Broadway runs primarily north-south along Manhattan, but is not parallel to all of the other north-south avenues on the island.  Instead, it cuts diagonally from northwest to south east.  As a result, it creates a major intersection every several blocks as it crosses both an east-west cross-street and a major avenue at the same time.  Many such crossroads are famous, such as Times Square, Herald Square, Union Square, etc.   Madison Square (which is where Broadway crosses Fifth Avenue, not Madison — but I’m getting really  off-topic) is less well know by its name, but very well known for the Flatiron Building, built to fit the triangular block created by the odd intersection.

This photo shows where Broadway crosses Amsterdam Avenue (also known as 10th Avenue further downtown) at 72nd Street.  The actual crossing of the two avenues is behind the subway station stop.  This intersection has 2 “square” names, the subway house sits on Sherman Square, and  Verdi Square is a small park sitting to the left of this image, off camera.  The subway house is one of my favorite buildings in the city.  It is, according to this Wikipedia entry,  one of only 3 such subway houses in the city.  It sits on Sherman Square, which is actually a triangle similar to the one where the Flatiron sits.   Most subway entrances are completely nondescript by comparison.  The shot also shows Gray’s Papaya, home of the best hot dogs in the world.

The traffic light stays fixed for a long time to allow uptown traffic on Amsterdam Avenue to pass.  Those cars are seen as the streaks of light running from right to left.  It also caused the taxi and pedestrians waiting to cross Amsterdam to remain still through several long exposures.  The black shadowy figure, slightly hunched over with her grocery bags on the far left is one of my favorite elements in the image.