On East Fifty-first Street between Third and Second Avenues I come across a most beautiful little park created by the Rockefeller family in 1971. Called GreenAcre Park, it’s privately owned but open to the public. It opens in the morning and closes at 7:45 PM. Its main feature is a stunning waterfall, where the water cascades over several large boulders. (See figure 14.) The water fairly roars as it rushes over the top of the rock formation. Off to the side is an ivy-covered wall and some potted plants. A number of trees dot the area, providing both luxuriant foliage and ample shade. People are seated beneath them, usually at small tables, enjoying a cup of coffee with a croissant, talking, texting, reading the paper, or listening to music on their headphones.
If you sit right in front of the waterfall, it will literally drown out every other city sound—trucks passing by, horns honking, construction activity—giving you the feeling that you are hundreds of miles away, deep in the forests of the Catskills or Adirondacks. The waterfall can become mesmerizing if you stare at it long enough, the streams of flowing water hypnotizing the viewer into staying longer than he or she intended. In the beginning the water had to be heated in the winter, but today that’s no longer necessary, perhaps because of climate change. Those gathered in the park are a mix of older and younger people, tourists and natives. One person, a doorman, tells me, “I come here every day on my lunch break and relax in front of the waterfall. It’s the gem of the neighborhood.”1 And how many thousands of people walk by the park every day on this very busy street, not knowing the beauty that lies just steps away?
Reflecting on his comment and on the scene in general, I am struck by the importance of what he says. New Yorkers are an energetic lot. They work hard and they lead busy lives. Even getting to their job is often a challenging and tiring experience. The sights, sounds, and smells of the city assault them at every turn, and living here can sometimes seem like residing in a giant obstacle course. Nowhere is this feeling greater than in Midtown Manhattan. The fact that in its midst there exists a popular oasis of peace and quiet highlights the fact that people need opportunities to relax. Without them, life becomes virtually intolerable. When people speak about their night off, their weekend at the beach, their vacation, they think of such time as a reward for all their labors, one that makes it all worthwhile.
Walking through the city and observing the myriad ways in which New Yorkers enjoy life—the parks they sit in, the ball fields they play on, the restaurants and taverns they frequent, the movies they go to, the museums they visit, and the streets they congregate in, passing the time—it becomes clear that leisure time is a central part of their lives, measurable not by how much of their existence it takes up but by the contrast between it and the rest of their lives and by the degree to which they enjoy it.
As it turns out, leisure-time activities such as entertainment, religious and ethnic events, sports, parks, and social gatherings can also be prisms through which other critical facets of life are refracted. Through them it becomes possible to understand what it is that unifies New Yorkers, how they identify, what they value, and how this crucial aspect of their lives enhances the communities in which they live. It also serves as a stage for both social life and the conflicts that inevitably develop when competing groups vie for often scarce space. Finally, the evolving ways in which New Yorkers spend their free time can sometimes be a harbinger of future trends that will ultimately gain acceptance.
Throughout the city, people of various ethnic, religious, and racial groups attend concerts, comedy shows, dance performances, and the like, many of which are geared toward their heritage and identification. It can be an Irish folk music trio, a Yiddish or klezmer concert, a Polish polka troupe, an Iranian singer, or a parade like the West Indian one in Brooklyn or the Puerto Rican one in Manhattan. The crowd, usually made up of “tribe members,” is not only entertained but also sees it as a chance to reinforce and take pleasure in who they are.
One spring evening, to capture the flavor of such events, my wife and I attended the Beres Hammond concert at CUNY’s Herbert Lehman College, located in the northwest Bronx. The crowd was “99.9 percent West Indian,” as people in attendance told us. There was an especially heavy concentration of Jamaicans there because that is where Hammond, a reggae and pop megastar, is from. The crowd was really into him, with people on their feet, dancing the entire time, except for two-minute rest breaks. The luckier ones stood by the stage as Hammond shook their hands and hugged them.
Each immigrant who comes to the United States leaves behind ways of life that need to be adapted to fit in with their new circumstances. Yet they also wish to preserve their identity. Yes, they’re now in America and hearing American music, but also important is the music of the homeland, accompanied by lyrics that express yearning, memories, shared values, and forms of cultural expression—how the houses looked, how the foods tasted, and how the people lived and related to one another. And of course the lyrics speak of the challenges of making it in their new homes. This is how the people reconnect, a connection made much more powerful by the fact that they are a crowd of over a thousand experiencing this together, in one place. That is why, when Beres yelled into the mike, “I’m proud to be a Jamaican,” the crowd roared with approval. He said,”You gotta have feeling, you gotta care, and you have to fight in the workplace.” The last comment really resonated with the values and aspirations of this hardworking community, whether it was made about job discrimination or just work in general. They responded equally enthusiastically when Beres said, “There’s always someone waiting to take your job.”
The crowd was about 65 percent women, and people were dressed about two steps above what you would call casual. Many women wore brightly colored sundresses and decorative jewelry. Other bands preceded Hammond, one of them, the Inner Circle, quite well known. Yet while people applauded, they didn’t stand up and dance when the other bands were on. Hammond was who they were really into. He has a very nice voice, strong and resonant, with maybe a hint of a rasp in it. The crowd knew the lyrics, and many times he would let them finish the words of the verses. To look at him, he has a rather unprepossessing, though certainly presentable, appearance. He doesn’t look like a Brad Pitt or Denzel Washington, yet to his audience he’s a heartthrob. In short, he has a presence; he has charisma. The crowd absolutely loved him, laughed with him, swayed to his music, with many filming his performance. In short, he spoke to their hearts and souls.
Harlem has always been a national venue for music, dance, and art, and with its resurgence in recent years the area’s popularity in that regard has also gained. These cultural venues include the Apollo Theater, the Schomburg Center, the Poet’s Den Theater, City College’s Aaron Davis Hall, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the National Jazz Museum of Harlem, Jazzmobile, and the Dwyer Cultural Center, as well as the Manhattan School of Music, and much, much more. Unlike the Beres Hammond concert, these groups attract both outsiders and insiders, unifying them through music. Let’s look at one of the many individual clubs and see what it offers the community.
Tommy Tomita, seventy-one, regularly holds court at St. Nick’s Jazz Pub in Harlem’s Sugar Hill section. He has lived in Harlem since 1987 and has made a point of bringing Japanese tourists to this famous watering hole for jazz music. “I want them to see typical Harlem with local people. I want them to feel the real atmosphere, not prepared for tourists.” And indeed this is the real deal, since the place has been there in one form or another for over seventy years. One enthusiast attributed its appeal to “the authentic jazz that is in the walls.”
