Chronicles Continued

Left town for the weekend, and brunch was on the house!  or rather said, the balcony!

It’s an instant park.  At night it is all taken inside the shops and put away.  Each morning, it all appears again, as if it has been growing there since spring began. That is the Empire State Building, peeking over the top and down at the plants. 

For the second time in just a couple of months I am witness to an ambulance with lights flashing and back doors open, on the street outside of a donut shop.

As of today, these are the fledgling lettuces growing on my fire escape.  Yesterday a fowl had rearranged a few of them.  Let’s see how long they last.  Will I ever see a full head?  Not taking bets.

When living in a small space, there are lots of handy tricks to get things done.  This is one way to iron table napkins.  When washed, make it soaking wet, and stick it on the marble/tile wall in the bathroom.  Or on the glass shower door.  When it dries, it will be as smooth as the surface on which it was stretched. [courtesy of ek -in another lifetime]

At the theatre last evening, was seated next to a woman with an ill-fitting scent.  Every time she wiggled in her chair, she shook loose a whiff of whatever she was wearing, and it suited her not at all.  I didn’t realize that was possible.  It was raining buckets outside and I wanted to suggest she go stand in it and wash it all away.  I could not wait to be free of her environs.

There are rumors,  there is the documentary film ‘Dark Days’ [rents on Amazon.com]  showing people ‘entering the pavement’ via ladders, to get to the underground tunnels  There are a couple of books with stories about the homeless who live there.  As the economics of the Country remain dire, more people take to living in these spaces.  Quotes on ‘living’ as it is fraught with dirt, grime, rats, cockroaches,  drug users and peddlers, delusional men and women, those sick with aids and anger, despair and all in the dark.  In reading about it, I was astounded to understand that the City has the most underground tracks and tunnels of any city in the world.  Here are some of the amazing facts of the spaces as much as 18 stories below the pavement: * No complete single blueprint of the City’s underground exists.  Underground latrines from Revolutionary days have been uncovered.  The original subway system which was a pneumatic tube 312 feet long, 9 feet wide was shut down a few weeks after it opened by Mayor Boss Tweed. A terminal for trolleys is visible under Essex Street off a current subway line.  A tunnel by which President FDR travelled from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to Grand Central Terminal, for a train ride to Hyde Park on the Hudson was covered up, and when rediscovered a waiting room furnished with a crystal chandelier and grand piano intact was there.  There are many waiting rooms under ground, no longer in use. At one time there were 932 restrooms built for subway riders.  [I know of none that are operating] And there were additional facilities just below the streets for the theatre district on Broadway.  If you aren’t dumbfounded yet, there was a 6-lane stretch of highway built in the late 60’s beneath Christie Street, which was almost immediately sealed, abandoned and forgotten. *[These facts from the book: The Mole People-Life in the Tunnels beneath NYC by Jennifer Toth].

This explained to me what I had been encountering in the 4th Street Station, the homeless with exceptionally grime-enbedded feet, the rank odor wafting across the platform, the groupings of homeless who appeared “out of nowhere”.  Contrast this with the Upper East Side [UES] Park Avenue where the highest concentration of Billionaires live [you read that right] watch the documentary ‘Park Avenue’ if you want the entire story. Or read www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2488/are-there-really-mole-people-living-under-the-streets-of-new-york-city.  Whatever you end up believeing there is an implicit indictment that we should all be doing better for each other.

 

It was surprising to see school girls in these ill-fitting, inappropriate lengths -for the girls whose pictures I didn’t take- in this day and age.  What is the purpose of them wearing uniforms designed in the 1950’s?

 

and discover a beautiful building top you never noticed before.  Waiting for the bus on 3rd Avenue, looked up and there this was:

Not certain this is clear.  Looked out the window and the buffet you see set up here, was for the fashion shoot that was taking place up the block.  It is a funny experience to see food set out in an enticing way, and yet so unattended.  That no one, as least as far as I saw, walks by and reaches over and picks up a piece of fruit or a bite of something else.  I am always surprised how civilized we all can be at the most unexpected of times.