Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

120. before. I had wanted a Riverside Bus, but took the first open top that came alone, which happened to be a 5th Ave Bus,  (CD) course ran out 5th to 110th - past Central Park, west on 110 to Riverside Drive - out Riverside for a considerable distance, where it switched over to 7th Ave, to 162nd Street. Coming back our course lay on 7th Ave, thru Harlem, to 110 and thence to 5th Ave. -

     It was a beautiful evening, the air deliciously mild, a full moon high in the misty eastern sky. The city, darkened by the new "dim-out" rule, was very beautiful - mysterious. I had expected the dim-out to be depressing, but it was not - I saw New York in a new approach. Pedestrians, for examples were black silhouettes, without identity - buildings usually ablaze with windows, loomed enormous black monsters against a faintly luminous sky - For the first time I saw moonlight on the sides of buildings. I think this remains one of my strangest impressions of New York - of the great sea of huge buildings, dark, with bottomless canyons, their towers and upper portions lit up with wan moonlight - I could sense the whole expanse of the Atlantic Ocean beyond - sinister, limitless in extent.

     On Friday evening - The Watkins, Frank & I had dinner at Larre's. On this occasion, Mrs. Watkins boys were with us (presumably from her 1st husband - Watty is her third) They were nice boys, shy but eager to be responsive to any attention[i]