I put together the in-progress shots I have taken during my stint at the Chanel Mobile Art project in Central Park.  The event has opened to the public and runs through November 9th.  The exhibit houses approximately 10 art installations, including painting, photography, film, and sculpture.  Each visitor gets a personal tour,  guided by an MP3 player (which thankfully is NOT an iPod!) and makes for a unique experience.  As I heard a visitor remark yesterday, “Say what you will about liking the art or not, but you’ll never experience anything like that again!”

My current job has me working night hours in Central Park.  I’ve got into the habit of showing up for work early and sitting in the Mall to do my daily writing.  For non-New Yorkers, the mall is best explained as “the filming location for EVERY movie scene of a couple walking during the fall in NYC”.  Lots of foot traffic, but it isn’t distracting, and you can’t beat the scenery.  Being outside has also proved that not having internet access while I write is actually a good thing.

The Chanel project continues in Central Park.  I’m finally, after two weeks, into the groove of the 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. schedule, enough so that I can get some things done during the day and get back to writing.  I guess the two week acclimation period is just another indicator that I’m not in my early twenties anymore (when I used to work the night shift aboard ship with no problem).

Here’s some information: The raccoons in Central Park go nuts over pizza.  We see them every evening, stealing cookies from the catering table and generally being nosey.  On Saturday night, though, we had pizza and they went nuts.  Literally under foot, four of them at a time working together to get to the pizza boxes, multi-pronged approaches from opposite sides of the tent.  Quite funny.

Oh yeah, and the building continues to go up.  It looks like the cross between a UFO and a conch shell.

 This past Thursday, October 2nd, the floating museum USS Intrepid returned to her west side Manhattan berth, after a yard period and exile to Staten Island.  Intrepid was launched in 1943 and served through WWII and Vietnam.  She doesn’t look a lot like she did back in 1943 anymore, due to upgrades and refits, but she’s still an impressive ship.

The tow was right at mid-day, and there were a surprising number of spectators on the 14th street pier here in Hoboken.  I say surprising because I only found out about the move the day before, and honestly a big gray boat moving along the Hudson isn’t that odd of an occurrence.  I met some very nice people, and some tourists from Boston shared their picnic lunch with me.

The photos are a bit washed out due to the time of day, but the ship still looks better than I’ve ever seen her, sporting a new coat of paint.  More photos here.