"Film Forum," New York, November 2008

Film Forum, W. Houston

New York City has no shortage of fabulous neon signs, so a walk around the city at night can take longer than you expected if you're carrying a camera.

Day 340 of 365

Peace at Christmas

The hope that has slumbered for 2,000 years,
the promise that silenced 1,000 fears.
A faith that can hobble an ocean of tears, the peace of Christmas Day.

-- Bob Beers, "The Peace Carol"

Day 323 of 365

Like the '80s

Forgot my camera as I rushed out of the house to catch the train into the city, so I had to come up with something using the camera on my phone. This resulting shot reminds me of old color photos of the seedier New York of the late 70s and 80s.

Day 315 of 365

Signature neon

Sign in a window at Christian Louboutin's store on Greenwich St.

Day 297 of 365

Rainy night, Ninth Avenue

Managed to get from my car to the office during a break from the downpour that had occurred -- and would come back.

Day 290 of 365

Everywhere there's signs

Shot this after I left Foley's next door. The Dempsey's neon is great, and all these other signs made for quite a wordy photo. Not quite 1,000, though.

Day 252 of 365

Skyline sunset

After I polished off a taste Shackburger, fries and Shackmeister Ale (probably the best beer at Citi Field), I caught the clouds and fading daylight above the old scoreboard skyline perched atop two of the Danny Meyer restaurants out beyond center field.

Day 199 of 365

Do you want to meet up at the Pickwick Bowl

Do you want to meet up at the Pickwick Bowl?
We could knock nine down and leave one in the hole

Taking a slight liberty with the lyrics because I couldn't stop singing the song as we walked back to the hotel.

Day 143 of 365

Best on the Cape

Our Memorial Day weekend trips to Cape Cod (a gathering of my mom's college friends and their kids -- now some of us with spouses) always includes a run to Four Seas down the road for six-to-eight quarts of ice cream for the weekend. It may be the best ice cream anywhere.

Day 58 of 365

Hudson Street evening

I've really taken to the walk up Hudson Street to get to work. I get to pass some of my favorite bars, including the White Horse. It's where Kerouac and Dylan Thomas drank, it's where I saw Michael Imperioli one ridiculously hot summer afternoon, and it's one of the bars we hit on my bachelor party pub crawl -- after 20 minutes wandering around the Village trying to find it because we'd been to a few places already, and we were all confused by the angled streets.

Day 46 of 365

Pizza pizz

Just up Ninth Avenue from the office is Stella's Pizza, an excellent slice that I get for dinner with probably too much regularity. I'll reach a saturation point every now and then and will refrain, yet there's something about seeing its glowing neon sign from two blocks away -- or from right out front -- that makes me want it, even if I just had it two days ago.

I restrained myself, though.

Day 45 of 365

Outside the vault, in from the cold

I love this huge sign inside Chelsea Market.

Day 41 of 365

Vertical neon

I found this neon advertisement for the store below amusing. I never really saw the need to know right now where I could go to buy or repair a vacuum cleaner.

Day 17 of 365

Japanese cuisine delivery

One and done.

I see the neon signs in this restaurant every night when I emerge from the PATH across Sixth Avenue, and this nocturnal glow is one of the reasons I bought a more portable digital camera. It's these images that I pass on a day-to-day basis that I want to be able to capture. So I saved this particular shot for a day when I hadn't yet grabbed another image to use and I knew I'd be holed up in my office for the day's remaining hours.

"Neon fielder, Gate E, Shea Stadium," April 2008

Neon fielder above Gate E, originally uploaded by NJ Baseball.

They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway -- but the same holds true for Roosevelt Ave. in Queens. Here, the electricity from the neon designs outside the ballpark (and the thousands of watts of floodlight illumination both inside and out) courses through the old concrete colossus on gameday -- or night -- as the fans come out to cheer for their Mets. They won on this night, defeating the Washington Nationals, 5-2.