New York City, August 13, 2017

★★★★ From indoors, the outdoors looked flawless, especially from the shadowed side of the building and with a breeze coming in the windows. The river was flat blue-brown, without luster. A red-tailed hawk drifted above and below the roofline of the apartment slab across the way. Out in the day, the sun was a little much when it hit directly, but shade was never far off, and the breeze was running through it. It was easy to add a block or two to the shortest route for errands. Sunbathers lined the southern end of the roof deck on the other side of the avenue. The roses in the planter boxes there were swollen and so intensely rose-red they seemed to fluoresce.