Just Published: Art Review on NYAB Blog

My latest published piece of writing just hit the blogosphere today. It's a review of a new photography exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York on the NY Art Beat Blog. For now, it's on the blog's front page, and I've provided a direct link to it here.

Calmness @ JFK

The American Airlines terminal at JFK airport is calm by design. Gently curving trusses of white metal swing over the check-in counters, framing the top of a detailed mural of a world brought closer together, presumably by air travel. Seattle’s Space Needle sits just meters away from San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid, which is itself not far from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the Eiffel Tower, and the Brooklyn Bridge. The color palate is very light, and looks even lighter under the ceiling.

But it’s calm for another reason, too: It’s completely empty. Even if my flight is full (and with the calculations that airlines do in these days of expensive energy to make sure not to fly with light loads, it very well might be), the experience I’ll remember is of a single line of very quiet travelers waiting to pass through one metal detector. The woman staring at our x-rayed belongings called out in a desultory voice “Please remove all jackets and shoes.” Her eyes never moved from the screen. On my way to gate 3, I must have walked by eight hundred empty black leather seats.

P.S. On my way to London yesterday evening, I had an empty seat next to me. Rough times for airlines might mean good times for fliers. For now.