Off topic... we've moved!

Won't be having too many of these sort of posts... but my workplace has moved. Same company, different location, and the verdict is: I love it! We've gone from the 4th floor to the 28th--with views. Midtown to lower Manhattan.

My getting-to-work route has gone from the "L" to the "J"; the "L" which overflows with 20-somethings (many hipster types) to the "J"--a much more diversified crowd. I have, with this expansion of experience over the past week, started to realize that I haven't been going crazy over the past few years. Being slowly and progressively immersed in this saturation of (awfully young) youth was good reason to start losing it. I don't think it was ever meant to be that such a concentration of young people should inundate a whole neighborhood and a half... going on two. Maybe I'm getting--shall we say--less young... I do love them dearly but they can be so... obnoxious.. ? It's just the fact that there are so many of them. It's like an invasion over here. H-e-l-p! :)

The different commute plus the fact that downtown is so different from midtown makes me feel like I've moved to a new city. I can grab the bus around the corner from me--as I often did to get to the "L" when I was running late. In itself a source of frustration because walking to the "L" is obviously better for my waistline which these days grabs calories from the air even when I'm walking. Or so it seems. Maybe I'm getting--shall we say--less young...

I take the 48 bus, the one around the corner and remain seated for just a few more blocks than before to get to the elevated "J" train. I was surprised to find these beautiful stained glass windows in the "J" train stations:

It's nice being elevated. I was concerned about cell phones but it's--again to my surprise--turning out to be OK. The "J" traipses across the Williamsburg bridge and the views are spectacular. I'm usually engrossed with my knitting but I make an occasional heads up to take in the panorama.

I love lower Manhattan. It developed before the awful notion of "grid"--those boring, conforming rectangular blocks above Canal Street (that's probably not an exact demarkation). Downtown has some really narrow streets and some really crooked ones. Character. And history. It's the oldest part of NYC. The site of our building--which was built in 1928--was in the 1790s the site of the second presidential mansion, NYC being the nation's capital at the time. (The nation's capital subsequently moved to Philadelphia for a short stint before moving on to it's current location in the District of Columbia.) The first NY presidential mansion was near the Brooklyn Bridge on Cherry St. It was out grown.

President George Washington lived on the site I now work and I think that's really cool!

This plaque was placed on our building in 1939:

I mentioned the view out my new office window. Here it is as night descends upon the Hudson and New Jersey: