This photo was taken from a window in Belfer Hall. The MTA building, although large and impressive, is muted by the scaffolding clinging to it, climbing up the tower like a vine. For only one of my semesters at YU, this part of the scene changed: the scaffolding was down and the one-hundred-year old building was intricate and breathtaking.

One might think that the view from the window in Belfer Hall would always look the same, but that is not the case. Despite the fact that one views the same scene from the same spot, the scene changes with time. The nineteenth-century painter Pissarro would paint the same scene at different times and seasons to capture the ever-changing aesthetics. I saw his paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I visited in February, and they changed my perspective on how to view my surroundings. I started to pay much closer attention to the scenes I passed every day.

I haven’t seen the view from Belfer since March. I remember though, that during the winter, the view would be blanketed with a layer of fluffy white snow. In the summer and spring, the trees would be in full bloom and in the fall, they would be orange, red and yellow until they fell off the trees one by one. During a regular day you would see: pedestrians, busses, cars, bikes and so much more flooding the streets and the sidewalks. I can only imagine how bare the once bustling landscape must be.

Another striking aspect of this photo is the traffic lines painted on the streets. Block after block, the lines are almost identical, yet each street differs from one another at the same time. Although they are lined with buildings, they come in different colors, heights, materials and styles. This also reminds me of 19^th century Paris and its symmetry, as it was also the era of the department store, a time when mass production and mass availability was just rearing its head and every person started having access to the same products.

In life, scenes may appear identical, or nonchanging, but upon closer inspection you might be surprised to watch scenes change right before your eyes.