I am excited to share Another New York Love Affair #25 with you:
I took this footage of the “Sterling Cooper” building in my final week in New York, at the end of March. At the time I was midway through watching Mad Men on Netflix, and in love with the cast of characters. Also in love with New York, and the beautiful strangeness of Madison Avenue. Enjoy!
I am aiming for 100 over the next three years. I’ve got to get back to New York to do it, though!
Yesterday was the first day of spring, and it snowed in New York. I went for a run as glorious flakes skirled and floated through the air, stage-lit by the lights along the Hudson River walk. It’s a nice hour-long run from my place in the village along the Hudson to the Financial District Ferry Terminal and back.
I passed tennis players on my way to the ferry terminal, enjoying the gentle snowfall, and caught a glimpse of One World, nestled between the legs of two other high rises.
New Yorkers still call this the World Trade Center.
On the way back, I could see the Empire State Building in the distance, over 70 blocks away (the lit tower in the center of the photo). I love seeing these two landmarks as I go about the city. They are orientation touchstones, helping people find their way, much like a striking tree or cliff formation would have guided our ancestors.
I made this video for David, a dear teacher and friend who lived on E. 4th St in his Bohemian days. He lives in California, recently turned 80, and will probably never see this street again. Different friends who lived there tell me it was a dynamic, exciting place in the 50s and 60s. And I think it’s still creative & dynamic, human, real. Sit back and groove…
The Wikipedia history of Alphabet City (a term mayor Ed Koch used in a New York Times article he published in 1984) indicates this was a dangerous part of New York until crime rates dropped in the late 90s and early oughts. I wanted to show my friend how the street he grew up on has changed. That there is love, hope, and people helping each other. He became a spiritual teacher and showed me tremendous kindness on my journey. He helped me experiment, find myself, and mature. I was thrilled to discover the value of teaching expressed in the street art of this block of E. 4th St, between Ave. A and Ave. B. As harsh as it was when he lived here, I think there must be a channel of the ultimate goodness of reality and human nature that rises out of the old salt marshes, up through the earth and concrete, and into the souls of the street’s inhabitants.
Another dear friend, Allan, also a teacher, moved to this block from Long Island in the 60s, the minute he turned 18. That’s why I focused on #217, so he could see how his seedy apartment looks now. He told me about artist-nudist-humanist-activist Louis Abolafia’s presidential campaign in 1967-1968. My friend had just moved to E. 4th St., and Abolafia’s headquarters were in the same street. This street was in the heart of the Lower East Side drug culture in the 60s. Sadly Abolafia died of a drug overdose in California in 1995.
Allan said “I remember Louis Abolafia very well, used to pass his storefront campaign headquarters all the time. I can feel an affectionate warmth for that time and place, and for that young soul wondering, ‘which way from here?’ Everything was alive with possibility, in the neighborhood and the culture, on the streets and in the air. I’m lucky to have lived there and then. It was still slum when I got there, as it was when David grew up. People were just beginning to call it the East Village. But I think that sounded pretentious to many of us who lived there. It was just the Lower East Side, as it had always been.”
I am a writer, and I wondered about the pub in this block called Dorian Gray, with the Canadian flag included among the string of flags out front. (David taught a group in Vancouver, BC, for 15 years, and I thought this Canadian flag was a nice reminder of our group and those years.) I wondered if it was some young hipster who didn’t know a thing about Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, first released in a periodical in 1890. A little research revealed that Oscar Wilde’s great-grandnephew opened this pub, and it is a literary hangout. As you will see, Jason Darling is purported to play there on Wednesday nights!
I put a few historical clippings about themes from this block at the end of the video. You can press the Pause button to read them, if you like.
I invite you to take some time to sink into the groove and drink in the details of this diverse—alternately rough and polished—creative, expressive street. People might say New York has been gentrified beyond recognition, but I think this block of E. 4th St. shows that it is still a home, a place for children to grow up, a place where people stand on the street together and enjoy each other’s company, and a place for discovery through graffiti, art, theatre, religion, law, psychic consultation, and liquor! And, on special days like this one, a place to chuck a few snowballs.
