I can’t remember the first time I ever crossed the foot bridge at Laight Street just west of Varick, It basically flies over a Holland Tunnel offramp and a curious, inaccessible area called St. John’s Park. If I had to guess, however, I’d say 1989, and I was probably en route to Wetlands Preserve, a now-long-defunct TriBeCa rock club formerly perched on southwest corner of Laight at Hudson (I wrote more extensively about said establishment here). It was either that, or I was on my way to see my friend and fellow former SPIN intern Sam, who was living in a certain building over on Vestry Street.
In any case, for whatever reason, I’ve always been fascinated with that little footbridge. I’m not entirely sure why, as there isn’t anything necessarily exceptional about it. I guess I just associate with various periods of my life, or whatever. It’s odd how you can assign meaning to such things. It also makes a cool cameo in the TriBeCa-centric video for Firewater’s “Green Light.” You can check that out here.
Anyway, on either side of the Laight Street bridge, there are these round, convex mirrors. I assume they’re designed for security purposes. One glance in them, and you’re able to see if anyone’s creeping up behind you. Insert rumination here about how it’s sad that we live in a society that requires such things.
Anyway, since about 1989, I’ve periodically snapped pictures in the Laight Street bridge mirrors. I snapped the one above yesterday after having to make an unfortunate Saturday sortie back to my office to prize my work-phone. It was a bit of a fluke, but I was quite happy with the way it turned out.
With that in mind, I dug upone of the earlier ones to compare and contrast. Here’s one I took back in 1998. This was shot with a wide angle lens, so the mirror looks further away that it actually was.
Just a bit of fun.
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