I meant to write this before I went mad.

There were great ships in the harbor of the sky the day I finally knew.



Let me tell you so you don't have to wonder, I know a lot of people wonder

whether they will know or even have a feeling

just before the edge looms up.

You do.

I got it just like getting a memo handed to you across a big table:

Attention:

It said.

If you get this message you will know for sure and you've gotten this message so that means

Picasso, not that Picasso, but a Picasso stayed with me one week one summer one year. I asked if she ever felt like changing her name and she said she had already changed it to Picasso so there would be no point in going back.

Oh, sorry.

Sorry.

I started to slip away

which is where I am going.



I just wanted to tell you you will know.

Okay. I have a ship to catch.

They are landing.

The Most Wasted Space in New York City

No, it’s not those inches of empty wall between the last cabinet and your refrigerator, nor is it what your realtor called the “eat-in kitchen bar” at which you have never taken a single bite. The most wasted space is above all that, above us all. It’s the rooftops of New York.

 I know what you are thinking---people use rooftops all the time. They sing along with Carol King. They go up to Tar Beach. They lay out. Sometimes they even build a roof deck so they can have a place to catch a little sunshine. Well, that is getting some use out the space, but that sunshine could be pouring money down upon those chaise lounges in the form of solar power.

Some, not many, buildings have figured that out. Cabrini Terrace put their solar system on the roof of a parking garage,(talk about your wasted space!), and now produce enough electricity to run their elevators and hallway lights. The Museum of Jewish Heritage found a way to save energy, use their wasted space and make it look good at the same time.

There are, by some estimates, 14,000 acres of unshaded rooftops in the City, a recent laser and photo flyover survey may show that there is even more. To give you an idea of how much city-space that is, Central Park has 843 acres.

If half of those rooftops were covered with solar panels as part of PLANYC, the city’s “Greener, Greater Buildings Plan", New York City residents and businesses could save hundreds of millions of dollars each year in energy costs, the city’s carbon footprint would shrink and there would still be a place for plenty of people to get a little tan.




Picture Credits: Jonathan Jeffries; Museum of Jewish Heritage