Hudson Street & Grove Street

I’m a big sucker for lists. There’s something very satisfying about seeing a quantity of information stacked up so neatly together. It’s pretty simple for me to understand the appeal. I like to learn things. Everything we take in broadens our appreciation of everything else — each good work points towards its antecedents and its followers. It gets me excited to imagine, trying to run down every tangent of that twisted, often intersecting web. I’m in the habit of planning out the next five books I’ll read, before I’m close to finished with the ones that I’m already on. And just that planning starts me daydreaming, and daydreaming puts me in a great mood. I think that’s where I live a large part of reality.

So obviously, this city makes a lot of sense for me to live in. I can approach it all as one big list – first 15th Street, then 16th Street, etc… I can choose whatever self imposed parameters I like, different ways in which to engage. That’s one of the positives with lists: they’re arbitrary, they’re subjective, they’re just suggestions. You can pick them up and drop them as you like. A list taken too seriously becomes a mantra, and a mantra taken too seriously will often make a scary person. I don’t want to be a member of a church, but I’m glad that churches have been built, because I like to go and look at them. Hmmm. I’m not sure what that means exactly. Am I just cruising on a free ride here, finding all of my enjoyment from things that came before me?

Ah well, it keeps me busy at least. And I would say that finding a new garden to sit in qualifies as keeping busy. Of course it does! The church of Saint Luke in the Fields maintains a lovely one, right next to its chapel on Hudson Street by Grove. Walking around in there gives you some nice views of the back of the church and the surrounding row houses. If you get your line of vision just right you can imagine that you’re standing in the plot of some small country parish. And that’s basically what this church first was, when it was founded in 1821 to serve the village of Greenwich. Named for the patron saint of physicians, it was built on land donated by Trinity Church; before landfill extended out the shoreline of Manhattan this spot stood right on the river’s edge. It’s simple design points towards it origin as a country church, and summer chapel for New Yorkers escaping the frequent diseases the warmer months brought upon the city.

Trinity Church built the brick row houses that surround Saint Luke in 1825, reflecting what was already a growing and changing neighborhood. By the end of the 19th century, with Greenwich Village the home of large groups of immigrants and the working class, the congregation decided to move their location uptown, and in 1891 Saint Luke was taken over by Trinity Church, becoming one of its chapels. In 1956 a large number of houses around it were torn down and a school building, playground, and the current garden were erected. By 1976 Trinty Church had decided to divest itself of all but one of its chapels, and Saint Luke was once again an independent parish, as it remains today. It suffered a huge fire five years later, but enough of the original survived for the church to still be considered the third oldest in NYC. It’s an unassuming distinction that seems to fit its style. I’ve written about the second oldest church in these pages already. Do I detect some type of list developing here? How about the oldest church in NYC? How about the eighteenth oldest? Or should we approach it maybe by denomination — how many Catholic churches, how many Episcopalian? (Saint Luke is the latter, by the way). Do we wanna toss some Jewish synagogues into the mix? It’s not a question of hierarchy; it doesn’t matter what falls first and what falls second. It’s all just a refrain, each entry on the list is saying, “Here’s our world, here’s our world.” They’re all in conversation with each other. We’re in that conversation too — our numbers listed.

(Originally posted April 10th, 2009 on Takethehandle.com)

Fifth Avenue & 82nd Street

I’m back in New York City after a couple of weeks in Italy, marveling at how wide all of our streets feel. The reports are true; there’s nothing called Third Avenue in Europe. Or 14th Street. Compared to Rome, Park Avenue is like the god damn Grand Canyon! The Via del Corso, Rome’s main thoroughfare, is probably slimmer than Bleecker Street. But fair enough. The urban reality was different a couple thousand years ago (even a couple hundred). There was no such thing as city planning, for one thing. And most of the buildings that make up Manhattan today aren’t any older than the turn of the last century. You’re looking at a completely different use of space.

