In Between Holidays, Nothing Happens But Magic

The title of this post is taken from the title of a piece by Manny Fernandez that appeared in the New York Times on 30 December of last year, the same day that my wife Kay and I left New York after an all too brief visit. As Fernandez says, the period between Christmas and New Years "is a week of suspended animation in the city, in between holidays, when the great systems of New York — the schools, the courts, the communications media, Wall Street, City Hall, the bodegas in Queens — slow to an administrative crawl or shut down altogether, when New York City belongs not to New Yorkers, but to Spaniards, Italians, Canadians, Germans, Californians. Tens of thousands of people have left town to go back home, while tens of thousands of others have left home to come to town."


For three days we heard languages from all over the world as we wandered around Manhattan, plus of course the local accents of "New Yawkahs". I thought some of the best voices were those of signs. Here are some signs worth repeating.



Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin off Times Square - Anglo-Catholic liturgy done with great devotion and skill.





Clash of cultures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:



Wall art at the Borders store beneath the Times Warner Building.



Banner in Central Park:



As a man in the Hernandez article says, "I don't think there's any city in the entire world like this." Ditto, buddy.