I know when it’s Springtime in Midtown because the city lovingly plants strong-scented purple hyacinths and vibrant yellow tulips in the giant concrete planters lining the segment of Eighth Avenue on which I work.
If you pay close enough attention to their beauty, they’re enough to take your mind away from the scabby beggars, methadone-addled smacksters and Boschload of humanity surrounding you on the sidewalk.
And then, just like last Spring, and likely many before that one, by later the same day, cretins will have dug up and stolen most of the hyacinths. They’ll be completely wiped out within 48 hours, divots in the dirt where they were recently planted. The tulips are left untouched by human hands, and by the sun, too, apparently, because they will brown, wilt and die within the week from the lack of light penetrating the densely skyscraper-lined avenue.
Here’s another way you can tell it’s Spring in New York: not only is Spring in the air, but so are thrusting pug rumps.