This Too, Shall Pass.

                                    Happy New Year!

Freedom Tower under construction ( topped with cranes)

I love bridges. I don't think there's a more dramatic way in which necessity meets beauty. Or indeed, a more beautiful way in which the necessary acquires drama. 
Bridges populated my new year activities. On New Year's Eve, I took a Circle Line cruise around Manhattan with family, and got up close and personal with New York City's bridges and the city's altered (new normal ) skyline.

Brooklyn Bridge

Three rows of us on a packed ferryboat

                                                                         
The next day I went to the New York Botanical Gardens to see the Holiday Trains Show - miniature electric trains navigating replicas of New York City landmarks, including a couple of its bridges. All of the replicas, including the bridges, were made of wood, bark, moss, dried seeds, leaves and other organic material.

Building replica and vintage miniature train- NYBG

Brooklyn Bridge replica at NYBG

 Then on January 2nd, I visited the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero. The memorial is titled Reflecting Absence. Its design is satisfyingly logical: a square waterfall constructed within the footprint of each fallen tower, cascading swiftly into square pools before slipping silently over the marble lip of the innermost square void and down into an invisible place.

Reflecting Absence, 9/11 Memorial

 
This is a bridge of another sort. It's the evidence that we've withstood the shakiness of a groundless moment, and found a way to keep moving forward.

Last sunset of 2011 - New York City

Photos - mine
12/31/11 - 1/2/12
New York City