It’s a rare sight. You walk up a small hill through a parterre of pretty white tombstones on well kept grass, aiming for the deepest blue autumn sky above, and suddenly, among the crosses and seemingly one of them, a familiar silhouette. Tall, slender even, stylish and sharp, it’s the Empire State Building. You’re in the Calvary Cemetery in Queens – that’s the middle of nowhere, or maybe slightly north of it.

Getting there without wheels isn’t so casual. It involved in my case a remote subway station, lots of walking and advanced dead reckoning. I had spotted the very nice perspective from the Kosciuszko Bridge on I-278 (above), on our way back from the Long Island nurseries, and even though the overpass had no pedestrian path I’d decided to come back and scout the vicinity for a similar view of distant Manhattan behind a hilly foreground of memories.

It turned out the best angle was to be found within the cemetery itself (below.) I walked around for a long time, alone, and shot many a silly picture of the Manhattan buildings emerging behind a forest of graves. It’s a beautiful – if a bit strange – sight that probably very few New Yorkers have enjoyed.

Until it’s too late, that is.