It’s a funky, idiosyncratic joint, starting with Tomita, who favors a suit, white shirt, and a gray silk tie, all the way to the Christmas lights that brighten up the place throughout the year. Though Tommy may be from Japan, where he owned jazz clubs, he has the moxie of a real New Yorker. On at least two occasions, both in the rougher era of the late ’80s, he literally dodged bullets. One nicked him in the back as he was standing outside Perk’s Restaurant on Manhattan Avenue and 123rd Street. The other time was in the East Tremont section of the Bronx. He was not deterred. Why? “I like jazz,” he says.2
Bullets aside, what’s important here is that Tomita and others, like the tourists his business attracts, open up Harlem to others, and they do it through the medium of music. In so doing they expose visitors to the cultural life of Harlem, one in which jazz has been central. This breaks down stereotypes on both sides, since Harlemites come to see Asians as people who aren’t simply store owners but are also individuals who value Harlem’s history and culture. This in turn enhances their own feelings of self-worth. And it’s not only tourists who do this. New Yorkers—doctors, architects, budding musicians from everywhere, college students, and others looking for the “real Harlem”—turn it into a place where different types of people come together.
Walk through any Hispanic neighborhood in New York, and you’ll find clubs and restaurants featuring music from a variety of foreign lands. One Saturday night I went to such a club on 138th Street in the South Bronx with my wife and some friends. On the ground floor the music was Dominican and the patrons were doing the bachata, a sensuous yet lively dance that originated in the Dominican Republic, to the accompaniment of a four-piece band. No one seemed to mind that the musicians had arrived an hour late. The atmosphere was happy, if not joyous. Nor did they mind my attempts to do the dance too, one I didn’t know. “As long as you’re game,” I thought, “it’s cool.”
Upstairs, the space had been rented out to a Mexican group. The contrast was stark, with those in attendance, mostly couples, sitting around tables and drinking beer while a band played background music from their homeland. Some were slow-dancing in the dim light, and overall the atmosphere was far more subdued than downstairs. Their faces looked somber, and it felt like they had come here mostly to talk and relax after a hard week. Several conversations confirmed that impression, as well as the fact that those present were mostly undocumented workers.
On any given weekend there are hundreds of such events taking place. In Long Island City, Queens, you can spend an evening watching flamenco dancers do their thing. You can hear German music in Glendale; Irish ballads in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx; do the polka in a Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Polish club; and attend a Jewish music festival in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where men and women sit separately, as required by their religious beliefs. What is distinctive about the city is the variety. It’s almost as though you don’t have to travel to another country, because so many cultures are represented in one place. And each of these places welcomes outsiders. All this, of course, is in addition to Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, and other well-known venues.
The subway system is a showcase for many musicians who play songs from their native lands. Examples are Chinese players of instruments native to their culture; Mexican mariachi singers who stroll through subway cars, dressed in their distinctive outfits; and Ecuadorians, Colombians, Peruvians, and Bolivians who play the haunting yet joyful music native to the highlands of their countries. For the average New Yorker these are opportunities to become familiar with other cultures. In truth, subway and street performers are and always have been part of the New York City scene. This phenomenon is true of any big city, but with its large number of immigrant groups, New York is especially colorful and varied. These entertainers have been here for decades, but enforcement of the laws regulating whether, where, and when they can perform has been stricter since the 1990s.3
Schools throughout the city play a critical part in bringing the arts to the community, and they use any kind of hook to draw people in. For instance, the Shakespeare School, P.S. 199 on Shakespeare Avenue, built in 1929, presents The Taming of the Shrew (or another Shakespeare play) every year in June for the parents and community—because it’s the Shakespeare School. In essence, its name provides a convenient reason for bringing literature and culture to the school. In communities like this one in the West Bronx, few people can afford tickets to Broadway shows, so this is often their only chance to see a real play.
The development of programs in the arts frequently energizes and enhances a community. One of the larger art groups in the city is on Staten Island where hundreds of artists, musicians, writers, poets, and filmmakers, led by Joyce Goldstein and other community leaders on the northern part of the island, have created programs, art walks, and the like. There’s also a summer music festival, with perhaps forty musicians participating. The annual Art by the Ferry Festival attracts thousands of visitors. Participants have included the Staten Island Songwriters Circle, Guys in the Band, Hot Monkey Love, and poetry by Ira Goldstein, Lorna Martell, Adam Waring, and others. There have also been art exhibits, shows by contortionists, puppeteers, break dancers, and many workshops, with free admission to everything.4 Multiply this by the hundreds of art festivals that appear elsewhere in the five boroughs, and it becomes easy to see the crucial role they play in the city’s social life.
Sometimes the art is on the walls of the community’s buildings. On East 180th Street and Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, I see a mural created by the SoBro Poetry Project. A sample: “My family is the water in the ocean; My family is the music on my iPod; My family is the cheese in my cheese doodle; My family is love.” It is penned by “Milnalis” of P.S. Middle School 3. And here’s another one, titled “Friends”: “My friends don’t call me names; My friends are there when I need them: My friends make me happy; They make me smile when I am sad; My friends are my family; My friends tell me the truth.” It’s by Martha. Is this really good stuff? It’s certainly original, especially the cheese doodle verse. What the mural accomplishes is that it gives these kids a forum, some recognition, and a feeling of self-worth. On the street the mural is seen by a lot more people than if it were hanging on a wall in a school hall. In a way having your words on a wall along a public street means you’ve been published. It’s not exactly entertainment, like attending an event, but when people walk by it, they can stop to appreciate what’s there.
Clearly we think of social life in a city as parks, theaters, street fairs, and so on. Yet there’s also the idea of the city itself as a happening tableau of activity. So much can occur in the course of a typical urban day—a police chase or filming for a TV series, something that brings together strangers who feel they have witnessed or shared in something special.
I’m walking up Ninety-sixth Street on Manhattan’s West Side, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, when I spy ahead of me, but across the wide, two-way street, a man on a ladder propped up against a building, breaking the windows of an apartment. Dark smoke is billowing outward from the window, and fire trucks have arrived. Most people walk by, putting on their blasé, “nothing impresses me” faces, though here and there several knots of people are gazing unabashedly at the unfolding scene. Some are taking pictures and filming the event.
This does represent a form of entertainment for those on their lunch break, and I often saw groups of people who were watching things happen—a man wearing a sandwich board proclaiming the end of the world, a domestic squabble, police arresting demonstrators, or others simply enjoying their retired status. I suddenly remember from my childhood a scene of two women on West 104th Street near Manhattan Avenue, then a poor area, fighting and shoving each other in the gutter. No one standing there claimed to know what the altercation was about, but since neither of the combatants seemed to be getting seriously hurt, the crowd simply stood and watched as though it were a prearranged match designed for the pleasure of the local residents.
Processions, parades, and street fairs are another form of social life that present opportunities for expressions of unity and identity. Religious processions are held at various intervals in different neighborhoods throughout the city. Catholics, Jews, Hindus, and other religions all have them. In areas where they do not take place, it’s because the neighborhood is either too diverse or doesn’t have strong local religious institutions that push for them.
