There is indeed something special about the Spirit of the Season in the City. It is the unexpected waft of the odor of pine trees; the newly formed aisles of trees to be walked through on what is normally a cement sidewalk through-way. It is the brightly colored packages carried out of stores and shops and loaded into car trunks and taxis. You know those presents are purchased with the intent of making someone happy. The exterior trimmings of wreaths, garlands, tinsel, ribbons, glass balls, pinecones, flowers, greens, on doors, windows, lampposts, railings, trees, even cars, that are absent all other times of the year. The lights add sparkle to the air and literally brighten the streets. Although the days are shorter and the nights longer, there is more light due to artificial light. There are more people on the streets, to-ing and fro-ing in the rush-up to the culmination of the holiday celebrations. All of it is taking place on the spaces between the buildings; it is an energizing environment.
The Chinatown bird
So here it is on a winter’s day; up against the lights and covered in plastic… for those of you who think there are ulterior motives to his/her existence. Chirping away, as usual, above the vegetables and the fruits.
What?
It’s about the durges at the Post Office. My mailing address is a Post Office Box so by choice, I am obliged to show up at my local Post Office, multiple days of the week to collect my mail. Throughout the year it is a small, sane place. But come the Monday after Thanksgiving and it turns into a disaster scene for the weeks until Christmas Day when it closes. Hordes of people are formed in scraggly lines, sometimes snaking out the two sets of parallel doors and into the street. They are jostling, pushing with their feet, holding in their arms packages of various sizes. Within this hapless gathering of folks sparks the occasional temper. At this, my thought is, what did you expect? Is it not possible to think and plan ahead? It’s not like you didn’t know the Holidays were coming; they’ve been a repeat event for as long as you’ve been around. Did you purchase a gift newly minted this week? Did you think if you sent it early, it would be misplaced at the other end? And the beleaguered postal employees: they should work faster? put in longer hours? not take lunch? stay late? Where were you in October? And come the Monday after Christmas, the sanity returns. The entire exercise and this facet of human nature, I fail to grasp.
Toiling Away
When non-New Yorkers think of the City and Broadway, they assume that every actor in town is gunning to be on the main stage of some Broadway production, but that is oh so not the case. Tucked away in basements, behind store fronts, in high rise buildings on floors assessable sometimes only by walking up and on floors you don’t want to think about the fire safety are tiny stages, black boxes, theatres that seat 21 people if you squeeze in. The actors dress in ‘backstage dressing rooms’ the size of broom closets, into costumes fashioned from their closets, each others’ wardrobes and second-hand stores. These performing groups are guided and directed by devoted persons who make no salary, spend much of their time in long hours, giving back to the community by making a place for all, young and old, who are wanting to be in a production but still keep the day job. It is a often thankless work and no one has to do it, but someone does and these unseen, unknown toilers deserve a moment of universal praise for what they do. The next time you are in town, find one of these shows and be delighted, surprised and supportive of someone who has come to the big apple and found a creative home and thus their dream.
Riding the Rails on the S Line
That was fun! Once-a-year the Metro Transit Authority, hooks as many as 11 vintage subway cars together and runs them for the four Saturdays between the Saturday after Thanksgiving and the one before Christmas, on a designated line. This Saturday it was running on the ‘M’ line as the ‘M’ line doesn’t run on weekends, but the train runs under the letter “S” for Special. It is truly taking a step back in time. This year’s assortment of cars were built during the 30’s and the 40’s. The set that was made in the 40’s are painted the color I know as army green. The insides of all the cars have more individual seats and benches like old trains, not the continual seating of today. They have old adverts on the walls: Viceroy cigarettes, Burma shave, Used cars, Tips to use the zip code, and best of all, a breakdown chart to explain how your 15 cent fare is spent. There is a motor man dressed in an old uniform, complete with gloves. Some of the would-be-passengers arrive on the platform in costume for the occasion: hats, gloves, fur collared coats, men in sweater vests and shoes with spats. One of the Metro officials on the train said what he likes about doing this is that passengers speak to each other. He said they would never meet each other on a train today like they do in sharing the experience on these old ones. One of the most amazing things I found was standing at the back window, watching the receding track. In the trains of today, there is no rear view. It was an entirely different world. And the men and women who work shifts on the daily trains as drivers, must feel akin at times to miners. Seeing what they see for the first time, it brought me up short about their eight hour days. I also took advantage of being able to walk between the cars while the train was moving. In the modern cars, the car you enter is the car you ride until the next stop. The ceiling fans were eye catching as they gave a porch feeling hanging above the beige and brown woven plastic seats. One little boy, whose parents were only going a short way on the train, said he didn’t want to get off, he wanted to stay and ride longer. They promised him another ride next weekend.
Chinatown
For Western Medicine you go to the drug store and buy a bottle of pills that are manufactured somewhere with something in them that you hope works. At times a real improv.
For Chinese medicine the powders or cures or remedies are made from dried real plant materials and specifically tailored to what ails you.
They are either ground up for you at the pharmacy and you take them home in a powder form and drink them in hot water, or you take the small pile of designated dried plants home, boil it up for a couple of hours and then drink it. Makes an awful-lot-of-sense-to-me. These photos are from a pharmacy in Chinatown and the hand is that of the pharmacist. The other wonderful part of this is, the interior of the pharmacy smells of herbs and spices. It clears your head just to enter the space.
Fake Trees vs Real
The juxtaposition of the fake garland wrapped around the real tree limb. I’m still working through that one.
Eyes Shut
How do those passengers who sit on the subway with their eyes shut and appear to be sleeping, know when to wake up to get off?
Meddler
Perhaps it is just me, not able to leave well enough alone. He was standing in the jam-packed subway car with 5 double-bagged Trader Joe’s bags. The gaping bags laid out in plain view what he had purchased: all the trimmings for a holiday dinner. Since we are cheek-by-jowl and I had to look down to see what was in the way, because my feet hit the bags, it was easy to take it all in. Looking back up and being very near to him, I said, ‘Because of what you have in your bags, I’m coming home with you’. He looked momentarily stricken in a rather horrified way and then took a step backward – as if that was a possibility. I let the remark hang mid-air for a second then added with a smile: ‘Just kidding’! He never returned the smile. What was he thinking? That he was seriously going to have to explain me as having followed him home like a lost puppy? He should be so lucky.
Another Tree
It wasn’t a cheap ticket by any count, especially for a museum that hasn’t changed it’s core exhibits in the last double digit decades but it was a sight to behold 
thus worth the price of entry. The Origami Holiday Tree at the American Museum of Natural History. I didn’t count them, but word has it that more than 500 paper creatures adorn
the plastic tree. [Which I am coming to believe in after years of scoffing].
The creatures all relate to exhibits in the Museum. While searching for the tree we passed through old halls of old stuffed animals; spaces not anticipating the modern use of double wide strollers and parents with backpacks so full, they could survive for a week among the wild animals.