Presidents' Day surprise

One of the (many) things I like about living New York is the high potential for coming across something totally unexpected. No matter how many years one lives here, it is inevitable that a wrong turn, an unfamiliar subway, or a new route to a familiar place will yield some hidden treasure or delightful surprise. Such an event happened to me back in November--while walking down the street with my cousin, I came upon this, just a couple of blocks from a very well-traveled (by me, I mean) area:



















Why, hello Berlin Wall! What are you doing here?


















During that first view back in November, I didn't have my camera. In the second visit, a friend had his...but we were thwarted by a cluster of tourists and businessmen eating lunch in the seating area in front of the wall. Today was the perfect day: a federal holiday cleared those businessmen right out of there (or perhaps the global recession took care of them; who knows?), tourists were elsewhere, and I was all alone to stare and ponder.

Finding things like this--and so totally out of context and place--is sort of jarring. I wonder how it was transported? Who paid for it, and why? Who decided to stick it in the middle of a block frequented mostly by corporate types who most likely just ignore it? Is that graffiti on the front German graffiti or New York-style defacing?

I will never know, I guess. But I know it's there, and for now that's just fine for me.