Seeking Her New York

Life in Her New York has gotten sweeter and missing has gotten smaller.

Still, while forever peering into corners, wondering if I'm truly home, recognizable moments reveal themselves and I remember Her New York.

a quiet moment with an old friend and the bridge we grew up by

an old union hall

dancing in a bar

another form of mass transit

the world of the day job

everyone's second home and first, and sometime only, car

the kitty just as puzzled by Bond as I was by Star Trek

the office

Florence

Home

Encore: "She's A Native New Yorker"

Originally posted Tuesday, March 2, 2010
***
Yuki's bag

We literally met on international ground.

Even though she was being just as polite as everyone else, there was something about her that felt very familiar. I, on the other hand, was not just a fish out of water.I was a big fish out of water and a bull in a teeny tiny china shop - pick two - and it was all I could do to sit still and keep my mouth shut so I wouldn't get fired on my first day of work.

But rushing down a sweeping corridor filled with priceless art and important people, out of nowhere she said, "Have you noticed everyone here is so fucking polite?!"

To which all I could say in a flood of relief was, "Oh Thank God. You're a fucking New Yorker!"

Sunday Memories: Our Children's Stories

The bookshelf with all the Charles Addams books was in the adult section of the Seward Park Library. On the occasions I went with Florence she'd park me on a little wooden stool used by bigger people to reach higher places, stick a Charles Addams book in my hands, and then drift off to somewhere else.

I would sit there for hours, pouring over every picture, believing the secrets of life were being revealed to me.

Bloggers Gone Wild!!!

I think it was Jeremiah's (Vanishing New York) idea to "cash mob" a local business. That's when a whole bunch of people all show up at the same time and patronize the business.


Everybody wanted Ray's. That's the candy-newspaper shop where, in 1971 or 2, I used to stop by after babysitting on 22nd Street. It was often the only place on Avenue A with lights on. Ray's, being a little hole in the wall, will be another night.

I voted for Odessa over Lucy's because Lucy's had just gotten written up in the New York Times.


So with internet announcements abounding, a mob of nine gathered. Some of the best bloggers were there, including Gog In New York, East Village Corner, Tripping with Marty and One More Folded Sunset.


Between bites of challah grilled cheese, blintzes, kielbasi, pierogis and borscht, we assured one another that great revolutions often started with just a few brilliant minds and some really good food.

And Danny, happily giving out separate checks, got cashed by our mob. Now it's your turn.

ODESSA

(212) 253-1470

119 Ave A
New York, NY10009

Driving, New York Style

Not having a car or knowing how to drive one was not a big deal. My father learned late in life because he got transferred to Long Island. "A reverse commute. No traffic," he'd state Yoda-like. Still, he never liked driving, and would say as much with that unique "weight-of-the-world" terminal uniqueness that made it sound like he was preparing to face Goliath and we should never forget what he had to sacrifice in order to put food on the table.


It took me twenty years and three attempts to get my license. Branded in what's left of my 1976 memory is a certain point on 14th Street where my then-driving instructor ordered me to do a U-turn during early morning rush hour. Of course, I stalled the car smack across the dividing line.

So I have become an expert on being a relaxed, happy passenger on the rare road trips I'm coaxed into. Good at changing the radio station, maintaining interesting chatter and never participating in front or back seat driving.


All the while looking for anything that reminds me of home.

Sunday Memories: Ode To The Village Voice Classifieds: Part Three

Florence (right side of guy) on her day off at Grossingers'

During the late thirties and throughout War World II, Florence worked as a waitress. For someone who loathed domestic work, was a terrible cook and, although charming, wasn't exactly a people person, her choice had more to do with what was available to a young woman in those days rather than what she was good at.

Yet those years of serving procured her a bicycle on D-Day or V-Day or one of those victory days, and the Steinway piano she lived in until her death.

Years later, after a divorce severed a steady flow of money, Florence was suddenly faced with new financial matters as many women of her generation were when traditional structures crumbled.

As she stumbled to her independent feet, one of her first jobs was stocking cans at a supermarket and handing out teacher-evaluation forms at Hunter College, a school she attended for her Bachelors'. With a few more private students, she kept herself afloat.

The menial jobs were nothing to her. They were there for only one purpose. To support that daily battle of sitting down and being what she was - an artist.

***
A series on job hunting and gainful employment.

Ode To The Village Voice Classifieds: Part Two

Waiting rooms, millennium style

It used to be you had to show up at the HR office or the agency. Sit in waiting rooms that ranged from shabby, duct-taped chairs to sleek modern lines heralding the cutting edge of 1970s interior design. And hope the company was willing to interview you.

