It had been some time since I had done any drawings on Second Avenue and with the New Year finally settling in I figured it was time to get back to it. I had an hour free one afternoon in February and walked down to see where the work was at that moment. I actually had not been below the north most corner of the construction on 95th street in more than a week, so I wasn’t sure what I would find. Things had to be wrapping up with this stretch since it looked much cleaner recently and new holes had not appeared in some time and in fact, many holes had closed up.

To my surprise there was a new sidewalk the whole stretch down Second Avenue, though it was a narrow cousin of the former pathway. Ninety percent of the road had even been paved and was a fresh clean black. It was a little odd to see so many open lanes, no machinery, no cars, just a few contractors walking around. It had to be fate that when they finally cleaned it up a woman would fall and cause a big fuss about the state of the sidewalk. As soon as I sat down the whole place came to a stop, an ambulance was escorted through the work zone and thus christened the new pavement as the first non-work truck.

I sat on the edge of the new curb as I drew the scene quickly and saw all the little hazards that stuck out here and there. I then noticed a small crew that were making their way down who were cleaning up the new pathway and adding all the temporary signs to the street side. I finished with the women as she was taken into the bus and then caught up with the work crew. They had moved down the line, informing me this was the last one for tonight, “it’s f#@cking Saturday and it’s getting dark.”

I drew the three of them quickly as another guy overseeing the placement of the signs came up and started talking to them. When I was done the guy drilling the wholes called me over and tells me that “it doesn’t f#@cking look like me.” I told him everyone was a critic to which he smiled and said, “no, no, you drew me too nice.”