Weekend New Yorkers.

When the weather is warm and everyone in Manhattan is out on the streets, it’s easy to see how much people change on the weekends. New York is a place that’s easy to forget yourself in, easy to go through your days on auto-pilot, passing interesting things all the time without even noticing.

But when the weather is warm on a Manhattan weekend that all changes, and drifting through neighborhoods I could see it as I walked the entire length of the east side of the city, down past the crowded shops near fifth avenue, through the street fair in Murray Hill where Lexington was blocked off for fifteen blocks filled tables selling t-shirts that say “I Love New York” (yes I do!) and expensive looking rugs for thirty bucks a piece, and handmade dresses and pulled pork sandwiches and big cups of cubed watermelon. In Madison Square Park there was live jazz (and the longest line at Shake Shack that I’ve seen in a while). In Little Italy, Mulberry street was blocked off, and through the crowd I watched people step up to the shooting range to score a stuffed animal, test out their throwing arm at the dunk tank (a man about seventy had a killer right arm and got him on the second try). They ate cannoli’s the size of hot dogs and listened to a man singing Sinatra while sipping cappuccinos.

Great days in Manhattan when the weather is warm it makes it even more difficult to have to face the beginning of yet another week. And there they’ll all be in the morning, all the same people but in their ironed suits with their eyes in their newspapers and blackberry's, chugging coffee and dreading their days. At the office there won’t be any watermelon or Sinatra or deals on floor coverings - just emails waiting for them, and responsibilities along with the constant watching of the clock to count down the day, and then the week, until the next (and hopefully warm) weekend is upon them once again.