One Sunday, late in the day, I chance upon a feast celebration in the still largely white Pelham Bay section of the Bronx, along St. Theresa Avenue and in honor of St. Theresa (not Mother Teresa). It is sponsored by the church of the same name, and there are at least two thousand people in attendance. Such events typically take place in neighborhoods made up of older Italian, Irish, German, and Slavic residents. To better understand and possibly capture the mood of the celebrants, I join the procession and walk behind a statue of the Virgin Mary. Despite the large throngs of people milling about, the scene feels strangely peaceful, perhaps because of the somber music played over a loudspeaker and the slow gait of the marchers, whose gazes suggest peace and reverence. The avenue is lined with stands on which are displayed sausages, pizza, and other delectable foods, the aromas filling the open air. There are also games of chance, as well as Hit the Dummy and Sink the Basket. All of these stands stop selling and enticing people as the religious procession passes by.
In front of the church are various church functionaries dressed in robes of various colors, one of whom begins speaking. “I think you will agree with me,” he says, “that St. Theresa was very anxious to do this procession. And I think she was nice to cool things off a little for us. There is much to give thanks for, which is what we’re all about. The greatest gift, of course, is the gift of our faith.” With these opening comments he humanizes her to the audience. He invites all to hear the choir after he finishes. He prays for the assembled and acclaims Theresa as the greatest saint of modern times and then asks for a moment of silence. A shower of rose petals, red, white, and yellow, rains down, seemingly from the sky, but actually they’ve been tossed from the roof of the church. Everyone oohs and aahs appreciatively, perhaps imagining it as a miracle.
As I survey the scene I’m reminded once again of the centrality of religion in the lives of millions of New Yorkers. There are many other feasts, with multitudes winding their way through the Catholic neighborhoods of New York City, drawing thousands of devotees, but largely unreported by the mainstream media. They bind the community together, providing opportunities for religious expression and venues for social life. Yet there are also many people in the city for whom religion is irrelevant, even meaningless.
And when large numbers of both groups live in the same neighborhoods, conflict can occur. This was the case not long ago in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. An article by David González that appeared on June 7, 2010, in the New York Times, titled “Still Taking to the Streets to Honor Their Saints,” zeroes in on the gap between the two attitudes about religion. One view, adopted by the Italian and other Catholic residents in New York, was for people to pay their respects to the process and join in or at least pause and watch. The other was characterized by “curious hipsters whipping out cellphones to take a snapshot.”
This does not go unnoticed. In the words of Lucy D’Alto, a North Williamsburg resident, “It used to be the whole street was waiting to give money. We don’t see that now. They don’t understand. They see it as something superficial. They don’t respect us, all these young kids—artistes, whatever you call them.” The article describes the outrage felt by Antonio Curcio, president of the Society of Saint Mary of the Snow. “Two years ago when we were doing St. Cono, one of these yuppies dropped his pants. It’s something I never saw in my lifetime. As a man, I wanted to grab him and smash him against a wall, but you got to be a better person.” And if you asked him where he got that idea from, to be a better person, he’d probably give his faith, his Christianity, at least some of the credit.5
This is what happens when cultures clash in two communities. North Williamsburg is becoming gentrified. And if the groups are to live in harmony, each side must demonstrate tolerance and respect. In the Pelham Bay section, however, gentrification is not taking place. The community is still pretty homogeneous and, predictably, conflicts of this sort don’t surface. Which way is better? That depends on one’s own background and perspective. But the North Williamsburg example clearly highlights the deleterious effects of social contact between different groups in parts of the city. Usually the clashes are between religious, racial, and ethnic segments, but in North Williamsburg it’s more of a class thing, mixed in with generational differences, though the young, in the Pelham Bay example. at least, still buy into what the older ones revere.
The difference can be seen in the size of the processions, with the one in the Bronx drawing thousands and the Brooklyn one attracting little more than one hundred of the faithful. The chasm is there, plainly reflected in the comment by Chris Tocco, an actor whose name suggests his own Italian Catholic roots. “It was a tiny parade and they shut down Graham Avenue. There was one float and a horrible marching band. It was very ironic. The Latino parades are more festive.” That’s the verdict. Priority should be given to those with better music. For Tocco it’s all about entertainment and not at all about tradition. The rejection of what was is given voice by Jon McGrath, twenty-seven, who observed, “It seems very old-school. It’s kind of like a vestige of the old neighborhoods of Brooklyn.”
But aren’t the new urban classes interested in “authenticity”? González observes that the twenty or so annual processions that occur just in this ten-square-block area “reaffirm not just faith, but ties to the old neighborhood and the old country.”6 Yes, the newer classes like the idea of authenticity, but within limits. They want it their way—quaint, with an old-timey feel, but never in a way that cramps their own lifestyles. And they are not likely to know that the processions are deeply personal to those who live there. For example, the devotees of St. Cono immigrated to Williamsburg from the village of Teggiano, Italy. St. Cono was a twelfth-century saint who is honored for having rescued Teggiano from an earthquake and a siege.
One new resident, Jack Szarapka, is getting ready to open a juice bar. He’d gotten a statue of St. Francis Xavier and was thinking of naming his new place St. Francis Xavier Juice Bar. Would that be considered irreverent? Perhaps, but to him it’s probably a way of connecting to the past. Irrespective of how you look at it, religious events of this sort can and do bring into sharp focus the beliefs, feelings, and attitudes of people toward faith and their impact on the lives of the city’s residents. Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, while condemning disrespectful behavior, nevertheless adopted a conciliatory view, remarking to me, “These are kids who have no history in the community and who are often disconnected to religion—we’re trying to reach out to them. That’s the first step.”
Religious and ethnic parades like those celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and Puerto Rican and West Indian culture often highlight different points of view. A typical case in point is the Israel Day Parade, held every spring, with perhaps one hundred thousand marchers, mostly Modern Orthodox students from the New York metropolitan area’s religious day schools, who stride proudly up Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. Since Jews are both an ethnic and religious group, supporting Israel must be seen as an expression of ethnic and religious identity and loyalty. It is a joyous event for the participants and onlookers as the sounds of music and singing fill the air, and as people on the sidelines cheer and clap, also using the event as an opportunity to bond socially with one another. Many have been coming for years and treat it as though it were a camp or school reunion, catching up on things with friends.
But it’s not that simple. There are perhaps a million Jews living in New York City, and the overwhelming majority do not attend the parade. Why? First, they have no children of their own who are marching and don’t feel an obligation or desire to do so. But more than that, many Jews today are secular and don’t feel a particularly strong connection to Israel the way previous generations did. Adding to the ambivalence about the parade, if not occasional hostility to it, is the feeling that, as one person told me, “it has been hijacked by the Orthodox.” This was probably truer ten years ago when private Orthodox sponsors dominated the event. Today the Jewish Community Relations Council, under the aegis of UJAFederation of New York, is in charge of the parade, but the bitterness of injustices in years past lingers. One flashpoint back then was the refusal by those who ran the parade to allow Jewish gays to march. Today that’s no longer the case—they are welcomed along with Bikers for Israel and anyone else who wants to join.
Because they are public, parades can provide a great deal of publicity to fringe groups. Every year a tiny band of perhaps five or ten Hasidic Jews belonging to a group called the Neturei Karta stand on Fifth Avenue at Sixtieth Street and unfurl large banners proclaiming their opposition to Israel and their support for the Arabs. For those who don’t know any better, it’s shocking to see Jews clad in religious garb that’s supposed to represent Jewish spirituality seeming to side with those opposed to Israel. Then again, they’re demonstrating their rights to free speech and freedom of assembly.
