Exploring NYC through 26 words
All the hoping and praying
all this city
ever did was
crawl
like a tot to a tit
trying to squeeze milk, milk
and more milk
from her blemished breast.
The harbors’ mother
tarnished to reptilian green
slowly bows to the burden
shows her chameleon skin
and crawls slow
into deeper waters
leaving her pedestal, cloak
and pointed coronet.
Holus-Bolus
The bus driver keeps telling us, “Move back to the rear.”
But no one is listening, people plugged in
with their white earphones, their bluetooth headsets
singing and talking to no one, but loudly.
The driver’s not going to move unless we retreat further into the bus.
I can’t go anywhere, pressed against a heavyset man wearing a backpack.
I’d rather walk, but it’s 30 degrees out and windy. No one wants to move,
did I already say? We finally go and at Calamus Street, I almost crack up,
literally, like Van Gogh, my head almost splits in two. Forty people
cramming to get on and we’re already 10 over quota. Everyone’s a critic.
I’m a critic at 7am when I just want to get on the subway, get a seat,
go to work to make my money and pay my bill. ‘It boils down to bills,’
my dad used to say. Boiling bills, we work to pay and we pay
to work, but not really in that order always, though it seems so.
Oh the subway, we finally make it and people are pushing and shoving
and It’s no goddamn race someone yells. People come to blows at 7am,
did you know? Have you ever witnessed two elderly women having a slapping
fight? A homophobic man reapetedly yelling FAGGOT FAGGOT at the top of his lungs
because another man bumped him? It’s not too pleasant
traveling among strangers, among that energy. No wonder we plug in,
pretend we’re alone, horse blinders protecting us from the universe.
Melanie Daly
Vaticinator:
On the local train
the seer in the corner rhapsodizes
to all, but really to himself, he knows
what is good and true, but he’s lost sight.
He sleeps fitfully splayed across the bench
a waking dream, recurring nightmare,
the lullaby of Next stop
36th Street
and Steinway
and Northern Boulevard.
I’m going home,
I’m going home.
Melanie Daly
In case you were wondering, yes, The New York Public Library (NYPL) has a YouTube channel, and the “Treasures of The New York Public Library” playlist is an amazing resource for all that obscure archival footage you never knew you were looking for. Start here with “The New York World’s Fair, 1939-40” and then travel to Manhattan’s Sputyen Duyvil Creek in “Mapping the World” with curator’s from the Map Division.
Children and a woman at a street fair in Woodside, Queens. Copyright 2006.
In New York City, agriculture takes on a whole new meaning in the urban landscape. Agriculture is not found in fields, but in apartments in the form of plants and food. The roots of co-op’s and community gardens lie in the kitchens of the city’s elders, who feed us and raise us and preserve memory of simpler times past. When I think of urban agriculture, I think of my grandmother who never runs out of things to say and would never turn down a hungry mouth to feed.
For anyone interested in above, or below ground NYC history, Forgotten NY is an absolute treasure. Curious what your neighborhood looked like 100 years ago? Find detailed street necrology and photo galleries for neighborhoods from Greenwich Village to Astoria. Whether you live in Bushwick or Jamaica, St.George or the Lower East Side, this trove of original source documents will keep you occupied for hours. Want to get even closer to NYC history? Take a Forgotten NY walking tour anywhere from Prospect Park to Hell’s Kitchen.
Happy exploring!
A great tool to find and contribute NYC cultural destinations. Add your own local favorite or explore other ‘hoods with WNYC Soundcheck’s Noteworthy New York.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EPUkZ7Hj9o
New York, 1983. My first year in the city was unending with the excitement of not having walked anywhere I would walk those days. Everything I saw I never saw before, except for tidbits on TV, film, postcards, and in coffee table books. Don’t take the subway after 8pm I was told by a caring, but perhaps also a bit jealous voice, in the week before I left for NYC. I loved and feared the subway, and therefore loved it. I loved the rebel texture, the primal imprint graffiti gave to the trains, to the city. I roamed through Soho, the Village (East & West), Tompkinsville, L.I.C., as if they were galleries in the Museum of Graffiti, snapping 35mm slides of all that writing.
I remember the Kenny Sharf shack on Spring Street, and walking past it one afternoon while Kenny and a pal were painting a Tailfin Era car. I remember paying for a Keith Haring catalogue at Tony Shafrazi’s—a Christmas gift for my artist brother—when Keith came up from the back of the gallery with a silver paint marker in the ready to dedicate and sign the book. I remember meeting Liz+Val of paintroller renown. I remember watching teens tagging a wall along a train track. I remember how unnerved they were by someone watching them. I remember Richard Hambleton’s shadow characters gracing white walls. I remember Red Spot’s red spots on the sidewalks of Soho
After each visit to PS1, the entrance becomes exit becomes frame. Each time it focuses me on the piece I missed inside—5 Pointz (www.5ptz.com) across the avenue, the Institute of Higher Burnin’, a living collage of graffiti art covering a converted warehouse full of artist studios. The art of famous and novice graffiti artists covers the building’s facade, all done with the encouragement of the building’s owner—the Max Yasgur of the daubers and scrawlers, the graffitists, those who have given and continue to give color to New York’s FOUDROYANT underbelly.