Of course, while the buildings might not be any older than a hundred years, the forms they use most often are. New York is full of examples of architectural revival, playing off of styles developed hundreds of years before. But I like how these second-generation movements become significant in their own right. Just as the actual Greeks can be placed in a specific place and time, so too for something like Greek Revival. Or the neo-classical Beaux-Arts style, which seemingly drew on almost everything that came before it, though I suppose there were some guidelines. Amongst other things, it emphasized the example of Imperial Roman architecture between the rule of Augustus Caesar and the Severan emperors. Oh boy, I love that type of distinction, really, and I don’t even know what the hell they’re talking about!

Beaux-Arts was a big deal in the United States between roughly 1885-1920, which lines up pretty well with the creation of the New York of the present day. A lot of prominent NYC buildings are in this style, including Grand Central Terminal, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The same goes for the mansion across the street from the Met, the Benjamin N. & Sarah Duke House on the corner of 82nd Street. This is some conspicuous wealth on display here, none the less so since you’ve got the Metropolitan as your next door neighbor. Now traveling in Italy was a reminder to me that rich folks have been around a lot longer than America (in size alone the Palazzo Pitti has this place beat for sure). But what strikes me as specifically American about the mansion is the fact that it was originally built on speculation – sold on the market to Benjamin Duke of the American Tobacco Company, only after it had been completed in 1901. It tells you a little bit about those times, in the Upper East Side at least, that a house like that could be built with the confidence someone would buy it. I can’t see a Florentine development firm saying the same thing about the Palazzo Pitti – “Ah, the Medicis will probably will take it. As soon as that shipment of Flemish wool comes in this town is going to be rolling in dough.” But hey, guess what? The Medicis did take it, after the Pitti family went broke and they had to sell it all away.

Benjamin Duke sold this house too, to his brother James in 1907, while James was waiting for the construction of his own mansion to be finished. It was, in 1912, and he moved in there, on Fifth Avenue & 78th Street; it’s now the graduate school of art history for NYU. It was James’ endowment to Duke University in 1924 that gave that school its name. Benjamin himself decided he would rather live at the Plaza Hotel. Then he changed his mind again and had a mansion built to order (no speculation this time) on Fifth Avenue & 89th Street. It was later torn down to make way for the Guggenheim. The Duke Mansion on 82nd Street stayed in the family though, even after being subdivided into apartments in 1985. It was only recently sold out of it, for $40 million, down from the asking price of $50 million, which had made it one of the most expensive townhouses ever on the market.

But what’s all that to me? This morning, my big decision was whether to eat the other half of my apple now, or to save it for later. It was a Fuji, which though developed in Japan, is a cross between two American varieties, the Red Delicious, and the 18th century Virginian Rawls Genet. I had the window open. There was a lovely breeze.

(Originally posted April 2nd, 2009 on Takethehandle.com)

Civita di Bagnoregio

Hurray, I’m still in Italy!

We’re in the tiny town of Bagnoregio, on the border of Lazio, near Umbria. This place is basically the whole reason we came out here. My parents lived in this village for one year about thirty years ago, when my mom was doing field work for her PhD in anthropology. My dad mainly hung around in the central square and played basketball. Not a bad gig. I feel like I should try to get in on that. I mean, why isn’t my wife traveling abroad for research purposes and taking me with her? Huh? Honey?

Ah well, it’s enough to be here for a few days at least. Bagnoregio is a town of about two thousand people, pretty much off the map, and surrounded by villages that are equally unknown. And that’s part of what makes it so amazing. Picture an equivalent size place in the United States and then imagine the area that lies within a forty minute drive around it. And then imagine that whole area full of 13th century churches and castles and Etruscan ruins. It’s like: oh yeah, this is just a little nothing town, and then, oh yeah, and there’s our thousand year old building with a foundation dating back to pre-Roman times. Uh, yes please!