***
A series on job hunting and gainful employment.

Ode To The Village Voice Classifieds: Part One

The Village Voice trucks would pull up at the kiosk at Astor Place on Tuesday night. We'd already be waiting on line, hoping the classifieds were full of better paying opportunities than the shitty jobs most of us had.

That was rarely the case. Instead, escort services, sales jobs that seriously challenged what was legal and office assistant jobs that were anything but.

Now it's a daily "getting on the internet line" every morning, be it Craig's List, Monster or the New York Times. And now it's illegal wire transfer scams and ponzi schemes and office assistant jobs that are anything but.

***
A series on job hunting and gainful employment.

Sunday Memories: First Love

Captain Kirk on the starship, Enterprise
doing something important

For one thing (as Florence always said), I thought he was real. Which meant I thought the spaceship was real.

And another thing (as Florence always said) I really, really wanted to live up there with him where ever that was.

It wasn't just a nicer home I was after. In his world problems actually got solved and there also seemed to be a lot of good food literally at the push of a button.

But none of the subways seemed to lead anywhere near Captain Kirk's neighborhood. So, after our once-a-week Friday night visit to Gramma's to watch another hour of his life, I'd walk home with my older and wiser sister and have her explain to me everything that was really going on.

I wanted to be prepared for a better home where problems got worked out.

The War of the Walkers

It was mid-day and the bus was packed with walkers. Most of us sidled by or stepped gingerly over the wheels that couldn't help but protrude a bit into an already narrow aisle.

However, the lady with the cane was peeved and as she got off, complained loudly and directly to the several walker owners about how much space they took up.

I thought, well, how great it is that we live in a city where buses have these platforms that go down to the sidewalk and then rise you up like the Queen Mother on her way to christen a ship. How great it is we live in a city where people with walkers and canes and wheelchairs and just tired old legs still move through it as they always have, only now with a little extra spin.

How great it is we live in a city where it is still yours and mine and hers and his New York even when we get too old for just two legs.

Jutta's Kitchen Stops For Nothing

Even after getting hit by a car, even after years of litigation, even after failed cataract surgery...

...even after finding herself legally blind, even after her hearing got worse and worse and worse, even after....


... Jutta still paints.

And you, with your dreams and your passions, what did you do today?

***

Jutta's Kitchen: Part One

Jutta's Kitchen: Part Two

Jutta's Kitchen: Part Three

Jutta's Kitchen Revisited

Jutta's Kitchen Blooms

Jutta's Kitchen Meets The Internet

Sunday Memories: The Memory of No Memory

Dany asks if Florence ever didn't know who we were or where she was.

There were plenty of times, but I recounted the two moments that stuck with me the most.

One was in the ER when she tried to comfort me and urge me forward but couldn't remember any of the words. So she tapped out rhythms, counted out beats and conducted a bit, her thoughts and ideas buried deep in the language of music theory she had taught me since I was three.

The other moment was one of the many days we sat together watching movies we had just seen a week ago. Her favorites were Singing In The Rain and Sister Act. On this particular day, I took a picture of her visiting with Whoopi, somehow knowing it was time to capture it because it was time that was running out.

On that day, I did what I occasionally did - ask a bunch of questions to see where her memory was or wasn't. I told myself I was just keeping track. But part of me still didn't believe she wasn't leaving and my asking was me trying to prove it was all a mistake and that she was in fact getting better.

So I asked what I usually asked. "Do you know who I am?"

This day, though, was just like the other times, only worse. Her face got that terrible look on it like a little kid who knew she was failing in front of Teacher but couldn't remember what the answer was and was trying not to cry in front of the class.

And just like the other times I felt terrible for trying to prove I was wrong about everything going wrong and right about her returning home to the way it used to be.

I don't know what got into me, but without thinking I asked, "Do you know who Louise is?"

She paused and for a brief moment looked as she always had when pondering something important. Then she turned to me and tentatively answered, "Our boss?"

Somewhere, deep inside her muddled brain, my mom was still home.

Form and Content

The accoutrements of love were bursting all over the city. Everywhere you looked something herald the day of true love.

There were cupcakes.



And balloons.



And many tough looking guys carrying bouquets of flowers.



But very few looked particularly happy and no one looked the slightest in love. In fact one guy after giving his girl gorgeous roses then spent the next 20 minutes berating her about something as she stood there more and more stiffly, becoming a statue with stone flowers chiseled in her arms.

Until this couple.



There were no flowers or balloons or any sign of hearts and overly-sweet sentiments. All there was was her head on his shoulder watching something on her phone as he listened to music and did the crossword puzzle. Nothing else. Just the look of love.

"Only you 'neath the moon or under the sun..."*

Sunday Night

A whole lot of tired commuters and families and boyfriends and girlfriends and kids heading home filed onto the ferry. And there along side us was that familiar gunner boat, keeping us close as we crossed the harbor.

