Monday, March 31, 2008

New York, New York it's a helluva town!

Speaking of songs about NYC there's this!


Huzzah!

Another hundred people.

New York City is not a city that loses people. Even if people leave they are quickly replaced, outpaced even, by the number of new people coming in.
Most of the newcomers stay.

I think about the fact that the isle of Manhattan is (mostly) a finite amount of space. “Undesirable” neighborhoods do not stay that way for very long because the people need to go somewhere. The Hell’s Kitchen that I was introduced to a mere ten years ago (though considerably different from it’s identity in the 70s) is nearly unrecognizable. The Meatpacking District still felt vaguely threatening 7 years ago. Now, just about the only threatening thing about it is how much you’ll spend while in the shiny, Spartan-chic stores holding the labels that let everyone know just how wealthy you are. Bridge and Tunnel yuppies make it their bachelor and bachelorette party destination spots.

Condos and high-rises go upupup as do the prices and still there’s a housing shortage.

The City just doesn’t lose people. And those people have to go somewhere.

I find myself thinking about whether or not there’s going to come a time in the City’s life, in Manhattan-proper specifically, when there’s no where else for the people to go. I wonder when that breaking point will be.
I wonder about the amount of stress the buildings exert on the structure of tunnels beneath our feet and how long the steel girders and carefully spaced arches will hold up.

Or will we simply begin to build down?

Saturday, March 29, 2008

It's always something.


Today on a walk North on Classon from Bergen to Pacific -after visiting an apartment in the area- the Girlfriend (who shall be referred to as Bighead in posts going forward) and I saw a sign (like the one above only in red and green paint on a piece of wood that had been painted white) directing us to a warehouse where one could buy live poultry. I didn't quite believe the sign when I saw it but upon looking in as we passed, my doubts were soon disproved.
I do not know it that made me feel more or less comforted.

We'd already decided that this was a little too far out for us but the live poultry warehouse certainly put the nail in that coffin.

I feel like just when I begin to get used to the City it shows me something else.

In the tunnels





On my ride to work on the R Line to Manhattan between Dekalb and Whitehall Street are REVS diaries. Those above are not the entries, but I wanted to have something to show.

We are going to quickly for me to read them but whenever I see those black letters against yellowish paint How did he get down here, in the tunnels? Did he sit and watch and time the trains? Did he do it in the wee hours of the morning? I feel strangely comforted. I feel like I’ve been given a gift by someone I don’t know but root for and look for. And I do look for his work. It’s all over the City. It’s bold and to the point. His point. It is as much a part of the landscape of NYC as are the high-rises and the grid. A crucial part of the tapestry of what makes this city so unique like the sudden flash as gold thread catches the light.

It’s these unexpected moments of beauty that make me so grateful to be here.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Big favors in small spaces

There is nothing like being in a crowded subway car and noticing a fellow rider utilizing the subway fold.

In the City kindness comes in fits and starts and in some of the simplest and most refreshing ways

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

But you should see the Cloisters in Fall.

I did not know that I was pretty until I moved to NYC.

When I was growing up I got used to hearing all of the usual you’d-be-so-pretty-ifs from my family and I kind of think that one of the reasons that I moved to the City was so that I wouldn’t have to hear them anymore.

I just assumed that there would be so much more beauty happening in the City and, conversely, so much more un-beauty happening that I could just slip in, safe and discrete, between the two.
But no, I got here and suddenly there were no more ifs. The City is beautiful and I am a part of it so I guess it must have rubbed off.

Luckylucky me.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

On the R Train

Sometimes I just ride the subway to listen.
I don’t read a book or a magazine. I don’t listen to my iPod.

I sit and look at the other riders and make up stories about their lives. I wonder where the dust came from on that man’s boots and think about how in the weeks following 9-11 it wasn’t just the construction workers that had dust on their shoes and the bottom of their pants.
I look at the children turning to face the windows so that they can wave to people on the passing trains.
I look at the different colours of the different people and I am lulled, as ever, by the gentle rocking of the train as it speeds through the tunnels along the tracks.
I am comforted by the rushing clickandclack and feel great communion with the NYers around me.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Easter Sunday

My Grandmother calls The City “Babylon” and when I first told her that I was moving here, years ago, she said that she’d pray for me (and reminded me to pray) because she was worried about my soul. The City being a den of heathens and all of their sin.

Well, Easter Sunday comes every year with splendor. I’d say that Easter here is a Faberge egg.