Bagnoregio translates to Bath of the King, from an old story that a king traveling to Rome stopped here to take a bath in the river. It’s a hill-town, as so many towns in this region are, built on the hard tufa rock that lies in the area. Its old section is made up of one narrow street, running the length of the plateau, with a few small streets running off of it at different points. The village looks down on the valley below, where historically everybody’s farmland lay. The Italians are an urban people — for centuries and centuries these villagers grew their crops in the ample land of the valley, and chose to live crowded in upon each other in the tiny town above. Our friends we’re staying with out here own some land, where they grow olives for oil, and they’re building a bed and breakfast on the property. When they showed us the building they’re renovating to make the B&B it turned out to be an ancient church. “Yes,” our friend Dante said, in typically casually fashion, “this is from the 6th century.” And I’m like, holy shit Dante, you’re blowing my mind over here!

This was my experience a few different times around these parts. The gem of the whole region is Civita di Bagnoregio — an ancient hill-town dating back to Etruscan times. It lies on the outskirts of Bagnoregio and it’s only accessible by a concrete footbridge, too narrow to accommodate any cars. Depending on who you talk to the town once had a population of anywhere from four to twenty thousand people. But time, erosion, and earthquakes have taken their toll — every decade or so a house is condemn for fear it will fall off the side of a cliff — and now the place has a full-time population of about ten. Some of them are Dante’s wife’s family; they run a tiny restaurant here and after lunch they showed us their basement. It basically never ended, with room after room descending deeper and deeper into the earth. The initial few narrow stairways all had ramps built into them, for rolling down casks of wine. The rooms kept getting smaller and smaller, until we reached the point we had to stop. “We’re not sure when this last one dates from,” they said. They pointed towards another stairway that led down into darkness. “We can’t go down there, because we haven’t put any lights down,” and then again, very casually, “it goes down about 20 more meters.” That’s about 60 feet people. I’m not a brave man, but I wanted very badly to walk down there anyway. Because, obviously, I want very badly to travel back in time. And in a certain sense this seemed to be my closest bet.

It wasn’t right for me entirely to refer to Bagnoregio as off the map. Civita has gotten fairly popular with tour groups, and with the wealthy looking for a second home. The population grows in summer, with people from Rome coming up to stay, and other places too, as far away as Boston, or California. That’s the way it goes now. In the basements we have the past, and up here we have the future. Is it a bad thing, the future? I don’t know. But it makes me think, everything happens in this world because people speak to each other — they communicate, in different mediums, and the life we lead changes because of it. It all comes down to talking. Though maybe I’m just saying that because my family won’t ever shut up. And all these Italian people as well. Mangia, mangia, they all yell at me. Yeah, all right, I’ll mangia. Pass the cinghiale.

(Originally posted Mar. 27th, 2009 on Takethehandle.com)

Roma

Holy shit, I’m in Italy!

Or have I just invented a time machine? I’m not so sure. But no, it can’t be that — there are cars here, and they’re seemingly trying to run me and my family over every chance they get. I’m not taking it personally though; by the looks of it they’re after everybody with equal indiscretion. Here comes one now.

Mama mia, they’re tiny ones at least, just like the streets. Absolutely perfect streets. You wouldn’t believe cars could even fit on them, let alone make their way between the crush of people. I love it. But then again, Rome is a city seemingly custom built to blow my mind. No surprises there. We’re talking about a place well over 2000 years old — the foundation of the culture I’m apparently the most obsessed with. There’s not even close to an equivalent in the United States. It makes you redefine your idea of antiquity. And every single thing, both piccolo and grande, puts me more and more inside the state of some ecstatic, frenzied dream. I’m trying to stay cool about it. I’m trying to handle it the way I do on the nicest day of the year, and just let it all come, rather than try to dwell on every moment. Dwelling on every moment here would make my head explode.

We’re staying on the Via Liguria, off of the old fashionable district of the Via Veneto, and by Roman standards this is a pretty modern neighborhood, mainly developed after the unification of Italy in 1861. We’re nearby the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, both built at a time when New York City was mainly farmland. And that’s the thing: the oldest buildings you’ll find in NYC are 17th century farmhouses. The equivalent Late Renaissance and Baroque period buildings and churches here in Rome are already ancient looking enough to my American eyes. And that’s just scratching the surface! Then we take a walk (countless walks) around the Centro Storico, with its narrow cobble-stoned streets and Renaissance plazzos and piazzas, or else medieval Trastevere, the old Jewish quarter with its even narrower alleys and turns that defy any type of mapping. This is around the point where I start losing it.

