The Eccentricity of New York

Lillian Ross, a writer for The New Yorker in the 1940s and 1950s, looked at the apartment building across the street from where she lived and wrote that she and saw…”children are jumping on a bed in one apartment; in another, a fat black woman in a white uniform is sitting in a window, smoking a cigar; in still another, a middle-aged man in tights is doing aerobics in front of a television screen.”

This normalcy of the eccentric is what keeps New York so radically interesting.  So ordinary if you live there [only the tourist would take a selfie or perhaps not even notice in favor of something iconic].

New York has its eccentric smells too.  The moldy, ghost-ridden smell that comes up so strongly through the subway grates, which you hardly smell in the actual subway. [That smells like grated steel, food, and people, on top of mold].   There's the papery, elevator-oil smell of the small office buildings with their tiny 2-person elevators.  The luxurious smells of the long-term, large department stores.  And all over New York, you smell food. 

There are eccentric noises - the interminable, unnecessary honking all day, the constant high-pitched screeching of truck brakes, car alarms, the yelling of workers, and the din of shuffling feet, talking, music, etc.

The weekends feel lonely because a lot of the sensory overload is dimmed - a lot of the pushy passion missing - but retains the same level of frustration.  Streets are closed somewhere in Manhattan for parades, street fairs, or protests [altho protests can create havoc during the week too]. Traffic is just a smidgen less congested, but there is always work on the subways so that at least one train - the one you need - is not running.  The MTA will neglect to post signs letting you know that train is not working, allowing you to figure that out after 45 minutes or so of waiting.

The MTA is not your friend.  Are there no sidewalks! Do you not have legs!  

During the week the trains run, but not necessarily on time because there are "incidents" which will get announced, and there are passengers that hold the doors for their friends.  One conductor on the "N" train will not tolerate any slowdown and shuts the doors a few seconds after they are opened - his attempt to hurry things along - and if you get slammed by one of the doors it's like being hit with a brick.  

Ah, the City.

THE MAN WHO THREATENED TO KILL ME

One evening I was riding home from Manhattan to Brooklyn and there was a man sitting on a seat at the very end of the train. Everyone who entered the train moved away from him quickly. Along with fidgeting and mumbling, he was wiping yogurt out of a container with his fingers and licking them.

Homeless people ride the trains. Some of them are cleanish - meaning they looked weathered but don't smell. They just want a place to sleep. Less often, you find someone who hasn't bathed in a year, and the smell of urine and body odor and goodness knows what else is overpowering. Those people get a car all to themselves.

This particular man was very unusual. There was something beautiful about him. He looked to be in his 30s. His face was tanned, but not leathery, and his thick, black beard reached to his chest.. He was barefoot, but his feet hadn't calloused. His hands were gentle looking, the nails were dirty, but not ridged or discolored. His hair was long, curly, and shiny. His clothes weren't mismatched and raggedy. They were stained, but looked a bit preppy. I figured him to be off his meds.

I knew a woman in New York who took psychotropic drugs. She found it hard to concentrate and impossible to write while she was taking the correct dosages. Sometimes she stopped so she could write something and then she'd get manic, ending up in the psych ward for evaluation. It seemed like a hellish way to live. Feel nothing or feel crazy.

I don't know how long it takes to grow a beard down to your chest, but I expect it would take a few weeks. But he just couldn't be that clean if he'd been sleeping on the street that long. In fact, I now realize that he surely had an apartment where that he could shower, change clothes, and walk out barefoot. If I had realized that at the time, I wouldn't have done what I did. Which was to take a few dollars out of my wallet and drop them on the seat next to him when I exited the train.

Oh boy.

He jumped up and started screaming at me DON'T YOU DARE GIVE ME MONEY as he tore the money and threw it out the door onto the train platform not far from where I was standing. Other people hurried away. I stood there anchored, watching him. He screamed, I'LL KILL YOU!

He didn't move toward me, and oddly, the look on his face was not anger or malice, but defeat. I knew he was living a drama that had nothing to do with me and felt very sad for him. The train door closed and he was gone. I picked up the money (of course) and went upstairs to the booth to report that a mentally ill man was having an episode on the train, gave the car number, and went home.

Three months or so later, I saw him again. He was on the street in Manhattan. Clean shaved, hair cut, clean clothes and a pinched look on his gray face. Gone was the beauty. He saw me and looked ashamed. Again, I felt sad.

There's a point to this story and it's not that you should be afraid to ride the subway. That's not a common episode and is only scary if you decide to jump into a drama and escalate it the wrong way. But something brought this event to my mind recently and I thought, that man was perfectly fine sitting there licking his fingers until I decided what he needed. He didn't ask me or anyone else for money. Even so, when he got upset, I didn't take it personally, not one bit. I was neither angry with him, judgmental, nor afraid. Not for one minute did I think at the time that he was going to hurt me nor did his ranting effect me except for a little embarrassment in front of others.

Why can't I see all provocative situations and people that way - whether family, friends, or strangers? Why can I not just see them as sad, instead of seeing them as rude, arrogant, or mean? Why do I take it personally and get my feelings hurt, get angry, or become afraid over silly things? Why try to prove a point or make them wrong and myself right even if it's only in my own mind? They are just projecting, expressing, manifesting their own feelings and until I take it personally, it's not about me.

Maybe this week, I'll practice the Four Agreements -

be impeccable with your word

don't take anything personally

don't make assumptions

do your best

Maybe next week I'll practice them again.

