I think about what it will be like when the earth opens up and swallows my home.

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One year ago: The Question

Two years ago: Our New Friend

Three years ago: The Evening Commute - 2 (Disappearer)

Four years ago: True Story