And that’s all disregarding the actual Roman ruins themselves — principally the Colosseum and the Forum. The Palatine Hill, where the Emperor and the wealthy and powerful used to live was a particular treat — amazing views, ample sunshine on the orange trees, and walks through the foundations of endless rooms of former palaces. As always I’m drawn to the idea of transitions. At what point did each of these buildings fall? When were they each finally, in turn, left uninhabited? Did the people living there know it was all over? I have images of cattle grazing amongst the ruins, tended by peasants gazing vacantly up at the columns, accepting it all unthinkingly as their birthright. I guess it’s our birthright too. I try to basically take it in the same way, or as I said, I think I would go crazy. The same goes for thinking on something like the early Christians martyred in the Colosseum, thrown to the lions, back when Christianity was a tiny sect, a cult with underground worship and catacombs, slowly spreading in appeal to the downtrodden of an Empire where over half the population might have been slaves. Ah well, Christianity got its revenge. Which reminds me, I haven’t even mentioned the Vatican and all the treasures that lie there. After all, it’s Christianity that made Rome the Eternal City: relevent for all these years after the fall of the Empire. Without that as its source of power, Rome might be one giant ruin today, instead of being very much alive, as each passing car you run away from will remind you.

So all right, it’s not all completely different than the States. They’ve got Sam Axelrod out here too, of “Sammy’s Got the Bar Back.” And he’s pretty much the same as in America, good for drinking wine with in front of the Pantheon at least. There’s no shortage of press about the Pantheon, but let me tell you, it’s all deserved. This is the most intact of any of the Roman buildings. It’s a temple to all the gods, completed in its current form sometime around A.D. 120. The mathematical and aesthetic perfection of the dome is amazing, making it basically the most important building in art history. Or so the say.  I think Sammy was digging it at least. He said it reminded him of his song for next week, which I think is something fairly new school, like Puccini.

(Originally posted Mar. 19th, 2009 on Takethehandle.com)

McCarren Park

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I wouldn’t try to claim absolutely everything in this world for beauty. And that’s the truth – especially in this city, where the number of beautiful, arresting sites is probably close to inexhaustible. I don’t have to dig too hard. I’m speaking about physical beauty here, the type of beauty one can see, and though something like that is hardly quantifiable, it tends to lend itself at least towards the chance of broad agreement. For example, the general line would probably go – Central Park: beautiful, McCarren Park: not.

I won’t argue otherwise. McCarren Park is pretty ugly. But I will try to claim it, and anywhere else you care to mention, for the beauty that comes with knowing the background of a place. I ride by here everyday; I hang out here at least once a week eight months or so out of the year. So do a lot of other people. It just seems right that I should know the forces that made up this spot. What do we ultimately gain by that? I don’t know. Is that a question? I guess it’s just one way to pass the time really. And it reminds me that I’m doing that, passing the time, imbuing it with what ever meaning that I choose. And that makes me feel better. When I’m in an art museum (again, inevitably the Met) and I see something like a decorated water pitcher from some ancient Roman household, I feel the same thing. This object served a function in a place and way of life that is now completely gone. These people had their meanings, and their rituals, their daily lives. Sometimes they got thirsty and they took a drink. Now it’s my turn. Let’s see what’s going to happen.

McCarren Park was ultimately built upon the land that made up the lower end of Bushwick Inlet. You can see it on the bottom of this 1766 map. Incidentally, that little spit of land sticking out into the East River, in the middle of the map below Newtown Inlet, was the original spot sailors referred to as Greenpoint, from which the whole neighborhood would take its name. Until about the 1830s this area was all farmland, settled almost entirely by just five families (including the Meseroles and Calyers). Development began in earnest after that and by the time the park was built, between 1903-1905 the neighborhood was close in layout to the one we know today. The site that would make up the park was divided into four blocks by separate trolley lines; the city acquired each block in turn and proceeded to build two playgrounds with gymnasium equipment, one for boys around Bedford Avenue & North 14th Street and one for girls around Manhattan Avenue & Driggs. They named it Greenpoint Park.

