STL DPB IN NEW YORK - ST. JOHN THE DIVINE

Rain threatened off and on all of Friday and our street photography group modified its schedule. We visited the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the seat of the Episcopal Church in New York. It is massive and yet unfinished. Doesn't get a lot of visitors as it's a bit out of the way, located on the far Upper West Side, between the northwest corner of Central Park and Columbia University.

Much of the nave is taken up by the stunning artwork Divine Pathways by Anne Patterson. No matter your religious preference, it creates a strong connection with something beyond us.              

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - ELLIS ISLAND

Our street photography group went to Ellis Island yesterday. It is the place where, in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, a growing nation hungry for population processed immigrants in New York harbor. We took a hard hat tour of the hospital facilities, where the physically sick and mentally ill were confined until they recovered, died, or were deported back to from whence they came. 

This room is part of the tuberculosis ward, where patients were held in isolation. The image in the mirror could make them cling to hope or fall into despair.            

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - CHINATOWN

The Chinese neighborhood in the Lower East Side of Manhattan remains vibrant. Some of the population has moved to the outer boroughs and the suburbs but immigration of people fleeing China replenishes it. There is a small city park off Mulberry Street where the community gathers. There are card games and tile games going on that we don't understand. Strictly segregated by sex and, with complicated chips, obviously heavy gambling going on. Wednesday was warm and humid, and this gamer needed ventilation while he studied his next move.                       

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - JACKSON HEIGHTS

Jackson Heights, Queens, has more different ethnic groups than any other zip code in the United States. (The borough and county of Queens has more than any other county in the U.S.) Our group stepped off the train and could immediately smell the curry cooking. It's Indian, Pakistani, Nepali, Tibetan, Mexican, Ecuadorian, Colombian, Peruvian and many others. You don't have to travel out of the country to sample so many cultures in a small space.

This was taken in a pedestrianized block in the south Asian area. I'll be putting many others on Flickr.                   

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - BRIGHTON BEACH

Day 1 of the New York street photography workshop. We started in Brighton Beach, an Intense neighborhood I never had a reason to visit when I lived here. It's Russian-Ukrainian-Jewish-miscellaneous Middle Eastern. As many signs are written in Cyrillic as Latin characters. When I paid for something in a local shop, the cashier said spasibo - thank you in Russian (one of about four Russian words I know).

Not sure what these two women are about. Maybe mother and daughter, standing under the Q Line el.