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prospect park, brooklyn, nyc
::august 2004, after a wonderful evening, I had to return from cole valley {realestate term for lower haight} to oakland. I love taking the n-judah + hearing the speakers say, "inbound n-judah" in the underground stations below market st. makes me smile, as I think of the film alphaville. it's chilly in sf in august. a cold fog was blowing in from ucsf. I hopped on the n-judah to get to bart. to confound any possible assassins {my dad's excuse for always taking different routes going places}, I got off at...civic center, powell, montgomery, embarcadero...embarcadero. I go up to switch to bart. in those days, I just needed any train not going frémont or dublin/pleasanton, since the rest went through my stop-macarthur. in the transbay tube, you pick up speed. maybe up to 70mph. when one emerges in west oakland at night + it's clear, it's like scifi. the cranes at the cargo terminals are lit up + you can see the stars littering the sky. there could also be a 10ºF temp. differential, which I find is an odd reason why I love california in the summer.
::oct. 2004, dec. 2006, I'm not a fan of the jmz. it reminds me of long walks on hot days or cold nights/mornings + going up countless steps hoping the metrocardreader is working. I was reminded recently of its redeeming glory. that view when one emerges from manhattan on the williamsburg bridge. no, you're not going 70. it's like an old man well past 70--with a walker, ambling along, but the view of the east river, the bridges, + the lights below make me happy
east haarlem, nyc
"they ambled along, stopping now and then to breathe deeply of the smell of newtown creek which flowed its narrow tormented way a few blocks up grand street. ::'god, she stinks,' commented the big boy. ::'yeah!' neeley sounded deeply satisfied. ::'I bet that's the worst stink in the world,' bragged another boy. ::'yeah.' ::and francie whispered yeah in agreement. she was proud of that smell. it let her know that nearby was a waterway, which dirty though it was, joined a river that flowed out to the sea. to her, the stupendous stench suggested far-sailing ships + adventure + she was pleased with the smell." A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [1943]
:: I recall a hot august night + the ruddy glint of a unravelled sinatra tape fluttering in the briny breeze off of the east river, while carrying late-night tonic water--for a gin + tonic--from hama on metropolitan. union, bedford, guernsey {with the canopy of trees filtering the sodium light}, messerole, banker, calyer.
::the night was spitting in a semi-tropical circumstance. I surfaced at carroll, through what seemed a nice neighborhood which gave way to an industrial zone. I crossed gowanus canal on union + thought of its toxic infamy. I arrived early at an event--a winsome, artsy type at the door started to talk to me, as if we sort of knew each other. she gushed about how gowanus was changing for the better + encouraged me to check out the quirky installations in the galleryspace before the talk. I thought of how greenpoint + williamsburg were dead to me at that moment. I thought of colonialism along the L--the beachhead now being bushwick, forlorn since the unrest of '77. I thought of the numbers of stops into this brooklyn: york, jay, bergen, carroll; high, jay-borough hall, hoyt-schermerhorn; clark, jay-borough hall, nevins. the far rockaway a-train to jfk. ::later I would head to a wonderful winebar in flatbush with my friend I met up with at the gowanus gallery. we talked--mostly I listened, as she {the coolest architect/writer in the world w/ a kick-aß taste in music} + another friend of her's {an urbanist} talked about architecture + nyc, 'space & the city.' ::at midnight, I had to wend my way back up to haarlem, as in a few hours I had to stuff myself into a jetblue flight back to the land of the lotus eaters. the next time I would see nieuw amsterdaam, it was gloriously frozen.