P.S. Another luminary lived in this block, in a fifth-floor walk-up. Hint: Like a Virgin! Ooh, touched for the very first time… She moved here in about 1978—it was her second New York apartment after moving from Detroit with $35 in her pocket—and she lived in this apartment for a few years before her music career began to take off and she moved to a loft on Broome St. Her song Ray of Light, “And I feel, like I just got home…” feels like an expression of spiritual ecstasy to me, flying through the stars, faster than a ray of light. “Waiting for a time when earth shall be as one.” On E. 4th St., I think it’s like that. Each One Teach One.
I shot the material for this video during an afternoon a few days after a January snowfall (the blizzard of 2016, during which the mayor closed down the city of Manhattan to wait it out).
This piece is an experiment with moving from stillness into motion and back again. I wanted to linger on some shots to give a longing heart time to drink in every detail of the bricks and paint and tiles and people. Then move more quickly with others to bring dynamism and a hunger for more time. The moving clips bring the immediacy of being there, enhanced by the focus on the sounds of the street.
I used an ancient iPhone 5S! Corel PaintShop Pro Photo for the photo editing. Camtasia Studio to put the video together, with QuickTime Player and Windows Media Player as support for planning the music.
I opened with Richard Hell and the Voidoid’s Blank Generation—a classic that kicked off the punk music wave, influencing Britain’s Sex Pistols and many others. Richard lives in the East Village. I think these lyrics are brilliant, and point to the mysteries of birth, life, and death—something my friend taught me about.
The next two segments had to be Lou Reed. I played around with different alternatives, but for me, Lou Reed’s music epitomizes the East Village, and it had to be him. Looking at these buildings, thinking about his painful life and the poignancy, despair, hope, and joy he wrung out of it through his musical genius, pulls on my heart to soar in that same way.
The closing credit music is Jason Darling playing at the Dorian Gray pub. The sound of breaking glass, a happy crowd, a local musician, and a song about California seemed like a perfect closing for David. Thanks to Tadhg Ennis for posting this recording on YouTube.
Here is an alternative version, with Lou Reed’s Heroin as the only music. Let me know which one you like better!
on the hudson river, people take selfies and groupies against the fading bright layers of sunset
a muscled black man in combat gray t-shirt, jeans, leather boots, and earbuds sits down on a bench facing the river, singing in falsetto
I do a double-take as I run by
a french-speaking family of 7 or 8 spans the entire walkway
I pause a beat for a gap and slip through
a police boat flashes blue and red lights on the jersey shore
down river, lady liberty shines pale green across the water
I do an extra leg along the river, strong and free
I can run forever and don’t want to ever stop
but friends and dinner at EN japanese are on the menu, so I cross west street at eleventh when the white walker beckons
a young man in a black suit, white shirt, sits on a stool at the corner of perry and bleecker, playing mournful cello
he smiles when I run by
four twenty-somethings dressed holiday festive fill the sidewalk, one of the women carrying pink lilies, on their way to a dinner party
I swerve into the street to pass
I bet a lot of people live in sixth floor walk-ups
don’t you think some people own the top two floors?
no way!
on the next corner, a giant black SUV idles at the curb
a diminutive black man holds open the door for a very large black man
I wonder if he’s a famous rapper
I smile at the driver in complicity about the glory of being near this man
he doesn’t get it
at seventh ave and greenwich the light is with me but sirens are coming my way, a block uptown
I dash across flying on endorphins and more glory
jayrunning across greenwich, two guys on bikes run the light at charles and I slow and change my angle to let them pass in front of me
we rule the night
kids
coins jingling in his paper cup, the grizzled black man who sits on an over-turned bucket next to the magazine stand at sixth avenue and west ninth street sings
and heaven and nature sing
and heaven and nature sing
and hea-ven and he-e-ven and nature sing
the sirens rise
I have started a new project, inspired by the sounds of New York. Check out this playlist of audio meditations on YouTube. Each meditation is more or less a New York minute. It all started when I was drawn into Washington Square Park by the sound of a piano playing. How could this be? A piano in the park? Friends have since told me there is also a piano in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, and in fact there are pianos all over the city, including on the corner of Hastings and Penticton, which I visit at least two or three times a week to go to London Drugs and other businesses in the area. I guess I am usually wrapped up in my own world and don’t notice what is going on around me! But I digress…
I went into the park and sat down on a bench to listen to a person playing an upright piano. I wondered how the piano got there. I wondered about the person playing it. As I sat there, a drummer started off in the distance, playing the drummer’s proverbial different tune. Soon after, a third busker began playing saxophone behind me. Each instrument was playing its own tune, creating a discordant harmony. The vocals soon joined in, in the form of the quintessential New York soprano, a siren. And thus the New York minute sound project was born.
