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Evening sheen

Mystical the light at this hour. It is almost 8pm, and I sit 17 stories above Madison Square Park in New York City; the sun is setting behind the scattered buildings. As it sets, the sun splatters red, orange, and yellow shades of itself in faded mix across the sky. This evening is particularly colorful, as the warm colors blend up towards the vestiges of the day's clear blue and sparkle down towards the 1920's buildings that populate this area. I think of Howard Roark of "The Fountainhead" when looking at these buildings of the skyscraper's early years, simple and vertical for many floors only to erupt into ornament crowning on the top floors; some of the buildings look like Beaux-French chateaux resting on running marble stilts, checkered with the windows of their lower floors. Some buildings, more squat and ornate still, are decorated all the way up their facades, colorful by nature and highlighted by the glorious kiss of the evening sun. I think of Howard Roark because he would not have cared much for these buildings in his relentless pursuit of the clean modern form of 1920's architecture, but in this moment and in this light, these buildings are as stunning as the supermodels that often wander in this part of the city.
And as the words scatter across the screen in the same vein as the waning sunlight, I stop with a floppy smile to burn this image into memory. I have no camera, only mind's eye to file this image away for the days that will take me out of this city. The office is quiet at this time of the evening; many people have left for their personal engagements. The buildings around the park start to take their own color, windows gaining confidence in the light that comes internal from their floors. The sun slowly loses its energy, perhaps to return for tomorrow. It leaves the park and its building neighbors with the evening sheen of hopeful spring sunsets, with all the hope that such twilights promise.

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