New York City, July 5, 2015

★★★ The sky was a little less than blue; the heat was bearable. The children went out to the Park and came back bearing overpriced lemonade and clutching green gingko leaves, used as miniature fans. The three-year-old burrowed under his comforter with his sunglasses at naptime, then lamented the lack of sunglasses when he went outside. A smell of tar rose from the scarified and patched roadway. The pedestrian-safety features, heavy planters and rugged stone blocks, had been shoved together into barriers to walking. Out in the open, the sun pressed on the back of the neck. Someone sunbathing or trying to relax on the expensive new building’s roof lay back on an outdoor couch, sat up, twisted, rearranged a cushion. There was light enough after dinner to bounce and boot a rubber ball around the forecourt. Jets of sunset color flared out from behind the superstructure of one of the aging apartment towers.