I will be adding sounds to the playlist every week, so check back often to hear new corners of the New York soundscape. Remember, this is about what you hear, not what you see. Some of the visuals are going to be a bit freaky, let me warn you! But I hope you feel the love in this love affair, and maybe you will fall in love (again).
I am currently on an inspirational visit to New York. I loved this artistic bulletin board in the East Village. (A little older than Vancouver’s East Village, but with some of the same spirit of the urge for expression.) There are layers of comments added as one artist responded to another. I especially liked the suggestion to look up Eckhart Tolle. A Vancouver guru, infusing the streets of New York!
Part of the thrill of being in New York is visiting places I’ve seen or heard about in books and movies. One of the most famous, glamorous New York institutions, in my mind, is Tiffany’s. Perhaps I saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s at an impressionable age, but I suspect the allure of Tiffany’s was caused by the even earlier impressions of the magic of jewels from 1001 Tales of Arabian Nights, which I read as a very young girl.
Yes, we have a Tiffany’s in Vancouver (3 in fact), but I’ve never gone there. It seems like these are sham Tiffanies. The real Tiffany’s is in New York, on Fifth Ave., at the corner of 57th St.
So when I made my first trip to midtown, to enjoy the nap I had booked at YeloSpa, I was delighted to see that Tiffany’s was right across the street. I had a few minutes before my nap, so I popped into Tiffany’s to marvel at the beauty.
I stepped into the vast, high-ceilinged room and saw what seemed like dozens of display case islands, many of them populated by Tiffany tour guides. The glamorous woman guide on the closest island asked if there was anything she could help me find.
I have been on the lookout for a pair of ruby earrings to match the ruby necklace my mom 
brought back for me as a gift from Australia, so on a whim I said, “Can you point me in the direction of the rubies?”
Imagine my surprise when she told me they don’t have any rubies. What!!? Tiffany’s doesn’t have rubies? She went on to explain, in a friendly way, that the only “Tiffany quality” rubies in the world come from Burma. She said that there is a trade embargo in place against Burma because of their human rights violations. Who knew? Well, I didn’t until that moment. I also didn’t know that Tiffany’s was such an ethical company, and I felt very moved to be informed of this. This discovery was one of the magical moments of my trip to New York.
I spent the next few minutes wandering around the store and feasting on the beauty shining forth from every island. My attention was drawn to a fabulous, sparkling diamond bracelet, costing a mere $20,000. Yes, I could afford it if I really wanted to spend money on something like that. But as I thought of a better use I had recently put $20K to, I once again felt a warm feeling in my heart.
So that’s my Tiffany’s story. I must say that the woman I spoke to was much friendlier than the sales staff at Giorgio’s on Rodeo Dive, a place I stumbled into and out of with my sister Kim in the 1990s. Well done, New York!
As a P.S., as I mentioned earlier, I have been researching New York in preparation for my next trip by re-watching Sex and the City. Tiffany’s has been an important place for purchasing Charlotte’s wedding rings on that show! Here is a picture I took of Charlotte and her first husband, Trey, on the street in front of Tiffany’s.
One of the highlights of my visit to New York was going to the street where they filmed all those scenes of Carrie Bradshaw on her front stoop. Thou
gh her address was 245 E. 73rd Street (at Madison), they filmed the scenes of her front stoop in the village, at 64 and 66 Perry Street. This picture is of me on Perry Street, on my way for a run. I went past this address four times during my stay, and there were always one or two people out front taking each others’ pictures. I think this shows what a profound impact Sex and the City had on our cultural consciousness! Truly, New York was a main character of the show. I think the movies weren’t as great because they didn’t feature New York the way the TV show did. Even the episodes where they went to LA didn’t have quite the same appea
l. Though It was hilarious when Samantha met the LA dildo model.
