Dead Moths

Regular readers have by now observed my escapist preoccupations. Someone who new me well once remarked, regarding my urban searches for the bucolic, that what I needed was a place in the country. This may or may not be true - the conversation reminds me of a dialogue between Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) and a friend Robin (Janet Margolin) in a scene from Annie Hall:

ROBIN: I'm too tense. I need a Valium. My
analyst says I should live in the country
and not in New York.
ALVY: The country makes me nervous. You got
crickets and it-it's quiet ... there's
no place to walk after dinner, and...
there's the screens with the dead moths
behind them, and... uh, yuh got the-the
Manson family possibly ...

So, indulge me as I ferret out the natural in the NYC without the dead moths. I'm not sure how these urban oases are perceived by a visitor with ready access to nature - a quaint novelty or perhaps an display of horticultural ingenuity. For city dwellers, these spots are well liked and heavily used. The photo, taken in the Autumn of 2007, shows the rear of the Winter Garden Atrium as seen from the Hudson River with the North Cove Yacht harbor. The atrium, wedged between 2 and 3 World Financial Center buildings, is a 10 story glass vaulted structure designed by Cesar Pelli, completed in 1988 and rebuilt in 2002 after 9/11 - read my previous posting about the Winter Garden here. I love palm trees and the atrium has many - so it's one of my (semi) tropical oases in the city. But the real deal and my favorite is in Brooklyn - click here ...