returning to the empire state

traveling home last night after an exhausting weekend where i witnessed my grandfather's 21 gun salute at fort snelling national cemetery as well as my other grandfather's 84th birthday. i think i saw about 40 of 45 people in my extended family for an extended period of time. i think i just told britt that it was like experiencing 5 christmases back to back.

but i got in to newark airport around 11 pm and looked across the tarmac to see the empire state building, lit up in all yellow. while i was physically and emotionally drained, i was delighted to see the old icon and invigorated knowing that i needed to only get to the other side of it and i'd be home. you can see the building from our roofdeck, it's a few miles away but its a treat knowing it's so close.

i was also pleased to see it lit in a simple yellow (at, right. not my photo). one would assume that it- by default- would be lit in it's nearly customary (and tiring) red white and blue scheme, incorporating a patriotic, september 10th bravado- which is the ornamentation that is employed on most national holidays. (for st. patricks day it is green, christmas red and green. easter it was purple yellow and green to mimic a dyed egg.)

i view the building nightly as i work ten blocks from it and i'm always curious who the lighting designer is, if the presentation is by committee or one person. personally, i think it looks best all white: classic. with a bit of cloud cover, the building radiates a smokey mystifying appearance. nearly mythological. in the week preceding the 75th anniversary of the completion of the ESB a few months ago, they didn't light the crown in order to display what NYC was like prior to construction. it was impressive as the city took on a darker and quieter persona, not quite so grandiose.

leaving the airport, i took a bus into manhattan then hoped into the cab that would carry me back to brooklyn. as the cabbie and i cruised down 4th avenue, i looked up to see the empire again (it's domineering nature makes it hard not to look at). and the building had gone dark. it was now a few minutes after midnight, and the eleventh had commenced. out of respect, the building had extinguished its lights; an homage to its fallen siblings.

after the temporal realization, i looked again and noticed that the only lights left on were a small ring of white that encircled the spire. a sort of halo floating above the city. all the other buildings were lit as usual for they needn't make a statement. the empire was once again quite and reflective.