Monday morning in Madison Square Park

Good Monday morning from Madison Square Park. Actually, I'm just outside the park -- which as an FYI is blocks from Madison Square Garden -- sitting in the median between Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Its a lovely little spot, with cafe tables, decent chairs, umbrellas and FREE wireless access.

The Flatiron building is 25 yards in front of me (facing Downtown). The Empire State Building is several block uptown. Traffic is rolling on all four sides. I may have the best seat in the house for a Monday morning city rise-and-shine

The air is cool,but not cold, so I don't know what that guy just now was thinking, walking his min pin with a spiked harness, red sweater and matching booties. Rediculous, uncomfortable for the animal and unnecessary. That kinda describes the 4-inch red heels, black bubble skirt and sweater vest I saw walk past a while ago. I don't know what she did for a living, but it made me a little nervous and I was just spying.

Apparently the thing to do at Madison Square Park is stand holding a map of the city while the person you are with tries to get a picture of you (where you are recognizable as you and not some random stranger) and the entire Flatiron building. There seem to be several ways to approach this.

One is to stand close to the street while your friend gets on her belly and shoots up your nose. A modification on this is to have your friend back off about 30 feet and then get on her belly and shoot so you are shown as a short, somewhat garishly colored light pole.

Another is to stand on one of the rock slabs cut from "Stonehenge, the Musical" on Broadway and moved to the Fifth Avenue side. This seems to work better, but you have to climb from slab to slab while your partner decides which up-the-nose shot is going to look best in the vacation slideshow on Flickr.