nice chilly evening in Manhattan

Met my old Chicago student/friend Miles for drinks in the West Village. (He’s the one who posted THIS nice little video of a Cairo night taxi ride after visiting four years ago.)

Microbrews at the Blind Tiger, then over for dessert to Caffe Dante (best cannoli I ever had).

Looking down the street, we saw the memorial lights for the WTC towers, and decided to walk down there– a good brisk walk, maybe 20 minutes. Police presence was visible but lighter than expected. There isn’t much to see yet, since the memorial doesn’t open until tomorrow. The lights are not coming from the tower site, but possibly from barges on the river; they’re several blocks south of the WTC site, at any rate.

Though you’d expect an eerie scene down there on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, it was actually charming and lovely, at least in visual terms. The in-progress Freedom Tower, which I otherwise find hopelessly bland and not up to the challenge of that site, looked rather fine with its multifarious colored lights on different floors.

Most of the people in the area were obviously tourists, but there were a few exceptions, such as the two teary-eyed women with dogs, hugging each other. It seemed pretty clear that one or both of them had lost somebody important here.