New York City, April 30, 2013

★★★★★ The clouds thinned and lifted into sunshine that put a gleam on anything even vaguely glossy — a leather jacket, a colored bicycle bell, the sip-cap of an empty water bottle left upright. The breeze was cool, too gentle to stir the leaves. The thermometer had crossed from the 50s to the 60s, and the second jacket worn over the first was a mistake, but not a serious one. In late afternoon, cheap bricks were mirrors. Light got in behind a passing woman’s sunglasses and shone out amber. There was no better way from Elizabeth Street to the West Village than to walk it, a mile and a quarter along Bleecker Street, through the mid-block shade and the open space of the avenues. All along the way, in the downtown distance, the Freedom Tower made up for its architectural shortcomings with plain height and persistence, a beacon or sentinel holding steady above the buildings and treetops. Sunbeams crossed the dinner table, and there were sunbeams outside still when the meal was over.