Its name was changed to McCarren upon the death of Patrick Henry McCarren in 1909. He was a state senator of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, and a central figure in pushing for the construction of the Williamsburg Bridge. He was also supposedly a pretty corrupt ally of big business monopolies like Standard Oil, and a heavy gambler at the racetracks (hey, these were still the Tammany Days). Soon after the park changed its name a whole series of athletic facilities were built upon it, and in 1914, Brooklyn’s first children’s farm garden, where kids were taught to grow crops on small plots of land. The biggest development of all was the pool, the 8th out of 11 swimming pools opened throughout New York City in the summer of 1936, all built by the Works Progress Administration. Based on this picture I’d say that the New Deal in general was pretty fucking awesome. Here’s to government spending! But I won’t get all political on you. Some of the kids in this photo are probably still living in the neighborhood, walking these same streets. And some of their great-grandparents might have been related to the original five families, again walking these same streets when they were country lanes connecting farmhouses to each other. Probably none of them are related to the Keskachague Indians who lived here before it all, but you never know. You need to go pretty far around here to find someplace that hasn’t been stepped on already, and even then you’re only guessing. That’s true of almost anywhere really, except maybe some sub-Antarctic Island. Anybody want to go to some sub-Antarctic Island? Most of them are uninhabited, and always have been. My first pick would probably be Campbell Island. Here’s a photograph.  It gives a good idea of what we’re dealing with – more like the opposite of footprints. Still, isn’t it beautiful?

(Originally posted Mar. 12th, 2009 on Takethehandle.com)

Stuyvesant Street & 10th Street

It snowed a lot on Monday; you might have noticed. I suppose that’s March’s modus operandi, hitting you with a nice dose of winter just as you’re getting ready to put it to bed. So why not roll with it? Enough of this endlessly looking forward – let’s turn the tables on this month and embrace the here and now. If it’s snow we’re gonna get, then that’s what we’re gonna work with. Should we maybe make a snowman, or go sledding? Are you kidding, it’s fucking cold outside! All I’m talking about is taking a little walk along a snow-lined block, somewhere with a nice winter wonderland aesthetic. We have a lot of those to choose from. The first one that popped into my mind was Stuyvesant Street, where it runs into Tenth.

I love this city. I love its patterns and the many ways it works. But I realize that so much of what I seek out are the exceptions – the areas where something else sneaks through. The cliche might be to say the places where we feel humanity, the individual, reigns a little stronger. But I don’t go for that: I find New York to be incredibly human, and humane, in all its forms. The only steady rule here is that you’re going to have to deal with people. I’m okay with that. Still, it is a tribute to New York’s mythic force – what you could almost call its hegemony – the certain things we even call out as exceptions. Like Stuyvesant Street, which runs diagonally through the street grid between 2nd and 3rd Avenue. A diagonal street! In the East Village! How many people in other towns are going crazy over something as simple as that? How many people are in this town? I know I’m not the only one.

Stuyvesant Street, as you might guess, gets its name from the Stuyvesant family, who owned a large farm and estate here until early into the 19th century. The Bowery, from the Dutch word “bouwerij” for farm, was the main access road from New York. Stuyvesant Street was the road that ran off from the Bowery to their manor house, which was situated around where Saint Mark’s Church stands today, on 2nd Avenue and Tenth Street. When the manor house burned down in 1778 the land was donated to the Episcopal Church with the stipulation that they build a chapel. Saint Mark’s was finished in 1799, making it the second oldest extant church building in Manhattan. The tiny Bowery Village, which had sprung up around this area, began to grow in number around that time, aided by Petrus Stuyvesant III laying out a street grid on his property. Farmers would meet here to sell their wares, since it lay outside the city of New York and its taxes. It’s worth mentioning that one reason population growth was slow before that was for fear of the highwaymen lurking in the Bayard woods to the south. Now can we all just take a moment and freak out over a statement like that? Woods and highwaymen hanging around in what is roughly modern day SoHo? All right? I’m freaking out, how’s it going for you?

