New York City, June 16, 2014

★★★★★ The two-year-old stood on top of the heater to look through the window and enumerate the construction workers across the avenue, as the morning light shone into the seven unglassed top floors of the tower. Yellow hat, blue shirt. White hat, white shirt, blue pants, bright green gloves. Red shirt, white hat. Dust floated off the edge where one of them — wardrobe colors indistinct in the shadows — ran a polishing machine over the slab. Out the front doors, water sparkled where it flowed over the fountain’s edges. People had stripped down without strain or overheating; chests and tattoos were showing. The sky was pincord blue. Bamboo and other plantings peered over the cornices, six stories up. Flags of World Cup countries stuck their free ends out of a restaurant window. The round-toned roar of television carried out into the rush-hour street, on the open air.