A Bushnik Goes To Bushwick

I went to the Bushwick neighborhood in Brooklyn to see a show in a gallery of work by the American "outsider" artist Charles Dellschau.   He lived in Texas in the early 1900's, and was obsessed by flying machines.  He created wonderful drawings of his imagined airships, and filled his notebooks with obscure markings.  There was something called "NBGas", which was an anti gravity force.  The show, a small one, had a room full of these amazing images.   This is classic outsider art.

Here are some examples:

I had never been to the newly emerging gallery district in Bushwick before.  When I got out of the L train stop I quickly stopped at a cafe for a coffee.   The cafe was rather odd; it was full with about 10 or 15 people, but completely silent.   I quickly realized that every person in the room was staring in silence at a screen of some kind.

The district itself is fascinating. It's basically a combination of industrial buildings, empty wasteland, and newly repurposed buildings that have galleries and studios.   It's close to Newtown Creek, the legendary polluted creek.   The area is surprisingly colorful in the literal sense; my roving camera eye found lots to see.   I love finding color.

Blizzard!

New York finally got the blizzard that it didn't get last year, when one was expected and didn't show up.  This one did, and with a vengeance; 26.8 inches of snow in Central Park, virtually tied for the greatest snowfall ever in New York.   It was great fun to be inside, looking out the windows as the snow swirled around; with the high winds it was blowing sideways most of the time, funneled between apartment buildings.   I went out once in the daytime at the height of the storm; everything was shut down, cars banned from the roads.  It was quiet except for the sound of snowplows.  I stood in the middle of Broadway.   I went out again late at night when it was mostly over.    The snow and wind had buried cars and created car snow sculptures, and some of the streets were virtually unplowed.
Naturally, I took pictures.

Daytime:

From our window:

On the street:

Later, at night.   The sodium lamps make everything quite orange.   There was also an ambulance with flashing different colored lights which had a beautiful effect on the snow.

There is a car under there.

Riverside Drive.

Yosemite Half Dome?

Ice on the windows, ambulance lights.

Bus shelter.

No plows yet.

Happy that I don't have a car!

White light coming through a gate on to an orange lit snow pile.