The Commissioner’s Plan of 1811 laid out the grid system that we all know so well today. It showed some definite foresight as to Manhattan’s exponentially growing population, laying out a street plan up to 155th Street at a time when New York itself lay mainly below present day Houston. In a further presentiment of the city we know today, no geographical features were taken into account in laying out the grid. These streets were going up be it over hill, stream, swamp or meadow. So how do you sneak a diagonal street into that pattern? Basically you have a lot of money. Stuyvesant Street was a busy thoroughfare at the time and that was the reason given for it being allowed to stay, but it couldn’t have hurt that one of the most powerful families in the city lived on the block. Well sure, it was powerful men making the rules, so why not powerful men making exceptions for them. Maybe that’s where a lot of New York’s anomalies line up with the general story of this city: they were made in large parts possible because of money. I don’t know, I came too late for that debate. I just walk around here. Stuyvesant Street is one of the few streets in Manhattan that actual runs true east-west. And that’s nice, because the sun is shining. It’s supposed to break 60 degrees this weekend. So forget anything I said about snow, or cold, or embracing the moment. Or yeah, embrace the moment, just not the moment yesterday. Or you know, what the hell, embrace everything. Go on, do it.

(Originally posted Mar. 6th, 2009 on Takethehandle.com)

Flushing Avenue & Onderdonk Avenue

February is almost over. I’ve been measuring its passage by the changing angles of afternoon sunlight in my apartment. As the sun creeps every day a little higher in the sky, its rays reach new corners of the kitchen, the living room. The other evening I had a perfect streak right across the bottom of my bed. I think it was Pip in Great Expectations who talks about those March days when it is “summer in the sun, and winter in the shade.” So all right, we’re not there quite yet. But we’re damn close. And it still puts me in the mood to go exploring — my route dictated by whatever street the sun happens to be shining on. You keep inside that glow and you’ll stay warm enough.

I’ve always equated industrial landscapes with the summertime. But maybe it would be better to say that I equate them with strong sunlight, anything that brings their solid forms cut out in sharp relief. I took a ride the other day around the southern end of Newtown Creek, crossing over into Queens. These streets are public, but I can never shake the feeling that I’m trespassing when I’m on them. It doesn’t help that every other road dead-ends, or is suddenly and irrevocably stopped short by railroad tracks. While I ride I like to keep an eye out for the first sign of residential buildings. Borders between neighborhoods are always fascinating. One block on a map might not look like much, but on the ground it’s a different story. And which direction you approach something does a lot to help make up your first impression. You can’t help but think of streets as linear, as chronological almost, point A and then point B, when actually they’re all existing everywhere around each other all at once.

That point is hammered home by the Vander Ende-Onderdonk House, on the corner of Flushing Avenue and Onderdonk, in Ridgewood, Queens. This is perhaps the oldest Dutch Colonial stone house in NYC. It was built in 1709 on the site of what was once a large farm. Now it’s surrounded by cinder-block warehouses and sheet metal. Flushing Avenue is not a pretty street; it doesn’t put you in the frame of mind to expect a farm house, and at first glance you could almost mistake this one for a utility shed. It was only the few acres of green lawn and picnic benches around it that made me stop. But once I did my mind could start to construct a different picture. Ridgewood extends up the hill from Flushing Avenue, with some fine views of Manhattan, and for a moment I could picture it all swathed in grass, sown fields, and chopped down tree stumps. I can only think on something like that for a short time before I start muttering to myself with some combination of excitement and frustration. I want to know what this world looked like, when it was still this world, the planet Earth, and also something else entirely. And you can’t ever really do that. Oh well, alack the day, as some old dude once said. Here’s a picture of the house, from 1910.

