My wife sent me on a relaxation trip to New York city with a camera. The metro system looked down on turn of the century brownstones and apartment complexes. In one small hovel two elderly eastern-orthodox Russian ladies with brightly colored scarves wrapping their sagging face like over-ripened fruit, spoke in small puffs of white breath--they passed by in a high pitched scream of the steel rails, oiled and hot. I passed an architectural masterpiece covered in brown winter creeping vine, and reached for my pocket in a burst of energy in search of my camera, but the beauty had passed by the time I had the little machine operating. Little towers of brown-red brick and spotty brown and green vine with thissles of grass growing on small ledges and rooftop gardens gave this part of the city a warm countenance.