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)

17 Grove Street

If I’d fought in the Revolutionary War I reckon that I would have been a drummer boy. Or maybe one of those fife players; I don’t know, even the kid who carried the flag around. Of course if they’d had war-time newsies back then I would have preferred to be one of those. I have a feeling that they didn’t. But I mean, someone must have sold Tom Paine’s Common Sense. That was a pamphlet, not a newspaper. So maybe they had pamphlet-sies back then instead. Something like that. You get the general idea here — I have trouble seeing myself exactly as a fully grown adult.

Except I am one! Honest. I can do pretty much whatever I want, the same as you. I can pretend anything, and I’m only getting better at it. Though come to think of it, if I was gonna be a drummer boy I’d have preferred to be one in the War of 1812. That would have put me around the right age to buy the lot at 17 Grove Street in 1820 and build a wood frame, two story house there in 1822. I would have called myself William Hyde, and by trade I’d be a window-sash maker. Now I know what you’re thinking: a War of 1812 drummer boy veteran seems a bit young to become a successful window-sash maker by 1822. But trust me — those were heady times back then, and anything seemed possible. A drummer boy cum window-sash maker could go and build a house.

Alright I’ve done that, and let me tell you something: this is a hell of an establishment. It was built the same year as the last major yellow fever epidemic in New York and many city residents came up to what was then the rural village of Greenwich in order to get away from it. And a lot of them ended up staying. So what an investment! Buying just ahead of the curve. The lot was bought for $100 in 1820. Just thirteen years later it was already valued at $700. William Hyde added a small workshop out back in 1833 that’s still standing. A third floor was added to the main building in 1870. By that time a law had been passed banning the construction of wooden frame buildings in Manhattan. In the ensuing century and a half since then most of them have been torn down. But man, this one’s still standing. And it’s a house! A god damn wooden house. In Manhattan people!

Apparently James Baldwin had a good friend who lived here in the 1960s and so he stayed at the place quite often. This was after Baldwin had returned to the States following ten years abroad, primarily in Paris and Istanbul. It was while abroad that he wrote his first novel, Go Tell it on the Mountain, recovering from a nervous breakdown with his lover in a Swiss chateau. Baldwin says that all he brought with him to Switzerland was his typewriter and a stack of Bessie Smith records. Three months later he finished his book. The Modern Library ranks it as number 39 on their list of 100 greatest novels of the 20th century. Can you guess whether I intend to read all the titles that they have on there?

If I lived at 17 Grove Street today I’ll tell you what I’d do: I’d make that small house in back — William Hyde’s old workshop — I’d make that place my office and I’d fill it with all the books I could. And then I’d make lists of everything I wanted to read and see and think about. And trying to fulfill those lists would constitute my life. Actually I wouldn’t even need to live at 17 Grove Street. I could start that right now. I could start that right where I live. I could be in the middle of it as we speak. We could all be in the middle of it. In fact we are in the middle of it. We’re doing it right now. Don’t even blink. Are you ready? Are you ready? Here we go.

(Originally posted Dec. 5th, 2008 on Takethehandle.com)