Our apartment in the city isn’t far from ground zero and the other night, when Denis and I were on our way home, we noticed that the twin towers of light are shining again this week in honor of the memory of those lost in 2001. I took a photo:
There are actually two beams of light, but from my angle it looks like one. If you do a google image search you will see some very stunning shots of the memorial lights from across the Hudson and from various other angles.
Ann Leary, author of The Good House
Author of The Good House
Towers of Light
September 10, 2009 by 21 Comments
High Times
July 6, 2009 by 22 Comments
Today, I finally got to visit the new High Line park, here in Manhattan.
The High Line is a park/walkway built on the old elevated freight train lines that used to run along the west side of the city. We live downtown, so I’ve been looking up at the old elevated tracks and watching trees and plants seemingly sprout overnight. From below, it looks like this:
From above, it now looks like this:
Yes, that’s the Empire State Building in the background.
It’s a great way to see the city and notice architecture that you haven’t noticed before:
Summer in the City
July 2, 2009 by 37 Comments
My kids are both working and taking courses in the city this summer, so I have been in New York during the week, and only in Connecticut on weekends. Most people try to leave the city in the summer, but it’s my favorite time to be here. No crowds, no lines at the movies. No need to make reservations at your favorite restaurants – there’s always a table available.
Tracy Reports Back From Blogapalooza
June 26, 2009 by 31 Comments
For you newcomers, a few people have become a little chummy on this blog (yes, I know, that might be a bit of an understatement, it’s become a big love fest here). Some blog regulars have become email buddies and a few – Barbara, Tracy and Kristin – decided to meet in person, in New York, a couple of weeks ago for an event they have dubbed the first annual Ann Leary Blogapalooza.
Denis’s Bodyguard
March 24, 2009 by 24 Comments
Guadalupe just sent me a link to some very old photos she found of Denis and me on the web. I have to share this one.
It looks like I was midway through my sex change from man to woman. You’d think Denis might have suggested something with sleeves to cover those Popeye arms. I swear, I never took steroids. It was from pushing a double stroller with those kids – at that age – up the steepest hill you can imagine at Riverside Park in Manhattan every day. I was always too impatient to let the kids walk, because their little legs didn’t move as fast as mine, so I pushed them and their friends around the city in a stroller until they were quite big. I think if we hadn’t moved to the country, I’d still be trotting them around town in some sort of rickshaw. You get some serious biceps and shoulders from all that pushing.
Green
December 21, 2008 by 1 Comment
Yesterday I visited the Manhattan home of Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleisher and their three children, and I interviewed them for an upcoming episode of IN HOUSE. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Lisa and Paul live in a green, eco-friendly townhouse on the Upper West Side and they have written a beautiful book about “eco-fabulous” homes. This is their roof garden:
Winter Weather
December 19, 2008 by 5 Comments
We stayed in the city last night and this was the view from our window this morning:
Pretty huh? Well, it was pretty then, but now it’s slushing out. That’s right, slush is falling from the sky. Denis and the kids are attempting to drive to the country, but it’s snowing where they are and they’ve been driving for hours and are not even close to home. I stayed in the city an extra night because tomorrow I’m interviewing Lisa Sharkey and her husband Paul Gleicher who have co-authored a beautiful book called Dreaming Green: Eco-Fabulous Homes Designed to Inspire.
Very Exciting Day
December 11, 2008 by 18 Comments
Today, Denis was nominated for a Golden Globe for the HBO movie, Recount!.
I was on my way to the set of Rescue Me when he called me with the news, which made me very happy, but I was already whipped into a state of delirious excitement that bordered on mania because a) I was approaching a major metropolitan area and b) I was leaving a very quiet rural area.
It’s 8:00 in the evening and I’m back in the country but I’m still wound up. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks almost completely holed up in my office and I had forgotten how fun the people can be!
Boston
December 1, 2008 by 8 Comments
My daughter Devin and I are in Boston this morning. We drove Jack to school here, yesterday. We did some Christmas shopping and had dinner with my mother, sister and niece and we stayed overnight in a beautiful hotel room with this view of the Public Gardens:
Sorry, the window and rain make everything a bit blurry.
I told Devin that I remembered when they built this hotel. She asked if I thought, then, that I would ever stay here. I said that I never thought, then, that I’d be able to afford to eat here. But here we are!
Guy Noir? Bum? You decide …
November 24, 2008 by 12 Comments
I’m sure many of you listen to Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac program on NPR, but you might not know that you can also subscribe, online, for free and receive daily emails with poems and information about writers. Today was a very nice poem, check it out!
I had a conversation with Garrison Keillor once. If Denis was here, he would debate this, because he was with me and insists that it wasn’t Garrison Keillor, but a bum, that I was conversing with.