Immediately after the parade ends there’s a concert in Central Park, sponsored by the Israel Concert Committee. This group strongly supports the settlers on the West Bank and has its own bands and singers who express devotion to that cause. The people who agree with the committee drift over and listen to both music and speakers exhorting Jews to support those living in Judea and Samaria, the biblical names for the West Bank. Such events bring into relief the divisions not only between members of the same group but also among them, and they demostrate how a supposedly fun event on a nice Sunday afternoon can become much more than that. On the one hand, the concert articulates and even magnifies the conflicting views, but on the other, it gives people a chance to let off ideological steam, if you will, even if those who disagree with the concert committee regard the event as just so much hot air. New Yorkers are a highly opinionated lot and revel in their right to say and do as they please in almost any setting.
Social activity in New York clearly encompasses internal sightseeing by both residents and tourists that’s quasi-religious. This includes Little Italy’s San Gennaro Festival, community events, fairs, and other smaller events. One of the more unusual happenings is visiting Brooklyn’s Dyker Heights, set between Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst. It’s an upscale, largely Italian neighborhood with the usual American and Italian flags side by side, accompanied by Virgin Mary statuettes and nativity scenes. Unless you drive, it takes some effort to get to Dyker Heights, as the nearest subway is a mile away. In an area of gracious private residences, during the Christmas season people lavishly bedeck their homes with beautiful and expensive decorations—reindeer, wooden soldiers, elaborate wreaths, trees, in a true festival of dazzling displays and multicolored lights. Some of them are even motorized, and one wonders if the owners are attempting to one-up each other. The area is roughly between Eighty-third and Eighty-sixth Streets from Thirteenth to Eleventh Avenues.
Cars drive slowly up and down the streets of Dyker Heights, their occupants gazing, often gawking, at this million-dollar extravaganza. Many have seen it before but delight in watching the faces of their friends who are experiencing it for the first time. Others willing to brave the cold walk the streets, their feet tripping gaily up and down the stairs in front of these million-dollar homes, a good number of them palatial with circular staircases, marble surfaces, and Roman columns and arches. I have spoken with people from all over the world—Norway, China, Argentina—for whom this neighborhood is part of the itinerary on their visit to New York City, an insider’s journey that is becoming less so as the word spreads. Is touring the area a religious experience or simply a fun, touristy type of thing to do? Conversations with attendees suggest it’s a little of each. A young man from Taiwan, visiting with his wife, said, “We love the lights and the way the houses look. But it’s also a way of getting into the holiday spirit, and feeling the joy that Jesus brings into the hearts of those who believe.”
Even sports can have a religious patina. Do we take note when a team kneels and prays before a game? What about a Hail Mary pass in a football game, described as such by spectators and broadcasters? One of the more interesting, perhaps unique, connections between sports and religion I ever witnessed occurred at a bocci game I was watching in the Marine Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. One participant watched another player make a beautiful shot, the ball nestled tightly between the wall and the other ball. “Wow,” he exclaimed. “He nailed it to the cross!” And then he repeated it verbatim for emphasis. The speaker knew that those in the game were almost surely Catholic, predominantly of Italian heritage, and would appreciate his metaphor, though some Catholics with whom I spoke found it a bit off-putting. In this way he expressed and demonstrated the group’s solidarity and identity, linking them ethnically and religiously and declaring it to be a comfort zone for all of them. As such, his comment was more than “just a way of talking.” I found myself thinking, ‘Here’s a guy who’s really comfortable in his own skin. He knows that I, an outsider, am watching the game and I’m standing two feet from him. It makes no difference to him, perhaps also because he’s with his friends.’
So much about New York is about sports. And on a Sunday it’s impossible not to notice it, as people everywhere are glued to television or radio. Typical is a huge sports bar and eatery called 200 Fifth on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. There are small TV screens at every table tuned to Jets or Giants football games. People are eagerly consuming burgers and fries and washing them down with beer and soda amid the loud din of fans exclaiming loudly and shouting at the screens, seemingly trying to will their teams to victory. When the home team scores, the roar of approval as the people explode in joy can be heard halfway down the block. It’s a beautiful, warm, sunny day in early fall, but for these people the action is definitely inside, not outside. And I too am caught up in the excitement of being at one with the crowd.
Rooting for a citywide team can unite its residents. It can also be the focus of one borough. Staten Island has its own baseball team, the Staten Island Yankees, as does Brooklyn. Tickets for Yankee games cost as little as nine dollars, and there are activities in the ball park that, as one resident told me, “make things interesting.” Yankee games have a small-town feel to them, the hot dogs are cheap, and you can easily get to the park. Unlike the Mets-Yankees annual series, there are no Mayor’s Trophy games, but over the years a fairly intense rivalry has developed between the Staten Island Yankees and the Brooklyn Cyclones. Compared to Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, the price is certainly right.
The neutrality of sports has an equalizing effect on its participants and spectators, whether it’s basketball, baseball, football, or soccer. While this objectivity doesn’t prevent ethnic pride in a tribe member’s success, its overall effect is to unify. Thus, a Hasidic teenager can easily ask a Hispanic or black youth watching a game, “Who’s winning?” Take bowling, for example. Like many other sports, bowling is an opportunity to cross social class and ethnic boundaries. In the words of John LaSpina, a past president of the Bowling Proprietors Association of America, “This is an old code of mine—if the United Nations put a couple of lanes in, people would get along. Forget black and white, that’s easy. It’s Hasidic, Asian, Muslim kids from high school gym class. For whatever reason, it works.”7 One reason may be that it offers the opportunity to develop friendships, minus the risks of rejection as on a dance floor or in a nightclub. Nor is there any obligation. You start a conversation with someone and ramp it up or take your leave.
Certain sports and games are favored by specific groups. Tons of people play Ping-Pong, but it is a sport identified with Asians. Not surprisingly, then, it’s a big deal in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, where the area surrounding the park (also called Sunset Park) is heavily Asian. The park boasts six world-class Ping-Pong tables contributed by a Chinese donor. On a Thursday morning when I visited, all of the players were Chinese, and the same is true on other days.
Or take dominoes, which is to the Latino community what basketball is to the black community, what bocci is to the Italian community, and so on. Walking through the Hispanic areas of the city in the summertime, one finds people, mostly men, seated around folding tables on the sidewalk, in parks, and even inside stores, concentrating on the ivory, black, or red tiles as if their lives depended on them. And in a way they do, because for so many life isn’t worth living without the game and the highly enjoyable bonding banter and macho posturing that accompanies it, all reflecting aspects of their identity and culture, including language, geographic origins, and insider jokes. And, of course, it’s a game most have known since childhood. It looks easy—just connect the dots on your pieces with those on the table—but it’s not. There’s a high level of skill, because you have to have a good memory. You also need to intuit the decisions your opponents are going to make based on their past performance. The game is also characterized by ethnic loyalties and divisions. Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Dominicans generally play with their own group, with each one having particular styles and variations on the rules.8
In my travels through the city I noticed a large number of black people playing chess, from Times Square, to the streets of Harlem, to Starbucks, to the city’s public parks. What stood out as I watched them was not only the enthusiasm they displayed but also their commitment to the game. I would walk by a park at night and see people playing with a portable lamp placed over the board. Speed chess is a particular favorite.
