To enter the world of a Bronx or Brooklyn bus—it’s fair to call them spaces—is to join a world populated in large measure by the poor, the black, and the Hispanic, with an occasional Asian and an even rarer elderly white person who was apparently left behind in the various eras of white flight. Except for teenagers, nearly everyone looks tired, bored, and, in many cases, worn down or defeated by life’s hardships. Their clothes tend to be shabby, and children tug impatiently on their mothers’ dresses, pants, or arms and legs. There are people with canes, others in wheelchairs. A few read books in Spanish. Some talk listlessly or listen to music, but most just stare out into the distance.
My presence on the bus goes unnoticed. I’m wearing a nondescript outfit designed to hopefully blend in—blue shorts, a nonmatching khaki-colored polo shirt, white socks, and black shoes. Indeed, no one favors me with more than a furtive passing glance, if that. The only riders who draw serious attention are four adventuresome young tourists from Germany, Scandinavia, or wherever, who’ve decided the bus is the real way to explore New York City. Their dress, language, demeanor, and foreignness seem to make people feel they have a right to stare at them openly, almost as if to say, “If you weird-looking and strange-talking people are on this bus, where you don’t fit in at all, then we have a right to look at you for as long we want.” And, of course, people do stare at the foreigners. It’s a public space and, in a sense, their territory, though only until they get off. But staring is not something they would ever do so openly to their fellow residents.
The city has thousands of spaces and here we look at them in detail. We begin with larger spaces—neighborhoods, industrial and commercial areas, and parks. We then focus on the streets and sidewalks themselves. Next we turn our attention to shops and malls, as well as the signage on stores, advertising spaces, and the signs on houses of worship. The next areas to be examined are buildings and walls. We conclude with shrines, plaques, statues, and views.
These spaces teach us a great deal about the people living here. We learn what space means to them; how they use it for living, work, and play; and how it expresses their beliefs, values, priorities, and matters that concern them. Among these are territoriality, artistic expression, identities of various sorts, advocating for various causes, bonding, sharing stories and jokes, remembering people or history, giving to others, and solidarity in protest. The spaces are mostly outdoors and public, but occasionally they are private spaces that can be seen in public. Missing from the discussion, though not entirely absent, are the private worlds behind locked doors, but there is more than enough going on in the unlocked world to provide insight and understanding of how this great metropolis survives and thrives. Let’s begin by focusing on neighborhoods, not so much as communities, but as spaces.
When I was a kid, my family lived in Washington Heights for several years. There were certain blocks I always walked on and others I never walked on. This is true for just about everyone. You have blocks where your friends live and others where they don’t. A church you attend is on one street, a school is on another. Your favorite stores are on one shopping block and not on another. There were also blocks I didn’t walk on because they had a reputation among youngsters of being unfriendly to outsiders. This rarely applied to adults, who blithely walked these streets unaware of such dangers. For them, danger usually meant being mugged. Thus, residents often have a truncated view of their own neighborhood, almost as if they live in a “sub-neighborhood.”
I lived for several years on 164th Street, one block west of Broadway, in Manhattan’s Washington Heights, and I never set foot east of Broadway on 164th, 163rd, or 162nd Streets, though I did on 165th and 161st. I strolled along 157th Street, but not on 158th or 159th. My friends and I regarded the entire area as our “home turf,” but, in truth, only portions of it were. Now that I’ve systematically walked almost every street in the city, including those in my old neighborhood, I traverse these blocks like a firsttime visitor, which, in fact, I am. I never noticed them back then, but now I do, because I’m seeing them for the first time.
What this means is that people’s spatial boundaries are often narrower than their statements about “my neighborhood” or “where I grew up” would seem to suggest. Thus, when they generalize about the “West Side” of Manhattan or “Flatbush,” Brooklyn, those terms might be far less applicable to the entire area than their comments imply. And since different people consider different parts of their neighborhoods important, people can grow up in the same part of the city and have widely divergent opinions about its attractiveness, people, safety, and even its main points of interest. These are self-imposed boundaries owing to networks of friends, preferred activities, and the like.1
In general, when we think of residents “controlling” a neighborhood block in a territorial sense, what comes to mind is block associations, friendship networks, the “eyes and ears” discussed by Jane Jacobs, or the presence of gangs on a block. One extreme negative example of the last category happened on a one-way street, Undercliff Avenue, in the Morris Heights section of the West Bronx, which fell under a gang’s control. An apartment building on the street, number 1571, was the gang’s “guarded fortress,” and from their vantage point they could spot every approaching car and “brandished guns when they sensed trouble.” It was, by all accounts, a “brazen operation,” based in ten vacant apartments. The leader, born in the Dominican Republic, was José Delorbe. Delorbe also enjoyed the complete cooperation of the superintendent, one José Jiminez. The authorities described it as a “long-running” operation that they had under surveillance.2 One wonders why it wasn’t stopped earlier. The answer is probably that residents were, and are, too afraid to testify. What this demonstrates is that, when not challenged by the law, undesirables can actually control a public space as if it were their private property.
