Hot summer days in New York City, humid nights. It’s enough to just walk the dog, scramble around, look for a buck, eat pizza and wonder when the city pools will ever reopen. It seems as though the indoor public city pools will be the last thing to reopen after the city has “reopened.” I could keep complaining about this, but I won’t.
In the winter, I want it to be hot. In the summer, I want it to be cool. While we don’t have it as bad as our fellow citizens out west – who are dealing with “heat domes” and drought and record-setting temperatures, it’s still hot. And radiant heat from all the concrete always makes July and August in New York City a special time. I pray for the electrical grid and its continued good health.
I was going to head out west a month or more ago, but that’s when the national weather reports began to look awfully hot “out there.” I have been longing to hit the road again, but road trips in extreme heat are no fun, especially when your co-pilot is a dog. I have to think of young Santo, who is coming up on four years old, so I’ll have to drop the “young” thing soon.
I was going to head out west, but I have marooned myself here and I have been getting lots of work done on my next photo book, which will be a collection of themed columns that have appeared here, in the Zephyr. It has been fun to work on and has actually been useful, as it informs my writing for the actual columns, just as editing photos informs the taking of photos.
It seems like I’m always looking for themes. My mind, though, does not feel up to a lot of writing this month. I have been leafing through folders of photos. Digitally leafing, that is, and found myself in one particular folder from photos that I took with a Fuji camera in 2017. I’m normally a Nikon guy, but I have dabbled in the Fuji waters on occasion.
I found myself plucking some quiet photos of the city where I am now stuck, the city I have been stuck in for decades. The city I love. The city that’s changing. The usual. Anyway, these are not dramatic photos of tourist attractions. One of them might be a famous thing, but that’s about it. I don’t want to put a label on them. All photos are just moments in time. These happen to be from New York City in the year 2017.
1. A newsstand on the upper level of the IND subway station at 14th Street and 8th Avenues. “IND” is an old term and comes from when it was known as the “Independent” line, back before the subways became consolidated. They used to build these stands into the stations. This one is bigger than most and, even as recently as 2017, it still displayed a lot of periodicals. Most surviving newsstands and stationary stores have drastically cut down on their newspapers and magazines. Many have disappeared altogether. Everybody now has their phone and the internet. This is a great loss, but there is no turning back, so I will accept it. I have no choice. You can buy drinks, batteries, lighters, vaping stuff and other things here, including phone chargers, but I doubt you can now find a comic book.
2. A passageway from the subway station two blocks to the east – 6th Avenue and 14th Street. I just now fell into a reverie on the long history of 14th Street, going back 120 years and then forward to its current state. That could be a book, in itself. This passageway leads from an above-ground subway entrance to one of the main passageways, from where you can enter the system or take yet another tunnel to the PATH trains, which will whisk you to New Jersey. This is not far from the street or the platforms, yet it feels lonely. Those dark spots on the concrete are ancient wads of chewing gum that have not been scraped off. When it snows, this passageway can get wet and slushy, even though it’s below ground.
3. “Diners and Luncheonettes” could very well be a theme for future columns. It feels irresistible. “Luncheonette” is such a great word. This one is in Brooklyn and is almost beneath a great, elevated kind of viaduct carrying yet another subway line. I’m still thinking about a column on diners and luncheonettes. Irresistible, I tell you, but not this month. The awning interests me and I’m surprised it’s in such good shape. This is total conjecture, but I’m betting that the phone area code was added later and I’d also bet that “PIZZA” was added later and may have replaced something else. Because what self-respecting diner ever offered pizza? And why is the “PIZZA” typeface larger than the others? And what did it replace if, indeed, my conspiracy theory is correct? There may be answers, but only if, like Herodotus, I were to venture out into the wilds and ask the proper questions. Imagine if Herodotus could have explored Brooklyn and delivered a report to us? My next book: “Herodotus In Brooklyn.”
4. There is little about the Coney Island Cyclone I could say without diminishing its magic. The Cyclone transcends words and people either get it or they don’t. I am not one of those people who MUST ride the Cyclone, but I have many friends who are such people. Amusement parks rides churn my stomach. Wooden rollercoasters don’t scare me – not much, at least – but they could easily make me puke. I will gladly wait for you at the change booth, though, if you want to pay the fee, get strapped in, and then scream all the way up and down, raising your arms into the air on that first great hill. The Cyclone may not be up there with the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, but it’s not far, either. At least, in my book, it’s close. When people ask me what to see in the city, I’ll tell them about the restaurants – the old legendary ones, not the fancy, foodie places. I’ll tell them to take the Staten Island Ferry, just to be out on the harbor, and I will often tell them to hit Coney Island, advice that might be synonymous with “crap shoot” because it’s changing every day.
5. And speaking of the harbor, it’s so easy to forget that New York City was once a major port, one of the great natural harbors on the whole Eastern Seaboard, possibly the greatest. After they built the Erie Canal and opened up the Midwest to seaborne commerce, New York City’s mercantile greatness was assured. Everything flowed in and out of the harbor, which is actually broken up into the Upper Bay and the Lower Bay, but I always say “Inner Harbor” and “Outer Harbor.” Do other people use these terms? Who cares? Just as nobody calls the Hudson River “The North River” anymore and nobody can accuse New York of being a great working seaport now, it’s all meaningless, water under the bridge, in this case the Verrazzano Bridge, which crosses “The Narrows” that separates the two bays, or harbors. This buoy, “Number 5,” floats out there in the Upper Bay, day and night, every day of the year, marking a channel for the big ships to use. There’s a seagull sitting on the bottom of it, if you look closely. And it’s somebody’s job to tend to this buoy. Where’s Joseph Mitchell when you need him? He’s with Herodotus and they are both probably having a long conversation. I may go look for those two guys and ask some questions. I want to know more about the New York harbor buoys.
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Wow and wow. On mile
5000 of our BIg Trip 2021 and stumbled on your work. Steve Chernek, a photographer friend of mine, shared a link on Facebook. YOUR photos are the kind I try to take (too often through the front window of a rolling RV) and with my IPhone . . . Still
I try to capture what my heart sees and feels.