An article on the topic placed the game of chess in a racial context, asserting that blacks are acutely aware that whoever has the white pieces moves first, not a coincidence in their eyes, seeing it as “a life lesson.” The article focused on the Washington, D.C., area and reported that thousands of blacks there play the game, suggesting that this is a national phenomenon, not merely a New York thing, though the first black grandmaster, Maurice Ashley, is a New Yorker. “Black chess is not like European chess,” said one insider, “where everybody sits there all quiet and doesn’t say anything. Black folks talk trash. You gotta have sass to go along with the game.”
Is there a cultural reason for this love of chess? A black Maryland state senator, Ulysses Currie, offered the following explanation: “Chess defines us in ways other than the way we are often defined in newspapers and on television with the negative images…. Chess knocks the stereotypes and shows that we are intellectual, cerebral people and that we are interested in something other than basketball.”9 This, then, is a value—namely, to be respected for one’s brain power.
This argument would not apply to Jews, a group overrepresented in chess, who, if anything, are stereotyped as being too smart—words like “shrewd” and “clever” are often employed in reference to Jews. Yet Jews and blacks share in common something else: a history of marginality, of always being on the outside, looking in, and feeling endangered. Such groups may therefore feel a need to be one step ahead, just a bit smarter, merely to survive.10
Other issues, like safety, and stereotypes about it, can enter into discussions about sports and complicate matters too. Much as chess seems like a peaceful pastime, some people are not thrilled about it, albeit for different reasons. In 2010 a story appeared in the New York Times, provocatively titled “Police! Drop the Pawn! Step away from the Table!” Inwood Hill Park in Northern Manhattan, was the scene of a police raid on chess players enjoying themselves at chess tables that just happened to be within a playground area. This is against the posted law—you can’t be there unless you’re with a minor.
Certainly this law presents a dilemma in terms of how space is used and negotiated. One can understand the safety concern, but what if you’re a person who just wants to enjoy watching kids play because they remind you of your grandchildren now living in Los Angeles or Pittsburgh? And what if you’re only there because the chess table is there? But here’s the rub: chess players as a group pose no threat as a rule. Thus, one of the chess players who was issued a summons, Yacahudah Harrison, a forty-nine-year-old black man, asked, “What is so harmful with chess?” The problem is that he’s homeless—in other words, unsavory. Harrison claims he was invited to the park by a resident who asked him to teach the game to children. If we care so much about the homeless that we create organizations to help them, give them money, and try to find homes for them, can’t they contribute in other ways to society? Or does being homeless mean they can’t be trusted to interact with children? Are they bad role models? Does race enter into the picture? Remember the Chicago Seven of 1960s fame? The chess players who were cited for breaking the law that day were playfully dubbed the Inwood Hill Seven, at least by the reporters who wrote the article.
Harrison took issue with the stereotype of drinking men when he said, “We drink jasmine tea and have some muffins, nothing decadent.” For what it’s worth, a fence separates the playing area from the playground itself. And they had their local supporters. One woman wrote the mayor and the police that her seven-year-old son learned to play the game from one of the men who used to hang out there.11
The police defended their actions as part of an effort to respond to complaints about crime in the park. The problem is that it’s hard to draw the line. I was walking along Morningside Park in Harlem and stopped to observe men playing chess at some tables that were not in a playground. What drew my attention was that it was nighttime, and people had brought portable fluorescent lamps to the park to illuminate the boards and pieces. “They must really love this game,” I thought.
I noticed a tall, younger man wearing sunglasses and a black leather jacket who was standing by the table. Perhaps he had been watching or playing earlier. But at that moment he was talking on his cell phone, intensely engaged in, from what I could overhear, the details of a drug deal he was apparently making. He ignored my presence, even though I was a stranger and white, in contrast to the minority makeup of the five other men present. Could he be a regular player when he wasn’t dealing? Of course, many people have multiple roles in a variety of contexts. But was it fair to assume that because he was standing there he was a drug dealer and a chess player? Maybe not, but perhaps these roles coexist, so to speak, in an environment where these activities are often commingled.
Another sedentary game is bingo, but the players, venues, and its dependence on luck make it a whole different ball game, as they say. Bingo is very big among members of a specific group—senior citizens, mostly older, working-class women—and the game helps bring them closer together, even to unite them. Like bocci, bingo has Italian antecedents. The original version was invented in Italy in 1530 and called Lo Giuoco del Lotto D’Italia (meaning “The Clearance of the Lot in Italy”). It entered the United States in the 1920s and was first called beano, after the beans players used to mark their cards. In describing the Nostrand Bingo Hall in Brooklyn, New York Times writer N. R. Kleinfeld refers to it as “one of the enduring relics of a fading game long cherished by those long done working.” These are the same people who get on a bus to Atlantic City, but in this case they don’t even have to do that. For many of these old-timers bingo is almost a religion. Their lives revolve around it—the play, the camaraderie, the possibility of a thousand dollars or more in winnings—and a good number of them were invested in the game many years before they retired. As Kleinfeld puts it, “It’s an analgesic for the yawning emptiness of old age.”
Bingo even has intellectual forebears, most notably Carl Leffler, a Columbia University math professor who figured out six thousand combinations and reportedly lost his mind from the stress of doing so. Despite that pedigree, since success at bingo rests totally on luck, many think it’s a game for idiots. At least in horse racing you can speculate about the horse’s abilities as described in the racing sheets.12 One place that I visited is the bingo hall in Richmond Hill, a cavernous former movie theater where enthusiasts gather on a regular basis. Their conversations focused on health, politics, and the economy, as well as on the changing neighborhood. Several of those present avidly discussed stock tips that had panned out, as well as some that didn’t.
Reflecting the large West Indian and South Asian populations in the city, there are cricket fields in the areas where they reside, in the Bronx, Queens, and elsewhere. Lots of times it’s informal, but sometimes it’s the opposite, with people dressed to the nines. One case in point is in Staten Island, at Walker Park, between Bard and Davis Avenues near the harbor. A cricket game is going on, with the players dressed in white uniforms. Nearby, people are sitting with their families, watching the game, picnicking, and listening to music. The soft strains of calypso music fill the air, mixed in with the smells of curried goat and roti, a flatbread. The crowd is mostly West Indian and South Asian, and this game is sponsored and run by the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club, which is about 140 years old, having been founded in 1872.
