Changes

The new Key Food at Fifth & 12th (site of the OTB) continues to take shape.  It will be a smallish supermarket, with "gourmet" offerings.  This new awning, on 12th, which appeared over the last couple of weeks, seems awfully large for a side street, & for a store that is not super big.  Funny how something like this completely alters the feel of walking down the block.
The new subway entrance at Fourth Avenue offers another shift..  When I was down there this week, most people still seemed to be crossing Fourth Avenue to enter on the other side, instead of taking the easier route.  Ignorance, or allegiance to the old?  Hell, even I, for some absurd reason, was drawn to enter the station the usual way. But I didn't, & I wondered if I should alert the regular schleppers to the new doors.  No.  That was far too extrovert a move for me, especially at 6:30 a.m. The new entrance is certainly very quiet right now.  What's strange is how a slightly altered route transforms your sense of the station: when you come out on the platform, instead of being out along the vast openness of the platform's western end, you're right inside the structure of the bridge, & the feel is completely different.  With the new windows going in, you'll get some good views of the avenue when work is complete.  I like it when your sense of the landscape is given a nudge.  Even the tiniest change in perspective wakes you up visually, & even the most familiar place can become foreign .