Yesterday a one-hundred year old retaining wall collapsed near 181st St in Washington Heights. Helicopters were kept a mile away to keep the vibrations from setting off more avalanches, so the video shots all presented the scene from a distance, blurred, with a trapezoidal area of dirt splayed across Riverside Dr.

The overturned trees look like broccoli, except they have firemen walking around among them. Cars backed up for blocks all around. Fantastic balance of themes: scale, obstruction, collapse, growth, structure. Dirt, trees and broken mortar as content... collapsing and spilling onto the highway as form.... Helicopter as publisher...