At that time British people lived on the island, and cricket was played by British army officers who had immigrated to New York. As was the case then, those who come to Walker Park today view the club as an outlet for getting together socially and for validating an important aspect of their identity and culture. Casual games are played here on Saturday and more competitive ones on Sunday.13
Interestingly, while you might think of Queens and the U.S. Open when you hear the word “tennis,” in New York the sport was actually first played in 1874 on Staten Island, where it was introduced by Mary Ewing Outerbridge, who got the idea of bringing it to the city after watching a game of tennis in Bermuda. Parenthetically, most people probably think the Outerbridge Crossing from Staten Island to New Jersey is so named because it’s a bridge on the edge or outskirts of both locations. But as it turns out, it has to do with Mary’s brother, Eugenius Outerbridge, the first chairman of the Port of New York Authority, after whom the bridge was named.14
One of the most unusual sports in New York is rooftop pigeon flying. In the past this activity was engaged in primarily by Italians and other white males, hailing mostly from Brooklyn and Queens. Today’s flyers are predominantly African American and Puerto Rican. What’s interesting is that the remaining older white ethnics mingle with the minorities and develop relationships across group boundaries through this activity. All this is chronicled by Colin Jerolmack, who spent three years studying the group in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick neighborhoods.15
The YMCAs and YMHAs (Young Men’s Christian Association and Young Men’s Hebrew Association, respectively) throughout the five boroughs are of great importance to community life. Their programs vary, but they are there for those unable to afford highpriced gyms or private recreation clubs, as well as to reinforce religion. Typical is the Twelve Towns YMCA in Cypress Hills by Jamaica and Force Tube Avenues near Highland Park. The center has racquetball, swimming, a fitness room, basketball, and dancing. What’s amazing is the price: $429 annually for adults between twenty-five and sixty-four, and $780 for a family with two or more children. Not all Ys are so cheap. At the other end of the scale is the Vanderbilt YMCA in Mid-Manhattan’s East Side, where the annual cost for a family is $2,000, still a bargain compared to a private facility.
Last among the sports and games important to the city, but certainly not least in terms of the number of participants, are the informal games played by children. Regardless of where they grow up, kids like to have fun pulling pranks, whether it’s throwing water balloons from windows or ringing people’s bells in apartment buildings and running away. Their Halloween pranks, featuring potato and egg throwing at cars, are also good examples of this. In Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn, a favorite pastime is giving wrong directions to drivers who wander into the community and get lost. The driver ends up facing the water on a dead-end street. Such amusements have the effect of binding residents together in later life as well as they reminisce about their youth.16
Easy access to good public parks, the best known being Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, are a major reason why people consider certain communities worth living in. Their offerings, some of which include zoos, generally reflect the communities’ interests and group identities, based largely on who lives there. Thus, Riverbank State Park at 145th Street and Riverside Drive, has gospel concerts. And there’s a Halloween party and a parade with costumes, DJs, the works. There’s a kids’ carousel at a dollar a ride. And park-goers celebrate the neighborhood’s Puerto Rican heritage.
The involvement of private corporations and wealthy individuals in New York City’s parks is accepted today as a fact of life, though many professionals are uncomfortable with the influence wielded by outside interests that results from such connections. This pattern began in earnest during the Koch administration under the energetic leadership of then parks commissioner Gordon Davis. The parks are exceedingly important to New Yorkers. Despite the high demand for construction of every type in this urban metropolis, 14 percent of the city’s land area consists of parkland. What’s remarkable is the variety of parks that exists in the city and the different uses to which they have been put.
Sometimes through its offerings an entire park that is officially open to the public at large becomes a venue for a particular group to reinforce its identity through various activities. Sunset Park in Brooklyn anchors the largely Chinese community in which it is situated. It appeals to people of all backgrounds, yet Asians seem to find the park particularly enjoyable. On one recent visit I saw middle-age men and women doing yoga or tai chi there. One man explained to me, “This is part of my culture and it is also very healthy. You should try it.” Groups of Chinese men have a hilly area near the park’s north end, where they gather just to talk and exchange stories. Set high on a hill, the park boasts a terrific view of the Manhattan skyline, the Statue of Liberty, and New York Harbor.
Notwithstanding the pattern in Sunset Park, integration is clearly the norm in multiethnic neighborhoods or if the area is transitioning from one group to another. Sometimes several ethnic groups play basketball together, sometimes they don’t. It depends on many factors: Do they know and/or personally like each other? Do they live on the same block? Do they attend a nearby school together? Sometimes a park displays ethnic coexistence and actual mixing. For example, on several trips to DeWitt Clinton Park, on Eleventh Avenue between Fifty-second and Fifty-fourth Streets, I saw basketball games featuring only black teenagers, while at nearby handball courts the participants were exclusively Asian. Yet the kids mingled freely around the water fountain and interfaced along the benches. From comments made in answer to my questions, it would seem that the issue of who was playing what was simply a matter of game preference.
Hundreds of parks of all sizes throughout the city serve as places where people of different socioeconomic groups meet and socialize on a level playing field. Skyline Park in northern Staten Island is known as a place where people from the poorer community, lower down the hill in New Brighton, meet with those who are better off, from West Brighton. Reportedly, everyone gets along, and my own observations and queries confirmed that. The adults tend to cluster in their own ethnic or class groups, but the children mix freely on the monkey bars, in the water flumes, and in the sandboxes.
Most city parks are public, but there are exceptions. One of the most beautiful is the two-acre Gramercy Park in Manhattan, complete with aesthetically pleasing gardens and flowers along winding paths, even birdhouses. Alas, it’s private, requiring a key to enter the grounds. Only those living near it can use it. Of course, the gardens that exist in the interior grounds of many city apartment buildings are also off limits to the public, but these are not on the street itself, where those walking by are apt to feel particularly frustrated at not being allowed access to what is easily mistaken for a public park. As a result, Gramercy Park has a certain elitist air, with the casual stroller vaguely feeling that there’s something wrong about it. Conversely, the park unifies the residents who share and enjoy it.
For those who are annoyed at being excluded from private parks, there are some great and relatively unknown parks in the city, and they can be found in every borough. The Chinese Scholars Garden in Snug Harbor, part of the Staten Island Botanical Gardens, was created at a cost of $5 million. (See figure 15.) It is one of the most exquisite and beautiful gardens you will ever see, and it reflects the community’s strong belief that such a garden is an important project and that it adds greatly to its social life. It is well worth the trip to see the stonework, lacquer work, statues, engraved designs, gazebos, latticework, goldfish ponds, and many other artistic creations. Everything is beautifully done, and walking through it makes one feel particularly contemplative, relaxed, and even scholarly. Garden guide cards inform visitors that plants stand for ideas and certain floral arrangements represent poems or philosophical concepts. For example, a description near some flowers reads: “The flowering plum, bamboo, and pine are the three friends of winter. The plum blooms in late winter and is therefore a symbol of the loyalty of a scholar’s friends even in the harshest of political times.” The small stairs of the garden’s One Step Bridge are designed to make visitors walk one step at a time, allowing them to contemplate a different view from each point along the way.
Another park deserving of special mention is Von Briesen Park, also in Staten Island. Although it lies right in the shadow of the Verrazano Bridge, most New Yorkers have never even heard of it. A place where gentle winds blow from the east, it was founded by a prominent German immigrant, Arthur Von Briesen. It’s situated on ten acres located on the water, and despite numerous attempts to build recreational facilities in it, they all failed because the Parks Commission felt strongly that it should remain what they deem as “the most beautiful passive park in the city.” The park still has unusual trees like the horse chestnut and the red oak.