The Onderdonk house and farm played a big role in the early border disputes between Brooklyn and Queens, when in 1769 a giant boulder on the property – there after known as Arbitration Rock – was established as the boundary marker between them. On one side was Kings County, and the old Dutch town of Bushwick, and on the other was Queens, and the newer English settlement of Newtown (what would become the current neighborhood of Elmhurst). The rock grew less important after both counties consolidated with the city of New York, and in 1925 the border was redrawn entirely, in a more scientific fashion. By the 1930s the rock had been completely buried under the newly graded Onderdonk Avenue. It stayed there until 2001, when it was excavated and moved next to the farmhouse. I guess even then the dispute wasn’t over, as Brooklyn officials claimed the rock was part of both counties shared heritage and should be placed somewhere they both agreed on. Queens wasn’t having it.

Because borders aside, this rock has been here about 10,000 years. And maps are just representations of reality; they change as knowledge and perception changes. But that’s also why I like them so much: maps are maps of what they’re maps of (huh?) but they’re also maps of knowledge, of the way we tell ourselves we see the world. You put it together, brick by brick, inside your mind.

(Originally posted Feb. 27th, 2009 on Takethehandle.com)

16th Street & Rutherford Place

So here’s a news flash — I like old things. I especially like old architecture. It’s one of the reasons I don’t live in a place like Phoenix, or the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. Sure I’m biased, but what do people do out there? I mean what do they look at, besides the dashboard console when they’re adjusting the AC inside their car? I liked to be stopped short on the street by a perfect row of houses, or maybe just the quiet of an intersection. I like to live in anticipation of that unexpected city scene, a new angle or juxtaposition of buildings that you’ve never seen before. These things are all important. They have the weight to hold you somewhere. And somewhere is a good place to be, as opposed, perhaps, to anywhere. Do you know those lists that magazines or websites will put out: the top whatever places to live in the USA? And it’s always some city like Moorhead, Minnesota on the top? That’s anywhere. That’s some formula involving housing prices, crime rate, and job availability. Go move there and listen to satellite radio, the reception’s always really good.

Myself, I’ll stick around here. Now sure, if I were really serious about old things I guess I would be living in Europe, or China, or Iraq. The main thing you’re gonna get in these parts are recreations and revivals of those certainly more ancient styles. I’ll still take it. And besides, isn’t there something about the 19th century city that really strikes some archetypal chord with people? Like somewhere in our collective insides there’s something made to click, and to agree this shit is simply beautiful?

Which brings me to Stuyvesant Square, between 15th & 17th Streets, and cut in two by Second Avenue. The eastern half isn’t much to look at, crowded round by Beth Israel Medical Center monoliths, and the old Stuyvesant High School. But the western half is surrounded by some beautiful 19th century blocks of brownstones and churches. 16th Street and Rutherford Place are at the heart of it, with Saint George’s Episcopal on one side, and the Quaker run private school, Friend’s Seminary, on the other. The Seminary includes a large brick meeting-house completed in 1861. But it’s Saint George’s that I think really takes the cake here. What can I say, I like medieval-looking churches.

It was built on this spot between 1846-56, after the congregation decided to move from its downtown location on Beekman Street. At its completion, it was considered one of the finest examples of Early Romanesque Revival church architecture in the United States. Romanesque architecture predates the Gothic Style, which it evolved into, and corresponded roughly with the Dark Ages, or I should say, the Early Middle Ages (see the latest Built to Last for more on that distinction). I love this style! I didn’t know I loved it until yesterday, but anything that combines Western Roman and Byzantine features has got to be a hit. Buildings of its type spread all across Europe, but there’s something in its simple rounded arches and symmetry that makes it seem most at home in a sun-drenched Mediterranean setting. Now sure, this particular church is Romanesque Revival, not Romanesque itself, but hey, I’m not gonna split hairs here. I’m all for architectural revivals of any kind. We can say of the past, these people came before us, and maybe they just found the best shit out there. Maybe there are only so many modes of expression. I went to the Metropolitan recently, and as always I was blown away by the sheer scope of the collection. But at the same time I thought, this is pretty much representative of everything humanity has created throughout its history, and still, it fits into one (giant) building. We’ve gone through modern already, and now post-modern, so what comes next? I say keep sticking with the Romanesque. Nice solid arches.

