The Chrysler building at dusk
SKYSCRAPER by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
BY day the skyscraper looms in the smoke and sun and has a soul.
Prairie and valley, streets of the city, pour people into it and they mingle among its twenty floors and are poured out again back to the streets, prairies and valleys.
It is the men and women, boys and girls so poured in and out all day that give the building a soul of dreams and thoughts and memories.
(Dumped in the sea or fixed in a desert, who would care for the building or speak its name or ask a policeman the way to it?)
Elevators slide on their cables and tubes catch letters and parcels and iron pipes carry gas and water in and sewage out.
Wires climb with secrets, carry light and carry words, and tell terrors and profits and loves — curses of men grappling plans of business and questions of women in plots of love. (…)
- Yes, I know, this beautiful poem was written about Chicago…
- More of my NewYork City photos here. I’m still uploading.
- You will probably think I am crazy, but I’ve just opened a new blog, called Mon Daily Quotidien. I will keep a daily journal there and probably experiment with stuff like videoblogs and podcasts and such.
Blogging in Paris 
Great shot! Looks almost like a “gold” building of oriental architecture rising out of a modern city.
claude, you are really setting the bar very high with your added blog.
enjoyed it very much–food, crowds, and all. but do i have to decide where to
comment? hilarious photo of the statue of liberty impersonator. you certainly
got around in nyc! yours, naomi
You have opened my eyes!!! I guess I had become so familiar with the NY City scene that I no longer open my eyes to the beauty around me… Delightful slide show!
Ah, my most favorite building in New York. A friend once had an apartment a block away from the Chrysler Building, so close from the roof that you felt like you could touch the gargoyles.
Did you know that in the 1930s, there was a nightclub at the top called the Cloud Club. It’s been closed now for many decades, and I still keep hoping someone will open a restaurant there.
Gorgeous photo, Claude.
Such a beautiful photo. I’m barely keeping up with two blogs. How can you consider more, considering you also do so much on Flickr? (I don’t count Flickr as a blog… should I?). Your photos are always lovely.
Another blog to add to my list of “must reads.” Two blogs and Flicker – Good for you for doing this and great for all your readers.
Last winter while in Florida I went to the King Tut exhibit – it was SO CROWDED – and so much to see – we had to keep moving along because there were so many people. I just got the feel of the exhibit -could have spent hours there. It was the middle of the week, no matter when a person went it was crowded so I can relate to your experience.
A wonderful picture. And I always love Sandburg. Show incredible use of language.
I remember “meeting” Sandburg in high school and now you have motivated me to try to enjoy him again. It is always fun to see familiar things through another’s eyes. Thanks for the good thoughts!
Three blogs plus Flickr! I can barely keep up with one blog plus Flickr. I was in New York only a few days before you, while it was still warm.
Beautiful photo! The Sandburg piece seems more essay than poem, but that’s probably why I’ve rarely read Sandburg’s poems and don’t think of him as a poet.