Cornell Tech

How often do you get to photograph something you barely even knew existed? I stumbled on the new Cornell Tech campus after I was thwarted in my second attempt to see the FDR Memorial, closed only on Tuesdays. 

The project, initiated at the end of the Bloomberg administration, was completed as quickly as the towers that have sprouted in Long Island City, directly across the East River.

No expense was spared in the construction of the compact, beautiful campus.

If you're not looking at the Edward Koch Bridge, you're seeing it reflected somewhere.

The contrast between old and new on Roosevelt Island is startling.  The Renwick Smallpox Hospital, now in ruins, is on the National Register of Historic Places

as is the first public health lab in the United States, now repurposed as a transit power station.

You can't beat the views from the middle of the East River.

 

This swimming pool beckoned on a late summer afternoon.  I envied the lone, lucky member cooling off in the far corner.

For my next attempt to pay tribute to FDR, instead of riding across the Roosevelt Island Bridge, I'll hop on the ferry.

It runs from Astoria to 34th Street in Manhattan, with a stop in between on Roosevelt Island.