(Originally posted Feb. 20th, 2009 on Takethehandle.com)

Beaver Street, William Street & South William Street

All right, there are a lot of corners in this city. I’m speaking factually, and to prove it I’m gonna point to the dictionary’s definition of a corner as, 1. “the place where two roads or streets join or intersect.” You dig? That’s pretty clear-cut and objective. Less so is number 2. “a remote, secluded, or secret place.” But sure, we got a lot of those kinds too, although by nature you won’t find them labeled on a map. Now when a corner number 1 is also a corner number 2, as is sometimes the case, well yeah, that makes for something special. You might also put it this way, there are corners and then there are corners. It’s nice to seek those kind out. Phew, who knew that I was a closest scientist, using things like numbers and syllogisms with such facility? I’m gonna suggest you throw in definition number 3 here too, “a threatening or embarrassing position from which escape is difficult,” because you know, it’s important to not have your shit together all the time. Corner yourself, in the number 3 sense, on corners 1 and 2 and you’re the Triple Crown winner of a pretty good day. I’m saying get a little frantic people! Or don’t, whatever, or wait for proper springtime if you need to.

Beaver, William, and S. William Street meet at a five-spoked intersection, just below Wall Street. It makes for a lot of acute angles, and yeah, it’s one of these multi-definition spots I’ve been talking about. It’s way downtown, on New Amsterdam’s original street plan, and as such it’s almost always in shadow. That wouldn’t have been the case for most of New York’s history though, when church towers were the tallest structures in Manhattan, and the Brooklyn Bridge’s towers some of the tallest structures in the Western Hemisphere. It certainly wouldn’t have been the case when Delmonico’s Restaurant opened here, at its 56 Beaver St. location, in 1837. Delmonico’s had been around ten years prior to that, in some capacity, located up the street in a rented pastry shop; they rebuilt on this spot after The Fire of 1835. To show that they were serious about fine dining, they had the columns flanking the entrance brought in from the ruins of Pompeii. Or at least that’s what they told people, which got the trick done just the same.

Delmonico’s is considered probably the first fine dining establishment in the United States. It allowed people the novelty of sitting at their own table and choosing their food from a menu, as opposed to eating table d’hote style – everyone squeezed together and basically all having the same thing, whatever the cook was making that day. The restaurant was founded by two Swiss brothers, and at first Americans were wary of what struck them as a very French fashion. Most of their initial popularity lay with European visitors and ex-pats. But the place took off soon enough, and by the later half of the century it had expanded to four restaurants of the same name at various locations in the city. They moved north as the rich did, making it all the way to 5th Avenue and 44th Street. Then prohibition came along in the 1920s and I guess the lack of booze sales shut the whole shebang down. They closed for good in 1923.

So the Delmonico’s we see today is not the same establishment — the moniker’s just been resurrected by a new restaurant group. Still, the building is the original, and some big names have eaten here throughout the years. You got your heavy hitting J.P. Morgans and what-not, Edward VII, when he was still the Prince of Wales, but there were some literary folk as well hanging around from time to time. Mark Twain was a regular, when he was in town, and Charles Dickens too, although his characters don’t ever seem to be eating anywhere quite so nice, or even eating anywhere that has a menu. Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale (remember her?) used to eat here after every opera performance. And holy shit, Napoleon III would come here too, back when he was only Charles Louis. That puts me in a great mood, to be able to mention Napoleon III again so soon. You know what else puts me in a great mood? No seriously, I’m asking you. What else? Come on, just name one thing. Really, just name anything. I’ll bet you I can get excited about it. Or wait, even better, dare me to eat something. Honestly, anything, you bring it to me and I’ll eat it. Just feed me. Get me to spin around in circles. I’ll pay it back somehow; I’ll find the means. Or here it is, just like Mrs. Dalloway says, “one must pay back from this secret deposit of exquisite moments.” So there’s my capital, exquisite moments. That’s really wonderful. That seems so nice.  It’s running, running, running, running, running, running, stop. And then again.

(Originally posted Feb. 13th, 2009 on Takethehandle.com)