Business Time

After the giant slices of pizza I had yesterday, I couldn’t resist, and went back to pay Joe’s another visit. Joe’s Pizza actually features in the Spiderman 2 film! Just plain cheese pizza, with tasty tomato sauce and a nice thin base. And at $2.75 a slice, it’s cheap!

After enjoying Joe’s in a park across the road I went further downtown to see what was happening at the World Trade Center site. Construction is progressing on the site, and progress can be seen at WTC Progress.
Around the corner from there is Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange. The Stock Exchange building in itself is really quite impressive. I was there after close of business, so men in suits were not overly abundant.

Time was getting along, and as you may recall I met Michael, a local artist a few days back. I was planning to meet him at his apartment for 7pm, but, due to me being unfamiliar with the area, I showed up closer to 8pm! When I arrived, Michael was busy at work, silk screening some of his designs onto t-shirts for me.
He lives on the 25th floor of his building, and the view is really quite spectacular. A brief storm rolled in not long after I got there, and the city just seemed to disappear behind a blanket of rainfall.
I stayed chatting with Michael while the ink on the shirts dried. We talked about his career, how he has got where he is today, and the future, of how he hopes to expand to some overseas markets. We then started chatting about what I was going to do upon my return to Australia. I plan to give up the 9-5 day job, and focus solely on photography. He feels my images have the ability to make a lasting impression on someone, and as such, I’m hoping to see my shots hung on the walls of some very fancy places back home in Australia soon enough!
I couldn’t leave without taking a portrait of such a friendly face. The advice he has given me has been invaluable, and as a gift, I received two of his shirts to take back home with me.

I left there around midnight, and on recommendation of another Michael, who I met at High Line Park early on in my visit, went to have a look at the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts. Unfortunately the tripod police were there, and as such, photos at night were not the best.
On my walk back to the hotel, I had to stop for a photo of the steam venting through a grate in the road. It just feels very New York to me. My last night in the city…