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The brilliance of the daytime fades to the view of the night. Orange streetlights contrast with blinking lights of ferries and airplanes and the blue lights that trace the graceful lines of the bridge. From here, it appears to have sails. The waters are black and just a little foreboding. I close my eyes to examine the mental picture. I hope I don't forget this anytime soon.

In his 1925 article "The Port of New York," author Paul Rosenfeld describes a New Yorker's connection to his city.  "We know it here, our relationship with this place in which we live…For they [the buildings] and we have suddenly commenced growing together.  A state of relation has timidly commenced-between the objects, and between the objects and ourselves."

This past Friday, my workday was anything but typical.  As an intern in the Law and Justice Unit of ABC News, I have been helping to cover celebrity court cases.  Friday was a big day for the unit, because rumor had it that the jury assigned to the Martha Stewart trial would reach a verdict.  On Thursday, I was told that I would be helping out at the courthouse. 

Recently, our group was fortunate enough to be allowed to view the New York Stock Exchange trading floor. I say "fortunate enough" because just getting into the building was an experience. Given that it is among the top terrorist targets in the world, Wall and Broad has very tight security.

Having been a "resident" of New York City for a grand total of a month and a half, I have noticed myself slipping into the rhythm of the city much more than I ever thought I would.  Taking the subway, going to work, the gym, and back home to my apartment has become a comfortable, familiar existence. 

Professor and Chair of Chemistry George Shields and three Hamilton students attended the 44th Sanibel Symposium on Atomic, Molecular, Biophysical, and Condensed Matter Theory, March 1 - March 6 in St. Augustine, Fla.  Shields chaired the plenary session on metals in biology and conducted a workshop for graduate students and undergraduates on combined quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) hybrid methods. The students presented their research focused on anti-cancer drug design, based on their previous summer work. Frank Pickard '05 won the award for the top undergraduate student poster presentation at the conference for his poster, "The Enediyne Anticancer Antibiotics: A Study of the Bergman Cyclization Energy Barriers of Esperamicin A1 Using ONIOM DFT/MM Methods."

This week our program considered Mayor Bloomberg, first in class and then on a field trip to City Hall. Comparing Bloomberg and Giuliani was interesting for me as a New Yorker. For me, Giuliani saved the city, while Bloomberg made New York City move from September 11 inertia to economic prosperity. Both had goals and accomplished them, but with very different styles. Our visit to City Hall enabled me to understand Bloomberg’s position more than simply reading about him in The New York Times. I was especially interested in his initiative to coordinate after-school education programs.

This afternoon, one of the first really warm days of the year,  I took a walk through Central Park along with what seemed like most of New York. As Colson Whitehead puts it in  The Colossus of New York, "On the first day of spring in search of antidote they seek the park, hardly aware of biological imperative.  Everybody has the same idea."

As I peered down at the New York Stock Exchange floor from the gallery above, I was impressed that employees could work in that hectic environment.  People, mostly men, run around with tickets of paper, screaming "buy" or "sell."  Half could make all the difference.  Huge buying and selling stations divide the room and into a labyrinthine structure that the employees navigate with ease.  The runners sprint around like rats in a maze trying to find that elusive gourmet cheese.  While the runners shout "buy, buy, buy," the men in the booth type.  Fingers tap dance across the keyboard-- the two-step, shuffle, and Charleston.  A number rolls across the stock ticker and a cheer goes up.  Some one guessed right and another million dollars falls into his account.

I have the privilege of spending part of my commute in the main concourse of Grand Central Station. I believe it to be the greatest standing American monument to mass transportation. It is majestic and awe inspiring, as the hundreds of tourists who stand on its inner balconies each day snapping photograph after photograph testify.