Saving Quarters

The days are lengthening through these cool spring months, and afternoons are warming up slowly in anticipation of summer's full force. Families up and down Henry Street and East Broadway have begun to hang their laundry out their windows to dry. Wire hangers clatter against the fire escapes and iron grates along the tenement facades, and the damp clothes flap like prayer flags in the breeze that whips across Lower Manhattan and the East River.