[The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz: http://ow.ly/pz5V30888Bw]

THE SAD THINGS YOU DON'T FORGET

I was standing on the subway platform in Atlantic Terminal on a cold evening, about 8 o'clock or so, in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. A mother dragged her crying 3-year-old son down the stairs to a bench and ordered him to sit. He climbed onto the bench and she stood in front of him as he cried and called out to her, reaching for her. She smacked his hand away and said, "If you touch me again, I'll break your arm."

I stood there staring at her, wondering what to do. If I said something, would it make it worse for the little boy at home. I was aware that if this were my mother and I was that child, that any stranger making critical comments about her mothering ability would enhance her shame and later, I would have to deal with that. This young mother needed help, that was clear. And also clear was that this was her relationship with her son. I don't mean the relationship was none of my business. I mean that she had already established authority with this little boy - most likely through violence or the threat of violence - because he wasn't moving off that bench.

She saw me watching her. I'm quite sure my confusion and disapproval were registered on my face, but that didn't change anything. Wherever, however, she lived, this behavior was acceptable. And I understood that, because my mother used to speak to me that way. She didn't threaten to break my arm. She threatened to brain me and when I asked at four years old what that meant, she told me "I'll take a brick and bash your brains out."

We lived in a neighborhood where one mother wore a leather belt strung around her neck so it was at hand to beat her kids. Our next door neighbor used to lock her daughter in a closet. I know that because one day I was playing in their house and I got locked in the closet with her. I wasn't frightened really, because Maggie told me her mother always let her out.

These are the parents who only feel powerful when they are angry. They live on the edge of breaking down and back away from the edge by lashing out. Their words are worse than their physical actions and far more permanent. They can put a fine face on to the public - so friendly, so charming - but their damage at home is continuous and unseen especially when someone has stirred up their deeper shame. 

There's a way of living that isn't in the Christmas commercials for Sears or Target or Wal-Mart where everyone is so jolly and families are so supportive. There's a way of living that is filled with stress and overwhelm. There are people who see the ads on TV and billboards - happy families, buying power, holiday cheer - and they wonder where it is. Anger, frustration, sorrow, those are their ghosts of Christmas past-present-future.

So, I tread carefully that night. 

But, when I see a homeless person, I can think for a moment what they might have experienced. Think of the sense of worthlessness they may have lived with that's brought them to beg at the freeway off-ramp right next to my car window.  I can hand a disposable poncho to a man in the rain, a few dollars to an old toothless woman (who blessed me and when I blessed her back, thanked me for it).  I can give the last few dollars in my wallet to someone struggling to eat.  

I encourage you to think about giving a smile, encouragement, tutoring, mentoring, coaching. Think of the children, the elderly, the vulnerable who have need of a kind word if not a dollar or two. 

Don't be lazy. Don't be afraid. You have something to give away.  Forget about the tax write-off and hand a bag of clothing to someone at the corner begging.  For a day, stop posting your provocative messages and angry opinions on social media and turn to do something good, something kind and peaceful, something that could have far-reaching consequences that you may never know about.

Think of that little boy on the train platform in Brooklyn. He's in all of us to one degree or another.  

BAY RIDGE

"Bay Ridge ain't the worst part of Brooklyn. I mean, you know, it ain't like a hellhole or nothing."

                                                                 

                                               Tony Manero - Saturday Night Fever

No, Bay Ridge is not a hellhole - not even close. It's a sort of insulated middle-class community at the bottom left hand side of Brooklyn. Bay Ridge is a quiet place to live, in part because it's transportation challenged. The only subway for Bay Ridge is the R-train. There are also buses - an express bus to Manhattan - and cabs. Lack of transportation keeps it from being a favorite place to live in Brooklyn and therefore less crowded and cleaner.

If you were listening, Bay Ridge had a moment in the spotlight in the movie Saturday Night Fever. Most people who don't live in Brooklyn aren't really aware of the neighborhoods until they attempt to move there. I wasn't living in Brooklyn when I saw the movie and the reference flew right over my head.

by CoutZ

The movie was based on a story in New York magazine published in 1976. The article reads like a movie treatment -- same characters, same names, sames action.

The New York magazine article is here: http://nymag.com/nightlife/features/45933/

A lot of what was written in the article has been retracted, but still, it's interesting to read because it is a vignette of a time long gone. For example, they still named the dances in the movie - The Walk, the Hustle, the Bus Stop - all that is gone along with the 2001 Odyssey Club. The house at 221 - 79th St. where Tony Manero lived in the movie is still there, although remodeled. At the opening of the movie, Tony buys a slice from Lenny's Pizza (1969 - 86th Street) and that pizzeria is still thriving. The bridge they fooled around on - and the suicide jump - was the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island.

You can see more about Saturday Night Fever here:

http://www.bensonhurstbean.com/2015/11/who-was-tony-manero-the-true-fake-story-behind-saturday-night-fever/

Commissioner Reagan's house in Blue Bloods is on Harbor View Road between 80th and 82nd Street. I guess they might shoot exterior scenes in Bay Ridge, but from what I've seen they stick closer to the Old Navy Yard.

The Italian domination of the neighborhood is gone. Bay Ridge has a large Middle Eastern population now as well as immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia. The restaurants along 86th Street are now more diverse making Bay Ridge an interesting place to eat out.

A friend of mine moved from the West Village in Manhattan to Bay Ridge. She sold her two-room (three, I guess, counting the bathroom) basement apartment with half-windows covered in bars that gave her a view of people's feet and calves. She bought a three bedroom condo in Bay Ridge with a break-your-heart view of the New York Harbor and the Verazzano-Narrows Bridge and had money left over. One night we were sitting in her living room and a cruise ship passed by, filling the enormous front window. It was amazing.

Photo by Jim Henderson

Post by Alana Cash