Von Briesen was a big supporter of democratic ideals, believing that immigrants would become better citizens if treated fairly, and with that in mind he created the German Legal Aid Society in 1876. This eventually morphed into the famous Legal Aid Society that has lasted until this very day and helps thousands of indigent people in New York City every year. What unites these two activities is a concern for both the unprotected trees and flowers and the indigent. What makes this story relevant for our purposes is that, based on my own observations, the park elevates the social lives of residents and others by providing a beautiful setting for walking and socializing.
A park, I discovered, can be both tiny and special. Deep in the South Bronx, on Fulton Avenue at the edge of the Cross Bronx Expressway, I enter a tiny, beautiful park, perhaps a quarter of a block in length. Nestled against the wall of an apartment building, with a soft black gravel surface, it is called the Uptown Sitting Park, and that is basically what it’s for. You can sit on one of several contoured benches with room for three or four people. There are also a few concrete chess or checkerboard tables by some of the benches. The park is very shady, with a number of trees and a beautiful, flower-covered trellis. There’s no playground, no sports facilities, and no litter. The garbage cans, lined with plastic bags, are virtually empty. On three visits I found no one present except, on one occasion, a young African couple who live up the block and who told me it’s a favorite spot for “people in love.” Indeed, the feeling is one of peace and solitude.
Immediately behind the park is a busy gas station that sits on bustling Third Avenue, obscured mostly by the evergreen trees that border the park. I walk over to the station, point, and ask the gas attendant, “Do you know what’s up there?”
“No,” he replies.
“It’s a beautiful little park,” I tell him.
“Oh,” he says in a bored tone and goes back to pumping gas. He has been toiling at this job for three years.
Most amazing, perhaps, as you sit on the benches is that you can get a clear view, through the branches, of the Cross Bronx Expressway. As I gaze at the passing ten-wheel tractor trailers, buses, and cars, I am struck by the contrast between the quiet of the park and the busyness of what goes on around it. The contrast is heightened by the fact that people walk by on the sidewalk seemingly unaware that there is a park there. It is camouflaged by the trees. I feel almost as though I’m dreaming, contemplating the city from a distant vantage point—that I see it, feel it pulsating, but am not at all part of it.
As I leave I notice a sign listing the usual restrictions against loud noise, cooking, and littering in the park, but it is the first admonition, “No Monopolizing,” that catches my attention. What does it mean? No monopolizing of space? Of conversation? No financial monopolies? No Monopoly games? Who knows? Two blocks up the hill I see one of the many public housing projects in the Bronx, rising into the cobalt-blue afternoon sky. “Does anyone from there ever come here to escape their grimness?” I wonder.
Although most people don’t think about it, New York City is home to many streams, ponds, forests, and even wildlife within its boundaries. Coyotes love it because it has lots of rodents and no large predators like bears or mountain lions. While the coyotes tend to hang out in the Bronx, herons, snakes, and wild turkeys are flourishing on Staten Island.17 Many of the parks have forests and meadows. For example, Inwood Hill Park in northernmost Manhattan stretches north from Dyckman Street to Baker Field. It’s quiet and heavily wooded, aside from the tennis courts and ball fields near the eastern edge. As I walk along the shaded paths, not many people are around, and it feels as though I am a hundred miles outside of the city. This is equally true of Bowne and Cunningham Parks in Queens, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and many others.
Staten Island also has a large greenbelt area where one can hike for miles and miles. And there is a beautiful beach to the left of the Verrazano Bridge, with reddish sand and a four-mile boardwalk that’s in excellent condition. (See figure 16.) People sunbathe, play volleyball, walk, jog, and bike, just like they do elsewhere. Known as South Beach, the area features free kayaking, a carousel, puppet shows, and fireworks in season. The beach was there 150 years ago, and in its heyday it was like Coney Island, with a roller coaster, games, rides, food vendors, and other amusements. During the 1890s more than one hundred Westerns were filmed at Fred Scott’s Movie Ranch in the South Beach area. Many film stars of the silent era got their start here, people like actress Lillian Gish and director D. W. Griffith. Far Rockaway has the only surfing beach within the city limits. On a sunny day in early April, I see two surfers in the water, their surfboards arcing over the waves, hitting them just right, becoming one with the cresting waves. Surfers come from all over the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) and clearly enjoy themselves.
The crown jewel of what nature has to offer in New York City is Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, which is also a great recreational site. It’s part of the National Park Service and is the only wildlife refuge in the country accessible by subway. In an in-depth New York Times article describing people’s increasing awareness of its ecological importance, Alan Feuer points out that Jamaica Bay is “the city’s largest open space.” He describes the bay as sitting “at the literal and figurative edge where the natural and manmade worlds collide.”
The bay is utilized in many ways by the various groups in the surrounding area. The Guyanese have the Curry Duck Festivals there at Floyd Bennett Field and at Jacob Riis Park, and the Native American Pow-Wow Festivals attract thousands of visitors every year. It is also the site for hundreds of community gardens. Naturally, people living by the bay use it most often, usually for fishing, boating, swimming, and hiking, and have been doing so for generations. At one time many residents earned their livelihood from the bay—namely, with commercial fishing and, in places like Sheepshead Bay, charter boat fishing.18
The millions of folks who annually take advantage of the city’s parks, preserves, and greenbelts, plus the large amounts of space devoted to them in a city where even an eighty-by-one-hundredfoot lot can cost a million dollars, speaks for itself. These spaces are critical for the physical and mental well-being of New Yorkers and visitors alike by making available opportunities for relaxation, reflection, and spending time with one’s families and friends as well as meeting new people. Moreover, by observing the activities that go on in these places, we can learn a great deal about people’s social lives, values, needs, and their priorities.
Along Eighteenth Avenue in Bensonhurst, in an ode to a generation past and sandwiched between the storefronts of more recent arrivals, is the Loyal Order of Moose: “Members Only.” They’re offering Christmas music by Phil Anthony for Thanksgiving Day, a whole turkey on every table—carve your own. And not long after, there’s the lodge’s New Year’s Eve dance. It’s really the Knights of Pythias, which claims to be a nonsectarian organization dedicated to friendship. These orders are most often populated and run by Christians and serve to unify them as a distinct group. Once the kids have grown up and moved away, these nostalgic gathering places of bygone days are what’s left, along with some Italian delis, a bocci court in a local park, and always the church, smaller and sharing space with new ethnic groups, but still a crucial stabilizer, even an anchor for the old folks. Jews, mostly working-class types, also belong to these orders, especially the Masons and B’nai Brith lodges. In such cases the membership, relatively speaking, is mostly Jewish.
Like social lodges, senior citizen centers are important meeting places and give their members opportunities for socializing and participating in activities. As one director in Brooklyn said, “We give them a reason to get dressed in the morning and put on lipstick.” Elderly liberal Jews gather at the Sholem Aleichem Cultural Center on Bainbridge Avenue in the Norwood section of the Bronx, or at the Workmen’s Circle MultiCare Center in the nearby West Kingsbridge area, off Sedgwick Avenue. Why do they come? Because this was once a neighborhood for left-wing Jews who lived in the nearby Amalgamated Houses.
