Snow City, Brooklyn

I spent my whole snow day indoors, but in the evening I went for a walk. It was still snowing. The monuments in Grand Army Plaza were lit up, as usual, but were extra impressive with the snow swirling around them:


I couldn't quite capture the lavender floodlights on the columns, but snowflakes caught in the flashbulb look like glowing balls (along with a few streetlight globes in the lower half of the frame):

It was really striking how differently the trees were decked out with snow - it depends, I suppose, on the configuration of the branches, how much wind and from what angle, etc. Though it's hard to see in the photo, this tree had long stripes of snow on its trunk:

This one gave more of a magical wonderland feeling, as if each branch had been dipped in frosting:

Many folks were walking or playing with their dogs, some were carrying sleds (oddly, I didn't see anyone actually sledding).

But toward the southwest corner of Prospect Park, I came across a series of eerie snow figures. For some reason, they made me think of a greening ceremony or maybe a neo-pagan ritual. This figure had a carefully crafted face and was standing with open pine-branch arms directly before a park lantern (streetlight):


Stepping back a bit for the full effect in black-and-white:

Two other figures were beneath a tree on the other side of the path from the first one:

(I liked that the little one was standing on a big ol' log - it made me think of a surfboard.)

In black and white you can see the surfer-dude's mohawk a bit better:

This picture gives more of a sense of the three figures' spatial relationship - although there were other figures nearby that I could not include in the photo:

A little further down, at the southwest entrance, I found almost a dozen people building a snow city. They'd started a huge igloo (seriously thick walls, but no roof yet), city gates (a bit rough, but very fortress-gatelike), and a bar (very smooth and lovingly defined, with cupholders next to all the built-in benches)! The bar was already in service; folks were sitting on the benches and enjoying their beer. They invited me to join them, and even offered to sell me a beer for $4. I told them I'd forgotten my wallet, and offered to pay them in snow. They said they'd have been more tempted by that offer yesterday. Alas, timing is everything in this world.

There were also 3 folks rolling a snowball just about as big as they were over to the snow city ... but I think it was supposed to be a friendly amendment rather than Armageddon.