Very few public spaces in the city can be sacred, impervious to the outside world. New Yorkers can and do walk in every neighborhood or other public spaces. Even as an outsider you can stand on a block and sing or dance, or you can sell lemonade. This is brought home to me as I pass through the byways and small curving streets of the exclusive, upscale neighborhood of Todt Hill, in Staten Island. I am with my students on a Sunday afternoon. Trips throughout the city are part of the graduate course I teach about New York City. There are huge gated mansions, or palazzos, here, and the homes exquisitely represent the beautiful styles of Gothic, Georgian, Romanesque, and Greek Revival. Some are ultramodern, and many have spectacular views of the city. The streets are empty on a Sunday afternoon in October. We come to a corner and suddenly I spy, tacked onto a telephone pole, a neat, hand-lettered sign in black lettering on a plain piece of paper. Its simple message says it all, direct and unambiguous: “Single and Ready to Mingle,” followed by a local phone number.
As I peer up and down the street, I have the feeling that space and privacy have somehow been violated in this redoubt of the rich. But, of course, they haven’t, because this is the city and the streets are, in fact, anything but private. These people may feel they have a private community, but if so, it’s private only in their imaginations. The wild life, as it were, beckons just beyond the edge of their property. “Will anyone be enticed by that offer?” I wonder. “How long will it stay up there? Will an angry resident tear it down?” “You never know,” I conclude, and as I do so, I remember that many years ago this area was in the public eye in another way. It was identified as the community where Paul Castellano, a Mafia mobster, lived before he was gunned down.3
It’s important to understand that the space that defines a neighborhood is not limited to its residents but can also include those who regularly work in the area. Thus, the Café Clementine in upscale Tribeca, by West Broadway and White Street, has about a dozen, mostly Latino employees who deliver meals locally to the residents. Outside is a rack for about fifteen bikes used by the delivery people. But there is little meaningful interaction with residents beyond these transactions, since the delivery people are largely defined by their specific role, nothing more.
The Westside Coffee Shop, also in Tribeca, located on Church Street between Canal and Lispenard Streets, serves primarily Dominican food to the immigrants who work in the area. Surprisingly, in the evening most of the customers are not Latinos, but African men who work nearby on Canal Street as sidewalk vendors. The place is a hangout for the men, mostly Senegalese, that allows them to stay inside and avoid the cold weather, to use the restroom, and to just socialize. The few Latinos who come there use the restaurant for what it was intended—to eat Spanish food. During the daytime hours the customers are pairs or individuals, both white and Hispanic, who come in mainly to eat lunch. Thus, the space usage changes according to what’s happening at different times of the day, and this is true of many city neighborhoods.4
The battles over public space in neighborhoods play out in a variety of venues, from parks, to buildings, to street corners. Richard’s law office is across the street from an apartment building on Ninth Street, the Brevoort. As he tells it, “There was this woman from the Brevoort with a dog, and every day the dog would cross the street right by my office and do its business there. Of course, she picks up, but still, why here? So one day someone asked her what was wrong with the area in front of the Brevoort, and she said, ‘Oh, the co-op rules don’t allow it.’ ” Richard laughed as he told me this, but added, “It’s okay.”5 What this shows is how a private board’s authority can extend into the public square without more than a perfunctory challenge. There are many other examples of such behavior. People put their feet or bags on empty subway or bus seats; they reserve parking spots on the street by standing in them until the driver arrives; they attach a basketball hoop to a utility pole; and so on.
The spaces of New York can also become battlefronts when filmmakers use the various neighborhoods as stages or props, something that both thrills and repels local residents. The architecture professor Michael Sorkin is outraged at what he views as a gross violation of public space, which, as he sees it, is also his space:
I feel my blood pressure rise as I pass the ranks of mobile dressingrooms and supply trucks, all with their exhausts belching and their noisy generators to keep overpaid stars cool or warm. I hate the officious production assistants asking—insisting—that I cross the street so the filming of some moronic commercial can proceed without interruption. I especially hate the groaning catering tables spread with nutritious snacks placed curbside in case anyone involved with the production wants a nosh: but none for you! To me these spreads always suggest Reaganism, abundance for a few, illusory trickledown for the rest.6
Allowing for the hyperbole—production assistants make nothing, as anyone knows; some may even be his neighbors’ children working as interns—Sorkin has a valid point. Who owns public space? And what limits are there to the rights of those who own the space?
