loves me ..loves me not

Central Park / New York, New York
One of the last vestiges of a summer now past, this flowering weed in Central Park is still hanging on for a few more days (or hopefully weeks) before a killing frost finally moves in brings it to the ground. I'm not sure what type of plant this is - I see them alot - and I'm pretty sure it's not part of the daisy or Asteraceae family though they look similar in color. They remind me of my mother - a woman of fairly simple tastes who loved daisies. They were by far her favorite flower and every summer she grew clumps of Shasta daisies and zinnias in the backyard which endlessly found themselves popped into a vase on the kitchen table. During her last couple of years, bedridden from a series of strokes, we placed her bed in the living room directly in front of the large glass windows looking out over the back lawn where she could still enjoy them during the summer months.