One of the things that makes New York City interesting is that large-scale spectacles sometimes occur without any warning or public announcement. It can be a parade of elephants marching down the street, early in the morning, on their way to the Ringling Brothers circus. Or long convoys of shrouded trucks, rolling down the highway at dawn toward the former World Trade Center, in the days after September 11th. Or, more innocently, a street fair that fills ten blocks of Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on a springtime Sunday afternoon.

Though it’s only a guess, I’ll bet there were 200 booths stretched out along what amounts to half a mile of Broadway this afternoon — selling junk food of every variety, trashy clothing, sunglasses, soap, and assorted knick-knacks of every conceivable variety. I assume they all had to coordinate with each other, and someone had to file an application with some City agency to get a permit to tie up traffic so badly. But I’d also be willing to bet that nobody in the neighborhood had the slightest idea it was coming … until they wandered out on the street and found themselves immersed in it all.

That’s what happened to me. I went out for lunch at a deli on the corner of Broadway and 97th Street, and then turned south to head to the gym on 92nd Street for my regular exercise session on the treadmill. Discovering the street fair at 96th Street, I pulled out my trusty Canon SD900 pocket digital camera (which I generally carry with me wherever I go, just for situations like this),and started snapping pictures.

The most amazing thing about the street fair was the amount of junk food offered to people wandering by. Most of it was fried, though there was also a lot of charcoal-grilled chicken, corn, and souvlaki; having gotten a mild case of food poisoning at a street fair some 25 years ago, I had no interest in any of it. I could understand how french fries, corn dogs, and various sugar-coated pastries would be attractive to people wandering by; but the appearance of deep-fried twinkies (there’s even a blog on the topic) and fried oreo cookies was a bit of a surprise. I also saw two or three booths offering something called “MozzArepas,” described as “mozzarella cheese, nestled in sweet tender cornbread, grilled to perfection.” I don’t know whether it’s Mexican, Spanish, American, or simply a malevolent concoction dreamed up by a desperate vendor … but I can’t imagine anyone eating this crap. In addition to the food, there was also a Coast Guard auxiliary booth, and a GoArmy.com recruiting booth, along with various other booths for the Sierra Club and other worthy causes.

I took some 200 pictures as I wandered up and down the street, though I only went as far as 91st Street before I finally gave up and headed to the gym. After I uploaded them to my computer, I deleted half of them and cropped and “enhanced” the remaining 100 (courtesy of iPhoto). You can see them all here, along with several other albums that I’ve uploaded over the past year or so, on Flickr.

Enjoy!