New York City, April 13, 2015

★★★★★ Commuters heading out for work were willing to change just a suit, trusting the chill to pass. One very confident man was striding uphill with a long stretch of ankle bared between high cuffs and loafers. Lone dandelions — one at most per planting bed — wavered in the breeze. A recycling truck hoisted and tipped out a dumpster full of cardboard, and the driver waved through the open window as the three-year-old watched. The light was finding the buildings on the Jersey bank but couldn’t help them much. In the afternoon, an aluminum stepladder stood in the bottom tier of the fountain, and trembling lines of light on the wall behind it announced the water gradually filling in. A high school ballplayer waited in full grays at a crosswalk. In a nook behind a scaffold, one tree had put out leaves. The sky was so blue that a blue-brick wall looked gray.