"the homeless, the tempest-tost"

This morning, shivering in the cold walk down West 10th, I noticed the first of the Christmas trees tossed out to the kerb.  West 10th between University and 6th is far removed from the dilapidated, nearly deserted seediness of West 8th, just two blocks to the south; or from the same street just one block to the east, which always feels lifted from the East 30s, rushed and crowded.  But this block is the heart of the genteel Village of prewar apartments and sandstone and wrought iron.  In the middle, on the southern side, is a large stretch of townhouses, shorter of stoop than most, but not unusual in this part of town; they are terraced rather than stepped, if that makes any sense, and they must have been developed all at the same time.  Emma Lazarus, the nineteenth-century poet, lived in one such building, where a plaque outside memorializes her; and Meryl Street, the winningest of Oscar nominees, owned another (don't ask me how I know this).  Across the street is a townhouse with a shelf of mullioned windows and climbing hydrangea draped thickly, like a tail, down its facade; and I used to imagine, when I first started graduate school, that one day I would be a professor, and I would sit writing at one of those window seats, looking out through the diamond glass on cold winter nights.  (Such are our misperceptions of the world and its real estate when we are merely 23.)  This is not now a block for the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, the homeless, or the tempest-tost.

Along the terraces, replacing the Christmas trees, were hothouse perennials, mostly the kind that normally would not bloom here for several more months: brilliant violet cyclamen, shivering white narcissus, scalloped-edged purple kale, all clustered together in smart black pots on the steps.  In the thin winter light, the colors burned like a blue flame does: cold and searing at the same time.  - As though it is spring, I considered; as though you can jump directly from the brilliance of the holidays to something less slushy and tired than is New York from January through March.  These flowers will not last until spring, but then, they don't have to; this is not gardening for the sentimental or the frugal.  These perennials and bulbs are used as bedding plants, and they will be replaced and forgotten by March or April: daffodils, pink tulips and pansies (or black, for the more sophisticated), and then hydrangeas, and so on.  It is one definition of luxury, I suppose: this fulfillment of fantasy, this self-possession, this bending of the world around you, so that you can make even the seasons your own.