New York City, November 16, 2016

★★★★ A lip and a heel and a fingertip were each starting to crack from the chill. Puddles lingered in the shadowed schoolyard. Workers swept up leaves to fill a fat, crumple-sided sack; dogs trembled or shivered where they waited with their leashes fastened to the fence. By the river, where workers were taking the big brass letters off the buildings, the cold got into bare hands. Bright specks glittered in the dark ridge of construction dirt where finally, having exhausted all means of delay, the developers had belatedly started to build the public park they had promised. The trees by the boulevard, still small enough to seem provisionally installed, had achieved rich russet and yellow.