people places n things

On this 1st day of the new year, I found myself having to go into the city to take care of several things I could only do on a day off from work. But first I wanted to stop off at the nursing home up the hill and bring something to mom. I almost always walk to the ferry and after several years found a route that not only avoided going up that hill, (I like visiting mom in the evenings coming back from the city so I can walk DOWN the hill instead) but pretty much avoids all the hills between here and the ferry terminal, which are numerous. Before leaving the house I stuffed my camera and a couple of lenses in my backpack per chance a nice photo opportunity presented itself on the ferry boat ride to or from the city.

As I walked up the cursed hill I had to pass by the abandoned hospital. Back then the huge side gate was broken or just never closed, I can't remember which, and that allowed people from miles around to dump all sorts of unsightly garbage there, which would take the city weeks and weeks to clean up each time. It was such an eternal eyesore that I purposely avoided looking at it whenever I walked by, and today was no different. However despite my rushing up the hill to put a hastily finish to another climb up Mt. Pain in the Butt, I spotted something out of the corner of my left eye that was different than anything I'd seen there before. Stopping my speedy gate and walking slowly back down the hill a few steps I looked closely at the newest load of refuse on the snow covered ground. It was a collection of old discarded toys. Some of them seemed to look vacantly through me almost in pain and depression to find themselves there. It really looked to me like a burial ground for yesterdays toys. It was such a sight I came back right after visiting mom to take a picture of it, before any new trash got dumped on top of them.

A stone wall just out of view to the side of the baby dolls right foot blocked my getting the angle I wanted of this "toy graveyard", and made me want to move them all 6 inches to the left to get the best impact for this shot. But they all looked almost alive and in shock that never again would they feel a humans touch, from some child happy to get them even as a hand me down, and that their fate had come to this. The sad image made this scene almost sacred somehow, and I couldn't bring myself to touch them. So I left them where they lay and recorded this scene as a testament that it is possible for those things created without a soul, to yet die of loneliness.

winterstaten Islandneighborhood shots