It was raining lightly when I took most of these, early in the afternoon. This is my last day in town. I leave early tomorrow morning.
In California where I come from we do not have such things as massive (though humble) posts and railings forged entirely out of solid cast iron (as above) and rusting grimly decade after decade through several defeated layers of paint.
Above, morning glories bravely tackle the gap between two brownstone facades. To make another California comparison (it is obvious that I am already thinking about heading home) this plant would have a long wet happy winter to look forward to in San Francisco, but here in New York all that frantic blue blooming at the tip-top of the vine signals the vine's own knowledge that the first frost will kill it here in less than a month.
At bottom: a Central Park passageway that I did not enter. It looks like opera scenery more than anything else – a Wagnerian grotto from which a mechanical dragon will emerge on cue.