Monday morning

Day came and with it tourists taking pictures of the sun beaming upon working tankers and tugboats and barges. Not a gunner in sight.


* Night and Day - Cole Porter

Sunday Memories: Those Days of Wine and Occasionally Roses

Maureen B. on Second Avenue
About 12:30 am on Saturday night.

I didn't see her until I heard her asking me to call her an ambulance.

She looked like days of yore when drinking yourself into street stoops and toothlessness was a bit more common. She said she was from Ridgewood. Queens.

"You visiting friends, family?"

She snorted. "No."

"Just in for a drink?"

She laughed. The same way Florence would when to answer directly would mean admitting to a lifetime of fucking things up.

One of the Chinese kitchen workers from the nearby restaurant offered instructions on how to make her more comfortable.

As I talked to the police operator, I propped her up against my legs, while many young people came and went from the Irish bar next door. A couple of them offered to call or get help and one even tried to give me a dollar.

They were a better dressed version of my youth. And leaning against my legs was what could have easily been my old age, for it was on Second Avenue during days of booze, that my wobbling feet would weave up and down with hopes of love and when that didn't work out, hopes for cupcakes and something good on TV.

The ambulance showed up and the bouncer came out. "I told her not to sit down but down she went. She wasn't sitting there a long time, maybe a couple of minutes before you showed up."

"Perfect timing," I said.

After a couple of questions and snapping blue gloves on, the EMS guys got Maureen up on her feet. The bouncer watched and then said to me, "She just needed a warm bed tonight."

Like committing a petty crime for two-hots-and-a-cot, maybe getting drunk for a warm bed wasn't that much different than getting drunk for different kinds of sweets.

As I watched Maureen, tiny between the two EMS guys, hobble to the gurney, I looked into her face. Beat-up, sagging, ravaged by whatever bottle she lived in, there it was - the unmistakable memory of a little girl who must have laughed with great hope for something, something better than this, maybe even a little warm or a little sweet.

Television. Old School Style.

N Train going to Brooklyn

What's In A Name? Well, Just About Everything!

"... this serene spot in the hustle bustle world."
- comment left on the petition.

The request to co-name 13th Street "Cornell Edwards Way" was passed unanimously.

Bill said the Board had never received a petition like that before, over 400 signatures bursting with personal notes and stories and pictures and passion and love, commemorating and celebrating Cornell and the Flower Stall.

And so now we will always have Cornell there, standing witness to what it means to be in His New York.

The Flower Stall Series

Cornell Edwards and the Flower Stall - Mother's Day Then

Cornell Edwards and The Flower Stall - It Takes A City To Build A Village

What's In A Name? If It's Cornell Edwards Way, Quite A Bit: Part One

What's In A Name? If It's Cornell Edwards Way, Quite A Bit: Part Two

What's In A Name? If It's Cornell Edwards Way, Quite A Bit: Part Three

Sunday Memories At One Hellava Birthday Party

Morgan turned 60.

We all gathered at Ginger's Bar, unimaginable we would miss a chance to adore the friend who never wavered in her decades of love for any of us.

And in between drinks and cake, we also reveled at the years of knowing and remembering and held dear to one another because 60 used to be old and now it was us soon or us a while ago.

In those long ago times, we had woven tender ties with one another, making family out of friends and surviving a world that didn't recognize the complexity of who we were and what we did. (Because of Pops, Joan and Judith, there was a place that demanded such acknowledgment and it still thrives today.)

And here we all were, with different alliances, different loves, different cities, and, in the case of Ruth, a different state.

I don't know all the stories each of us has about Morgan. I just know 11,000 days multiplied by a bar full of fierce friends is what I hope for when I'm lucky enough to have another birthday.

"Nature Is An Act Of Perception"

What the "I-wish-he-was-my-boyfriend" 20 years my senior, alcoholic, eye-opening, life changing, insufferable, insane, fanatically honest, painter, writer and drinking buddy said to me in 1980. And who, in his generous way, invited me to understand I was not a disco barfly girl, but in fact someone who sought to express a perception of the nature I saw around me.

The Operative Word Was "AND"

On the eve Of Dana's 91st year Chinese food was ordered up.

There was no choosing this OR that. There was only AND.

So curry shrimp AND eggplant, dumplings AND spareribs, hot and sour soup AND wonton. And when they offered a free dish or soda, we all voted for the dish. AND sesame chicken. AND two kinds of apple pastries. AND rugelah....

AND AND....

So we ate as we wished, as much as we wanted and in the case of the spare ribs as much as we could.

The ridiculous OR and the arbitrary NO, that stupid CAN'T - all those inconsiderate words that pushed delight and pleasure into tiny boxes and corseted moments were finally defeated. This birthday year would be the year of the AND.

