I’m not sure when, exactly, I began to check the weather where my children live. When they were in college I would read their school paper online. Who among us does not? And for a while after graduation my daughter lived in New Jersey, so the Daily Princetonian still covered them both.
I guess it happened when my son moved to Brooklyn? I became a fan of the Wunderground webcams. In the process, I discovered a gallery found art. I remember my father showing me found poems, when I was little. These may be the image-intensive 2014 equivalent
Here are photos from January and February of this year. The lights at Adams Street first caught my eye. A sort of Christmas tree.
This webcam’s called Murray Hill. Ahem, that’s the Empire State Building. So Manhattan to be all, enh, world famous landmark, big deal.
More lights, here on the Williamsburg Bridge.
Eventually, I got a little obsessed by street corners. Some empty, some bustling.
These black and white images remind me of imaginary 1930’s Manhattan. What, you don’t have an entire madeup world shadowing the real?
I can tell that the weather started to feel pretty bleak in February. Even the streetlight looks cold.
Icicles on the camera.
Then it rained. And blurred.
Shine on the city streets. Jellied asphalt.
More rain, more blur.
Even on Adams.
And the cameras.
Then it snowed. Again. Yikes.
Meanwhile, my daughter has been in Southern California. Where most of the webcams focus on enormous freeways, and traffic, but one or two give us a glimpse of the sky.
All that coastal sun. Good thing New York looks like this today or I’d start to feel bad for my son. All is beautiful, even on Adams at Tillary.
Spring will wash the lens clean soon enough. Have a wonderful weekend everybody, where ever you are.
31 Responses
Loved this!
It’s all very Garry Winogrand. Lovely. XO
Bunny
@Bunny Williams, High compliment indeed.
Spectacular! I love “found” art!
Great – some real beauties there!
I went to the Saturday fleamarket today and found a medallion made of a piece of old white, grey and blue bone china and silver. When I asked the seller he explained that in earlier times big enough shards of precious china shattered during shipping were set in silver and made into jewellery. Mine is probably from a vase. Never heard of it and love the idea.
Found myself musing on objets trouves – and now you come with these galeries trouvees. (Sorry, no accents possible …) Must be some pre-spring poetry in the air!
@mademarian, Lovely story.
These webcams are such fun, my old chum used to go to the one in Venice, LA and I would watch her wave to me – what joy!
One of my Weather Channel bookmarks is in NY where my son lives. I’ll have to add this in, it’s more interesting than the Weather Channel’s endless drama.
That would make a lovely gallery exhibit!
@Kerry Steele, Maybe someone will do it…
Thanks for sharing, as my son is graduating this year and going off to college, I will definetly be doing this :) Have a wonderul weekend.
Lovely!
This is really beautiful and it’s sort of alternate-universe somehow. Have a great weekend Lisa.
I sometimes view the images of the webcam at Nepenthe in Big Sur. Thank you for these.
Living the reality of the New York ones, I much prefer California’s.
I wonder if they have webcams in Baltimore where the youngest resides?
We stalk the Cape Cod webcams.
coincidentally, the drag king host of the burlesque show i attended with girlfriends a few weeks ago was named murray hill.
@lauren, Unsurprisingly. Probably he didn’t want to call himself Empire State Building either.
Lately, I’ve been stalking webcams in the sierras. Alas, depressingly brown. Dodge Ridge is open, but it’s awfully grassy at the bottom of the hill.
How fascinating. I different side of you. Just not something I expected. I do keep track of the weather where ever my children live. I also have relatives in Brussels so I keep track of the weather there. I thought I was the only one. But you out did me with the web cams. I guess we’re just very caring mothers. By the way, that webcam in Southern California. It rarely changes.
Better than Instagram!
I check the webcam in my favorite northern Michigan town where we have a summer cottage. It shows the main street and I can see the bakery and hardware store entrances and be mentally transported back. It makes me feel that I’m still there in some small way.
@Plainjane, I would do the same.
People who can see art in the ordinary are twice blessed, at least that much, maybe even thrice. And oh, I’d love to hear more about your Dad’s “found poems” – might they be a thing available to lay persons such as I? Very cool thinking of introducing something like this to our 7 grandchildren.
I’m watching too many Law & Order reruns [3 in a row last night], these cams remind me of evidence-seeking perpetrator search and scan!
Hmm… a leeetle bit stalky (in a caring way, I guess).
I only check the weather in other places when I’m going to visit there so I know what to wear (and I just use an app that shows me cartoon pictures of clouds etc. not actually web cams).
I’m trying to understand what to pack for 22 – 26 degrees C before my trip next week. It’s been sooooo long since it was that warm here, I just can’t remember what to wear!
@Eleanorjane, I own my stalkerhood wrt my children:).
This is hilarious! And lovely. x
What a fun post! Loved it!
Once upon a time…there was a moveable webcam atop the Planetarium on the Chicago lakefront museum complex. Each morning I ‘walked’ the beach, watched the birds, and observed the staff bus stop. Once I even spotted a body on the beach — fortunately only dead drunk. The cops that collected him waved to me at the webcam.
Every night I promenaded up and down the museum drive, peeking into the Aquarium and gliding by streetlight beneath the trees, admiring the flowers.
Then one night I was astonished to see bulldozers destroying little Meigs Field! There were planes trapped! ?! Emails flooded the site from around the world.
And then the webcam became disabled. I still miss it.
@Beth Waltz, So lovely. Thank you.
Oh what fun! I, too, add my children’s locations–currently Manhattan, Boston & Stuttgart–as well as my mother’s in Idaho to the weather app on my phone. This winter the little snowflake icons are a constant everywhere but here. Shouldn’t really make a difference, I suppose, but its nice to picture them all bundled up in those snowy places even as we pray for rain.
Similar to Kathryn, I have the weather pages on my phone of my parents’ location and my daughter’s likely future college location. I will have to check out web cams when my daughter does move. I enjoyed the photos.
Comments are closed.