In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge.
Time and date of photographs: April 17, 2008, 7:00 - 8:00 pm (ish).
Originally the George Washington Bridge was meant to be clad in stone but fortunately they ran out of money.

This is not a pattern we ever get tired of looking at.

Even when [...]

In which The Gay Recluse hears from two correspondents at once.
Today we received the following report and very large photograph from London:
The London Eye and The Jessica Watch team up for some fox hunting in London.

Woah, Nellie! Is that a fox? (Apparently so, according to The London Eye and The Jessica Watch.)
Thanks for sending [...]

In which The Gay Recluse welcomes the spring garden.
The hellebore is perhaps not the most spectacular flower, but we like it anyway: it’s a dependable friend.

We feel reassured. After months of planning, the first guests have finally arrived and they seem to be having a good time!

The hellebore is thousands of years old but decidedly [...]

In which The Gay Recluse admires random acts of beauty garbage.
If you’re like us, you’ve long wondered what would happen if you took the world’s largest (and Con Edison branded!) tote, propped it open with a broken sawhorse and left it for a week on 35th Street and 5th Avenue. Would anyone move it? Or [...]

In which The Gay Recluse photographs shipwrecks lining the Hudson north of the George Washington Bridge.
Time and date of photographs: March 30, 2008 (afternoon)

As usual, there were those who did not survive the winter.

We tend to look at the wreckage with some disdain: “That could never happen to us!”

Yet! There is a mythological allure to [...]

In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge.
Time and date of photographs: April 3, 2008, wheneverness.

Work was difficult this week.

It was hard to concentrate.

Life felt very distant.

We wished we could take a nap.

Somehow it never ends.
“I, too am obsessed with the George Washington Bridge, and have been ever since as stoned [...]

In which Deirdre’s Terrain checks in with The Gay Recluse.
Today we received this startling news report and follow-up analysis from our Manhattan correspondent Deirdre’s Terrain:
ieeww I hate people who post picts & videos of their KIDS at the beach taking a bath etc etc… playing with their iPhone.. YUCK! why do parents post boring picts [...]

In which The Gay Recluse contemplates human conception from a safe distance.
Today we introduce our newest correspondent The Jessica Watch, who has expressed a willingness to satisfy our admittedly perverse voyeuristic impulses and keep us apprised as she moves ever closer to having a kid. TJW reports:
I just had a barrage of tests, all completed [...]

In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge.
Time and Date of morning photograph: March 21, 2008, 5:15pm-ish.
Notes: This is the view of the George Washington Bridge from the north, in the remotest and most abandoned part of Manhattan. We see the pilings of an old pier and — most [...]

In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly gets lung cancer.
Time and date of morning photograph: March 21, 2008, 7:54am.

Time and date of evening photograph: March 21, 2008, 7:34pm

The oily black smoke of 100-year-old boilers disperses daily across the rooftops in Washington Heights, heedless of those who suffer from pneumonia, asthma and tuberculosis. Officials and [...]

In which The Gay Recluse promotes remembrance of things past.
Today we received this letter from reader Steve in Manhattan:
I, too am obsessed with the George Washington Bridge, and have been ever since as stoned youths me and my friends cavorted in the park on the New Jersey side that is directly below the place where [...]

In which The Gay Recluse watches the sunset, craves a gin-and-tonic and converses with a higher power.
Time and Date of Photographs: 7:15ish, March 20, 2008
Notes: All sunset photos are inherently cheesy — obviously — but sometimes we have to get in touch with our inner tourist.

God: Don’t let your youth go to waste!
Us: Ughh — [...]

In which The Gay Recluse provides a postscript to our gay alternative to this week’s Modern Love piece in the Times by Kayla Rachlin Small. (For those looking for our informal-but-telling quantitative analysis of Modern Love, click here.)
Dear TGR,
I loved your riff on “The Steep Price of Your Forbidden Kiss” (a
title which, for the record, [...]

In which The Gay Recluse photographs birds.

Mary-Kate and Ashley? Elliot and Silda? Tristan and Isolde? You decide. (Our Jonathan Livingston Seagull moment for the day.)

In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge.
Time and Date of photograph: March 13, 2008, 7:38am.
Notes: The cloud bank this morning looked like a mountain range.

“The George Washington Bridge over the Hudson is the most beautiful bridge in the world. Made of cables and steel beams, it gleams in the [...]

In which The Gay Recluse photographs birds.

Some days we want to photograph the George Washington Bridge. Today we went for the seagulls.

In which The Gay Recluse applauds the news of uptown development.
Curbed has reported that the city’s plan to rezone 125th Street — a plan we fully endorse — has passed the important hurdle of the Planning Commission, and will now move to City Council for final approval. Curbed also links to local coverage of the [...]

In which The Gay Recluse holds a contest. Sort of.
Today we are extremely honored to present another hot-gay-statue submission, this one a joint effort from Jeff Weinstein/Out There and John Perreault/Artopia. Jeff writes:

I sent partner John to shoot Garibaldi in Washington Square Park and instead he came back with [a fuzzy shot of] the [...]

In which The Gay Recluse reports on life at home.

In which The Gay Recluse poses a question to a condominium development in Harlem.
Yesterday Curbed posted an update (via Joe Schumacher) on the Kalahari, a controversial — aesthetically speaking — condominium development on 116th Street in Central Harlem that appears to be nearing completion. We recently observed the Kalahari on a field trip to the [...]