A thousand years from now, or ten thousand, when all our buildings are fallen, when all our finery has gone to dust, when the archaeologists sift through the remains of our culture, the one color that will stand out in the gray rubble will be orange - the orange safety plastic that will last forever.

So it seems fitting that Christo chose this color for The Gates, his characteristically expansive installation in Central Park.

Of course, the colors of the New York City flag are blue, white and orange. Once the snow was on the ground and the sky cleared (the weather didn't initially cooperate), then the work itself, with the land and the sky, made one giant flag.

Whatever Christo's motivation, The Gates brought a bit of fun to a city unused to showing its happiness in public.

It is impossible to capture the feeling of strolling through the orange corridors, strangers smiling and talking to each other, as though temporarily transported to some more relaxed place. And not only is orange a difficult color to capture authentically on a computer screen, but, like red, it tends to blur badly in the common picture file formats. Nevertheless, here are some snapshots of the event, and some of the other orange things around town.