Ted Conover is the author of several books including Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America’s Hoboes, and Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. www.tedconover.com
About the photograph, he writes:
My friends Becca and Andrew invited me to take a Sunday afternoon stroll through Untermyer Gardens, a historic park overlooking the Hudson River in Yonkers, New York. Built as a private reserve early in the 20th century, it was given to the city and fell into decay after the death of its founder, a lawyer and investor. Lately people including my neighbor, Stephen Byrns, an architect and preservationist, are working to restore it.
It was hot outside and, wilted from a long tour of the Walled Garden, we almost didn’t continue to the decrepit Temple of Love. No one else was around. Becca had seen me photographing plants and suggested I take a picture looking up. Like other architectural elements of the garden, the ironwork has a Persian motif. That’s a storm rolling in above; half an hour later, the skies opened up and we fled.