Of all American cities, New York is perhaps the most visually iconic. Even its public transportation is embedded in the national imagination, with arguably more people having seen the map of its subway system than maps of their own...
You know I’m actually not who I appeared to be kidding. I’m actually not sure this was my idea of a good time, not sure what’s exactly what in the glass elevator whose bellied window swerves your face away from your face. I’m actually not sure...
Everybody wants to assign the most obvious ideas to images. The most obvious idea about melting ice is human folly. It’s the destruction of the environment. It’s all the things we’re doing wrong. But these images aren’t a commentary on...
On August 16, 2016, a cruise ship called the Crystal Serenity departed from Seward, Alaska. The price for a place on its month-long voyage started at $22,000, but the Serenity had no trouble filling its berths: 1,700 people signed up to...
By the time the train approached the station, night had fallen. Sarah Wilcox gathered her bags and descended the stairs to the luggage rack. Her husband, Ethan Hughes, helped slide an unwieldy cardboard box toward the door. The steel floor...
Ahlam, twenty-seven, was visiting Germany for a conference in the spring of 2015 when war broke out in Yemen, her home country. Her family urged her to stay, so she applied for asylum. “For me, it’s a new life,” she said. “This is what I...
The Pizza Deck in Yosemite National Park sells beer for $30 a pitcher—a rip off in almost any situation, and I candidly told the bartender as much. Back at the tent site, my wife, brother, sister, and her boyfriend packed their gear in...