Seniors frequently gather in restaurants, parks, and on streets. Physically, Bensonhurst is quintessentially Brooklyn. Its mix of Art Deco, Art Moderne, and hodgepodge architectural-design apartment buildings, joined by one-, two-, and multifamily houses of every description—two- to four-story, Kreischer-era, yellow brick houses with bow or bay windows, built in the 1880s, split levels and ranches, colonials—remind the visitor of what is meant when people conjure up images of old Brooklyn. The Kreischer Brick Works factory was located in Staten Island. Some streets are treelined, others are bare, most are in between. In the neighborhood, middle-age and elderly men hang out in front of the buildings, sitting on stoops or folding chairs, or in nearby coffee shops and Burger Kings, where they have their favorite tables.
Typically they are dressed in flannel shirts and plain pants, wearing windbreakers that may read “Korean War Vet” or “Mets,” and thick, square work shoes. The words on their caps often reflect where they worked, the beers they favored, and the teams they loved, most often the standard white B for Brooklyn Dodgers on their blue, often faded caps. They speak in animated tones, gesturing, laughing, and jabbing each other playfully to emphasize their points. The conversations most often revolve around their families, their work, past and present, and, most important, which team to bet on—the Lions, the Patriots, the Jets, as well as on the everchanging fortunes and abilities of their Yankees and Mets.
And yet the new Brooklyn is there too, pushing its way into the consciousness of these oldsters. They can’t help but notice the passing crowds of Asians and Russians thronging the Eighty-sixth Street shopping area: the ethnic stores; the multilanguage signs; the travel agencies advertising low fares to every corner of the globe; and the restaurants, a United Nations of New York, offering Turkish, Russian, Japanese, Mexican, Peruvian, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Afghan food. The future, if not the present, is clearly theirs. Overall, the Bensonhurst area is today mostly Chinese, Russian, a bit Albanian, coupled with the remaining white ethnics—Italians, and some Irish and Jews. Change has indeed come and the oldsters know it. Yet for now they do their best to hold on, clinging to each other for comfort.
In smaller cities or in the suburbs and outer boroughs of New York City, bars usually serve as places to meet friends. The locals know each other. In Manhattan, however, that’s often not the case. There bars often serve as a destination point for those living elsewhere, especially the young. An almost carnival air of excitement prevails as the subways disgorge revelers, especially on weekends and holidays, at Times Square, Penn Station, Union Square, Astor Place, and West Fourth Street, all bent on having a good time. This is seen by many as one of the benefits of living in the Big Apple—you don’t have to go far to feel like you have done so. In forty-five minutes you can go somewhere and meet new people, listen to great stand-up comedy, eat in a five-star restaurant, or just go to a dive and see a new and different slice of urban life.19
Naturally the most ubiquitous form of social gatherings is people getting together in one another’s homes for an evening of dining, drinking, and conversation. Occasions like birthday parties and anniversaries give them special meaning. Formal commemorations, like Mother’s or Father’s Day, also cement the social glue that holds society together. Walking the streets of Bushwick on Mother’s Day, I saw many parties that were typical of those going on throughout the city. The holiday is one that brings families together. Houses were festooned with balloons, many of them silvery, heart-shaped ones proclaiming “Happy Mother’s Day!” In poor areas like Bushwick, people especially welcome the opportunity to be happy about something. I passed by one two-story, newish brick dwelling where a crowd of Hispanic people, probably family members, had gathered. The music was loud, the atmosphere convivial. Parked in front of the house, looking incongruous in this impoverished part of Brooklyn, was a regular-size (not limo), bright red, gleaming Rolls Royce. A rich relative? A rental? A drug dealer? A lottery winner? Who knows?
One general emerging trend that manifests itself when the social life of New York City is examined is a greater concern with health and environmental issues, and it turns up in sometimes unexpected ways. New housing construction projects are beginning to advertise their emphasis on such issues. A subsidized housing development called Via Verde has opened in the South Bronx at Brook Avenue and 156th Street that emphasizes healthy living as the rationale for much of its design. The main health problems in poor areas are obesity, poor diets, and asthma. The ground floor of Via Verde is occupied by a medical clinic. There are ceiling fans to discourage the use of air conditioners unless it’s really necessary. Staircases are built to encourage people to use them, buildings take advantage of natural light, and there are fitness centers too.20 These features aren’t earth-shaking, but they reflect a new consciousness about health and the environment from a business where developers are usually focused on how many apartments they can build in a particular space. They also suggest that builders think it’s a good selling point.
The health trend is also evident in leisure-time activities. Conservation groups have always promoted safeguarding the environment, but their level of activity has increased significantly in the last decade or so. The Bronx River Alliance, founded in 2001, is dedicated to cleaning up the once very polluted Bronx River, which had many abandoned cars and other debris dumped into it. The alliance works closely with the Parks Department and many community groups. It is amazing what such volunteer organizations can achieve. Since 1997 the Bronx River Conservation Crew and thousands of volunteers have removed 250 tons of debris and trash as well as 72 cars and almost 16,000 tires from the river. Their goal is to create a twenty-three-mile-long “Central Park” for the Bronx, with an entire network of parklands running alongside the Bronx River, a greenway. To that end 45,000 shrubs and trees have been planted. The organization has even developed a canoe program for students and the general public who want to do urban exploring. This kind of planned approach for the future has become more common.
New also is the temporary closing off of twelve streets in New York and their designation as “play streets,” for the express purpose of promoting health through activities like running, yoga, jumping rope, tennis, and rugby. The effort is particularly designed to combat childhood obesity. The evidence gathered so far suggests that the plan has been a success, attracting children who previously spent most of their time watching TV and playing video games indoors.21 Of course, the city is full of parks and they are used, but having a play area just outside the house will at least tempt those who don’t want to walk far, who want to be near home, and whose families wish to supervise them from close by.
In 2011 New York City began rating restaurants for cleanliness, using a letter grading system. This too is a reflection of heightened concern with health throughout American society. The grading system has a Zagat-like effect, even though it doesn’t deal with the quality or taste of the food. Its effects have not yet been studied in depth, but preliminary results are encouraging.22 Certain assumptions about the rating scale can be made, however. First, a grade of “B” might make one think twice, and a “C” or “Grade Pending” would certainly be disturbing to the average diner. After all, a restaurant might serve delicious food, but if it makes you sick, then what’s it worth? Subliminally “A” is always seen as synonymous with quality: one thinks of an A average, bonds with a triple-A rating, and the like. Evidence of just how ghastly, or costly, such a judgment is can be inferred from the strenuous efforts of more than a few eateries to hide the placard stating their grade by placing objects like a table or large potted plant to conceal the offending letter.
In short, when you look around the city, from the explosion in health-oriented eateries, to bans on smoking, to campaigns for better living, paying attention to health is more popular today, and it’s a trend that’s beginning to permeate every aspect of society.