Spring is blooming on Third Street. Wisteria branches with bright yellow flowers are poking out from some of the black iron gates.

The neighbors are coming out from under their winter down jackets. In winter, we walk quickly to our buildings and never stop to say hello. And then spring arrives and everyone is chatty again. I saw my neighbor who rides a red Vespa walking her dog yesterday – all friendly again.

The limestone coop that transformed their front yard from cement and garbage pails to a very upscale, Smith and Hawken beauty, has flowering trees. Thanks to their teak benches, wooden garbage pail garage, stone urn, plantings, and skinny, droopy white-flowered trees (photo of those trees in late spring above), they’ve really added to the quality of sight on Third Street.

The wooden lawn chairs in the yard on the corner always look so human to me. (I tend to anthropomorphize objects). One is a man, the other is a woman. Sometimes they are sitting up talking, or watching passerbys.  Other days, they are down and I say to myself, "Now, they’re sleeping." Yesterday, they were down – sunbathing, I guess – taking in the spring weather.

In the brownstone with the faux brick exterior from the 1970’s, the passionate  gardener who lives there has purple bulbs and other spring-y flowers already. i can’t wait to see what she has in store for us this year.

No flower boxes yet. But the building across the street, where The Deserters (friends who moved to, gasp, Nyack) used to live has a huge stone planter with a pink magnolia that blooms once a year. And now it’s blooming.

Mrs. Deserter and two or three others in that building were very intense window-box gardeners. Intense might be too mild a word. This time of year, I’d usually see Mrs. Deserter tending to her tres chic metal window boxes. I’d call up to her Brooklyn-style and we’d have a quick conversation. The people they sold the apartment to kept the window boxes, but this year they’re GONE. Where did they go? Did they decided to scrap them?

Slowly, spring emerges on Third Street.