The Battery seawall from down on the beach, early in the day.

Coming down onto the shell beach at the foot of the wall gives a view most people walk straight past. The wall curves away from the bottom of the frame in a long arc, and the houses sit above and behind it in a row — pink, then white, then cream — with palmettos in front of them and the harbor flat off to the left. The sky is clear and pale with a little color still sitting at the horizon.

Blue, cream and pink. Clean and calm. It does not need much wall around it.