Pier 45, Dec 2011 - 10
Note: this photo was published in a Nov 21, 2012 blog titled "I’m sick of online daters."
Moving into 2013, the photo was published in an undated (mid-Oct 2013) blog titled "The Value of Soft Data."
Moving into 2014, the photo was published in an undated (mid-April 2014) blog titled "Small Business Ideas for Budding Entrepreneurs ."
Moving into 2015, the photo was published in a Mar 12, 2015 blog titled "Nya siffror om medieanvändningen."
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It's been several months since the midsummer afternoon when I last photographed the tango dancers in New York City, even though I know they've been gathering each Sunday down at the end of Pier 45, where Christopher Street runs into the Hudson River in the West Village. But the weather was rainy on several occasions, and I was out of town on various other occasions ... so, the summer and fall drifted away before there was a combination of free time and clear skies that enabled me to find a quiet perch out at the end of the pier, to watch the dancers once again, in early December.
As I've pointed out in some previous Flickr albums (here, for example), I do not dance the tango (or any other civilized form of dance), and even after watching the dancers for over a year, I know almost nothing about the history, the folklore, or even the steps and rhythms of the tango. But after accidentally stumbling upon a local gathering of tango aficionados on a business trip to Washington in August 2009 (see my Flickr set Last tango in Washington), I discovered that there were similar informal events throughout New York City. When I got home, I searched on the Internet and found a schedule of upcoming tango events at several different NYC locations -- including Pier 45, where I made my first visit in mid-April of 2010, which led to this set of photos.
I returned in mid-July of 2010, even though I knew it would be much hotter ... and indeed, it was so hot that the music did not even begin until 6 PM. But then the dancers began to appear, one after another, until there were a couple dozen pairs of dancers filling a large space under a sheltering canopy, as the sun went down. And since it was the end of a hot summer evening, tango wasn't the only thing going on: there were people sunbathing, watching the boats on the river, playing frisbee, or simply enjoying themselves. I photographed a little of everything; you can see it in this Flickr set.
And indeed, that's how things worked out during my visit yesterday. The weather was mostly-sunny, with just a little bit of haze in the sky; but the temperature dropped from a mild 55 degrees in the middle of the day, to something that felt like the mid-40's by mid-afternoon. As a result, there were hardly any dancers at the end of the pier during the two hours I was there; I was later told that quite a few did manage to arrive in the late afternoon, shortly before the winter sunset at 4:30 PM … but by then, I was gone.
While I was there, I did photograph the two or three couples who were dancing … but I also walked back and forth along the length of the pier a couple times, and devoted most of my camera work to the interesting visitors, tourists, couples, joggers, and others who had decided to come out to enjoy the sunshine. Consequently, I've decided to title this set "Pier 45" rather than anything specifically about tango dancing; I'm sure there will be plenty of future Flickr sets that I'll be able to devote exclusively to the tango.
Meanwhile, enjoy...