As Sug Avery says, “...Even sinners have song.”

Childlike

I think some people worry about whether or not the children who grow up in NYC have an opportunity to really be children or if they are thrust, at too early an age, right into the madness of it all.

There are a lot of children in the Park Slope area. A lot of children with power-broker mommies and stay-at-home rock-and-roll daddies; beautiful brown children who are the best combination of their parents disparate ethnicities and races; children with two mommies; children with two daddies. These children ride the subway, go out to dinner, enjoy a late brunch, learn how to properly pronounce espresso and drink bottled water.

But they're still kids, you know. They still freak out when they are tired (of boutique shopping). They still jump up and try and catch the softness blowing in the wind. They are the most appreciative of butterflies of any children that I've ever seen. They still write their names and their dreams in bright chalk on sidewalks and they still laugh.. like children.

I think, for the most part, the the children thrust themselves upon The City. They keep it majikal and full of wonderment. They hear all of the music and purposeful order that lies just under the current of everyday helter-skelter and they sing it back to The City with joy.

And NYC is better because of it.

Coming up in the world.

I have heard that this summer they are making 4th Avenue (in Brooklyn) all pretty by putting in garden medians and slightly widening the lanes.

They're getting it all nice and glossy for the shiny new condos going up and down the Avenue.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

It always comes back to Ani at some point.

“Buildings and bridges were made to bend in the wind. To withstand the world that’s what it takes. All that steel and stone are no match for the air my friend; what doesn't bend breaks.”

I can feel, from 16 floors up, the building moving in the wind. The waves crash upon the shore. To think: the NYC coastline has been expanded by building atop rubble.

When the sun breaks through the clouds it spotlights the Statue of Liberty.
I really love New York.

For the time being.

The saying, as I’ve heard it, “On a clear day you can see forever.”
Okay, so it's not a saying, it's a Barbra movie.

Nonetheless, I must admit that I don’t actually care about forever.
From the windows in my office, even on this grey day, I can see Governor’s Island, the winding of the cars along the BQE and the Carnival Cruise ship docking in the Brooklyn Ship Yards, the Verezano Bridge, Staten Island, Liberty Island and the Statue herself (her green quite a welcome contrast to the grey), Ellis Island and all of the harbor. I see tug boats pushing and pulling and letting the big dogs know that they’re there, I see the orange of the Staten Island Ferries coming and going, slow and steady and resolute against the tide and the speed of Manhattan proper, I see helicopters and police boats zipping along.

When I look down I see the work being done on the new 1/9/R/W transfer. I’ve been watching the work progress for two years now. This time last year the construction workers where busy as bees on the surface of the build site and now they scurry like ants finishing things up underground. They’ve already laid sod down on the 1/9 entrance near Bowling Green making the park just a little bigger. The coastline pushes out as Manhattan expands. Cemeteries get excavated and new life comes flooding in.

Who needs forever when you can see all of this?

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Under my feet.

There are places on the stairs at the Union Street R stop that are worn down so smooth so as to be shiny as new pennies.

I look down when I walk and am always surprised by their near mirror sheen. I wonder how many steps it took to make this happen.

Lady-like

I will probably never be able to wear heels all day long up and down the city streets like the proper Manhattan lady.
But I admire (for the most part) their sense of style, their mind-over-matter dedication to fashion and their being some tough broads in a tough city.

You know the ladies on Sex & the City cheated. They took cabs everywhere.

Growing pains.

When I was in Edinburgh last year I remember looking around at the buildings and noting how old they were. Someone said, "That's because New York is actually a very young city."

Perhaps they're right. That would explain why she's constantly pushing at her boundaries with new condos and co-ops. Teenagers do that.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Already one behind.

I spent all yesterday trying to think of something pretty to say about how the sight of buds on the trees that line 6th Avenue and 10th Street on my way to the Tea Lounge to get some coffee and meet Portia (somewhat a perfect Sunday, I think) just filled me with joy.
Indescribable joy.

I know that there are people who look out of their windows and see rolling hills and verdant fields and trees everywhere; I do not know if they treasure this evidence of Spring as much as NYers do.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

It's versace.

My sister and my cousin pronounce ENYCE as en-ee-chee and are shocked SHOCKED that it's actually pronounced en-why-see.

It makes me miss the City even more.

I'm not sure if this post is about NYC or my family. Either way, I think it's a good start.