The Roses on Park Ave.

For the past couple of weeks after my classes at the end of the week, I have been admiring the huge iron roses blooming on Park Ave. I like flowers. I like the Macy's flower show. I like Georgia O'Keefe and Robert Mapplethrope. I like the Bronx and the Brooklyn Botanical gardens. I also like that the artist, Will Ryman, was a playwright before he came back to sculpture, but personal histories aside, big iron flowers are cool.
I am not so fond of the big plush bear by the Seagram building, maybe this just means I like flowers better than bears. There is something really appropriate about them on so many levels. Roses are classy flowers and Park Ave. is a classy street for starters. Maybe there is something about them like they were some giant 1950's ( or J Crew or Kate Spade copies of) brooches fallen off some well dressed springy giant women. The metal and the ornamental flower combination give something between an organic quality and the quality of jewelry. Also, somehow I think that somewhere buried deep in Park Avenue's memory is the fact that once upon a time around the beginning of the last century the now busy street was actally a park.The well heeled of New York paid top dollar because they wanted a bit of respite from the bustle of the city outside their doors not a couple lanes of traffic. Somehow, the flowers make the traffic a little less central to the street.