AND Polly the cat agreed.

Sunday Memories: It Was Their New York

Bleeker Street

Where in 1975 he found he had a sharp wit hanging with his buddy from the bookstore they both worked at.

The Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts

Where I hid from everyone in 1972 and 1973 and 1974, listening to records on industrial record players with thick, heavy headphones.

The Bohemian National Hall

What we found on an adventure through a city we grew up in but at different times and in different neighborhoods.

Treasure Hunting

On a rare walk around the Upper East Side, there it was.


Just like the many once scattered across Manhattan, it was filled with hundreds of nooks and crannies filled with thousands of possibilities.

Found tonight in the Mystery Shop was a pretty pink and orange satchel stuffed with two glass canisters all for $10, a pair of much needed oxfords for $10, two ties, both silk, one a Ralph Lauren the other a Calvin Klein, $3 each, a pair of metal framed reading glasses that wouldn't break like the plastic ones for $3 and a green leather belt with real leather for $7.

Even the pet carrier for $10 was worth the risk Jupiter wouldn't fit in it (he didn't) and how, if he didn't, it could then be donated to the shelter that just moved to 2nd Street. No matter what you didn't know you needed, it was there waiting to be discovered and uncovered.

While we divided up our new belongings, neighbors came and went, saying hello to Grant the owner and asking questions about the lamp they hoped was still there or if he had any coins to sell for a collector's birthday present. I knew it was time to leave when I had to fight the impulse to buy the naked Barbies for $3 each.


Later, in the the local bar next door, the three patrons and the barkeep talked about what they had tucked away at the Mystery Shop and how they needed to get back there one day to pick up their treasures.


The Mystery Shop
1672 First Avenue
between 87th and 88th Street
212.423.9920

The Year Of The Dragon

A student, probably one of the Chinese students from the Baruch Houses on the other side of the bridge, gave this dragon to Florence one year.

Word had gotten around in that immigrant enclave in the projects that an elderly teacher in Amalgamated on Broome Street gave $5 piano lessons to children and adults. By the end of her life, the majority of her student were Chinese-born or their children who were Chinese-American.

She offered the dragon to me at some point in the decline of her teaching. The ability to remember what each and every student was working on that week without reviewing her notes was no longer reliable and her knowledge of each family member and sibling terrifyingly erratic. It was OK to call me 'Louise' or 'Seymour' or 'YOU!' but to not remember a student's name was unacceptable.

There is a favorite Buddhist Gosho that states the call of the Sutra is like the roar of the lion. Therefore, what obstacle can't be overcome? This little dragon, which has resided on my alter since the day she gave it to me, is as close to a lion as I have. It reminds me not just to roar with fearlessness at the many real and imagined obstacles I face, but to roar in honor of Florence.

Sunday Memories: A Tale Of Two Brothers

From different cities and different worlds, the four daughters of the two brothers have all taken turns visiting, each one of us stepping into quiet worlds of indeterminate memories, bringing whatever gift we have left to give.

My sister attempting to celebrate our father's birthday, one rarely reached without people applauding, flew all night, strategizing paper plates, store bought cake and a car ride up and down a single hill, while I once again became a daily audience to his fading looped attempts to hold onto his daily life.


And hours away, one daughter sends weekly emails from the other side of a day, read aloud by a nurse to her father, my uncle ...


...while his other daughter hours and miles from her home was briefly remembered by him when he saw the shape of her nose.

Yet somehow, through the haze of a descending night, these two brothers still remember that they call each other 'bro' and that they both love cars. My father remembers his brother lives in a nursing home and my uncle remembers they took his watch away once he settled there.

They remember birthdays with a ferociousness that defy the fact one told me that joke two minutes ago and the other said he visited with a beloved brother-in-law dead for decades just the other week.

And still remembered, bedridden and fed institutional meals, is Kashrut and the choice to have chicken and milk because "I don't observe the laws".

In this silent devastation, minds leaving bodies that hold fiercely to the idea of another meal or another joke, an unexpected blessing unfolds. The brutal childhood, the broken marriages, the raging tempers, the failed attempts at love, the heartbreak of a disappointing life occasionally become the old world, a distant shore, a vague memory.

So we four daughters of two brothers from different cities and different worlds hold the memories once spat out in pain or fear or rage or lectures, while the two brothers may or may not remember our visits.

***
Related posts:

It Was His California

Sunday Memories: The First Home

Sunday Memories: A Winter Coat

RAIN DELAY: Thursday Post

Due to travel, there will be no Thursday post. Stay tune for Sunday Memories this coming January 22nd. Meanwhile, enjoy Tuesday's post of Guest Blogger Ted Krever's Staten Island. And if you are in the neighborhood, hop the ferry and enjoy the most beautiful harbor in the world.