In the spirit of the show, which I am currently re-watching to find references to restaurants and night clubs for my next visit, here is a picture of some fabulous shoes! I saw these in the White Room at the Bay, and I wanted them badly. But I contented myself with taking their picture—for now.
There was a guy in the same row as me at the Motley Crue concert who kind of looked like Charles Manson. I was a bit afraid when he and his friend entered the row and sat next to me. Yet during the pre-concert wait, he was the most polite person imaginable. He passed me at least 5 times to go get another beer, and said “I’m sorry” each time. In fact, the entire crowd at Madison Square Garden was very well-behaved. A woman in the row in front of me was really getting into the circular rotating head banging move. (Not for older necks, believe me!) 
Her cell phone fell out of her pocket during her gyrations, and all the people around her helped her to find it on the floor under the seats. If I was hoping for a mob scene, as in the metal heydays of old, this was not the place to find it. Even on the floor, I didn’t see any jostling or body surfing. Just a number of devil symbols from raised arms. Is this a sign of the times, of the post-911 drone-targeted US citizens curbing their wilder impulses? Or are New Yorkers just polite, friendly people, kind of like Canadians?
Being here in Greenwich Village has awakened the nostalgia I have always felt for the 60s. Being born in 1965, I was influenced by the vibe of the 60s, but I never got to see the greats as it was happening. I never got to see Led Zeppelin or the Beatles. One of my first concerts was The Who’s first farewell tour, in 1982 (they recorded Who’s Last on that tour). Guess what? (Guess Who? I am overcome with my own cleverness.) The Who are currently having their 2015 farewell tour—33 years later! OK, so farewell tours are a joke, because the bands often have numerous farewell tours. But the point is, I wish I had been here in Greenwich Village to see the first Bob Dylan show, as one of my friends did. I wish I had seen the Beatles play in Vancouver at the Empire Stadium in 1964. I wish I had been part of the aliveness, joy, and hope of the summer of love. A time of social change and new freedom. A time of excitement.
And all along, I didn’t realize that I was actually a part of a new exciting movement—the metal years! Yes, the 1980s were also a time of social change, with the Punk movement and Heavy Metal movement expressing the angst of a new generation of teenagers who wanted to fight the man.
This didn’t come home to me until another 
farewell tour—Mötley Crüe‘s farewell after delivering 33 years of kick-ass glam metal. (Gotta love the umlauts!) I saw the concert poster on a hoarding on Battery on Monday, and was lucky enough to get a ticket that night for Tuesday’s show. So there I was, Tuesday, Oct. 28, in Madison Square Garden, watching Alice Cooper and Motley Crue! I have seen both of these bands several times in Vancouver, and most notably, early tour dates in the 80s. For example, I saw them at the 1982: Crüesing Through Canada Tour! Surprisingly, the Crue is one of the bestselling bands of all time, with over 100 million records sold worldwide. I think they started the whole tattoo thing.
I sat in the stadium on Oct. 28, relishing the fact of being in New York, in this 
semi-historic building. The Garden moved from its second site in Madison Square to 8th Ave in 1925, to its current location on 31st St in 1965. Construction began at the current location 50 years ago, Oct. 29, 1964! I looked around as the seats began to fill. In my row, two teenaged young men were in the row already. They were the first to stand when Alice Cooper took the stage, and were on their feet for the whole show. I was glad to be in their row, because I too wanted to stand and dance.
One of the things that occurred to me as I relished the wall of noise for over 3 hours was that I really had been part of something special. To those teenagers, the 80s was the time they wish they had been at the rock concerts, at the beginning of the metal wave. And I really was there! I just didn’t realize it was a part of history. Thanks to my boyfriend Rick and friends Ray, Mark and Joe, Johnny and Dianne and Silvia, sister Kim, cousin Sherry, we were all part of our own time of rebellion and self-definition. Listening to metal was our revolution. Our way of staking our claim in time and space, and differentiating ourselves from our parents.
I want to write more about this revelation, but I’ve got to go take a nap. The big four-nine!
Later…
I guess the point is this moment is where it’s happening. This is the exciting time to change the world. After the nap…