Even at the grossest dingiest most bustling jackhammery intersection … look up.
You never know what you will find up there, but sometimes you see something that makes you go all quiet and still inside, peaceful, like all the sound dissolves away. Sometimes, walking in the city, it’s like the noise and the grime are actually coming from inside of you, so omnipresent is it. But then …
a glimpse, proving otherwise.
This ballet studio is on the second floor of a grimy building on grimy 40th and 8th Avenue, one of the grossest corners in the city. It’s just relentless, that corner. Once I discovered the studio though, I ALWAYS look up when I walk by there, to see the pretty and calm ballerinas at the barre.
Great photo, Sheila. I love the angle of the arm of the first ballerina. You just know she’s doing something elegant with the other.
Now you just have to capture the time the lead rides his motorbike into class.
Ha!!!!! Love the reference!
That’s why I want to live in a big city, the angel in the wreckage. Beauty existing and hightened by the grime and concrete framing it.
Hats off to you for your use of the word “jackhammery”. LOVE it!
I went to NYC last month for the first time in ages to visit a good friend. As I was waiting for a show to start, I looked up as dusk was settling in and got to watch rehearsals through the window at Alvin Ailey. Very cool.