And shouldn’t those residents whose space is being commandeered, even with approval from the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting, be compensated in some way, perhaps with a neighborhood party? Free tickets to the film? Yes, there is evidence of some class and cultural bias in Sorkin’s comments, like when he refers to “moronic commercial” or “Reaganism.” But isn’t there also a lack of consideration on the part of those who make the films? At first these shoots are fun, conversation pieces for residents, but after a while they’re seen as disruptive. For Sorkin, the overriding condition is, or should be, the extent to which the presence of filmmakers hinders or encourages public access to these spaces. In a city as diverse as ours, such sharp differences are guaranteed to emerge. And they often require Solomonic wisdom to resolve.7
The city has many areas, especially outside of Manhattan, that are devoted to industry. Suppliers of goods and light manufacturing predominate in these spaces, and residential housing zones are few and far between. Typically these districts are near bodies of water. People from nearby residential areas become familiar with the industrial zone because there are places in it or bordering it that they use. For example, Barretto Point Park sits at the end of Tiffany Street in the industrial area of southern Hunts Point. It seems out of place, this somewhat barren park, one-half mile from any residential section. But it is used for basketball, swimming, and picnics. Those who frequent it may walk past the White Rose Tea Company, marble and granite companies, or the point of origin for the city’s Sabrett hot dog wagons. In doing so they learn to see the city as a place of industry, not just a place where people live, shop, and play.
Life in these spaces also has its own rhythm, to which others must adjust when they visit or come to stay. The restaurants in these areas, generally modest establishments, must keep long hours. I enter one called the Oasis and am told by the Greek American manager, as she takes phone orders in a rapid-fire stream of New Yorkese English, that running a business here in Hunts Point is not easy. “You gotta be open 4:00 AM to 9:00 PM at least. And you can’t charge too much, because these are workin’ people.” I look at the menu, and, indeed, she’s right. A burger is $4.00 with fries; an egg sandwich goes for $1.45. It is a clean-looking place and gaily decorated with large potted plants.
On Jerome Avenue north of the Cross Bronx Expressway is a long commercial stretch, extending north for over a mile, all the way to Fordham Road, and populated almost exclusively by automobile and auto accessory and repair shops of every type—radios and radiators, mufflers and motors, windshields and wiring, tires and towing equipment, speedometers and seat covers, you name it. But these businesses are not simply for the locals. People come from Staten Island, from New Jersey, and from Connecticut, looking for bargains and offering cash to eager takers. The same is true for the auto repair places and junkyards that sit in the shadow of Citi Field in Queens. Aside from their dedicated light-industrial uses, such spaces serve to introduce people outside the community to various neighborhoods where they otherwise might not ordinarily spend any time.8
Another type of commercial enterprise is the moderately priced chain hotels—Holiday Inn Express, Comfort Inns, and Days Inns, and others—in the outer boroughs, which serve as cheap lodging for foreign tourists who want to be near Manhattan without having to pay $400 a night. Typical locations are Long Island City; downtown Brooklyn, like the Gowanus neighborhood; and even the small village of Travis on Staten Island. These places advertise abroad in media read by the European and Latin American markets. Customers can get a room that runs from $150 to $250 a night and which is often a half-hour subway ride to Manhattan. These hotels are temporary dwellings that serve a larger purpose having little to do with their immediate neighborhood—namely, to make the city accessible to visitors. In that sense they’re not really part of the community; they largely just take up space there. Those who stay in them typically rise early and head for Manhattan, though they will sometimes dine locally.
One unusual place that doesn’t fit the chain enterprise mode is the Box House Hotel on Box Street. I came across it on a walk through industrial northern Greenpoint. It looked pretty ordinary on the outside, but inside it was a different story. It’s a boutique hotel, one of a kind, and was originally a window and door factory. The lobby features French Provincial chairs and cartoon-like paintings of Victorian houses as well as prints of birds and flowers. Nearby is an old upright piano and a glass display case featuring antique paperweights, clocks, and other odds and ends. The hallways are painted in a soft yellowish color, with white moldings, and have gleaming wood floors. The unusual rooms are spacious and beautiful, with sixteen-foot-high ceilings, modern kitchens, and flat-screen TVs. Like the standard-looking hotels, the Box House Hotel caters to a foreign clientele, the room price is about $250 a night, and you can be in Manhattan by subway in fifteen minutes. These moderately priced hotels in the outer boroughs of New York may become a trend if visitors from abroad begin gravitating to them.
Another unusual place to visit is the Akwaaba Mansion in Brooklyn’s historic Stuyvesant Heights area, on tree-lined MacDonough Street. It’s an 1880s historic mansion with an Afrocentric emphasis. There’s the “Jumping the Broom” room, the “Ashante,” and another referred to as the “Black Memorabilia.” The rooms are beautifully appointed, the breakfast is Southern style, and you can have it all for half the price of a nice Manhattan hotel. In the back is a large lovely garden suitable for parties, and Manhattan is only nineteen minutes away by subway.
Typically one can think of streets and neighborhoods as expressions of territoriality, but this is equally true of parks. Groups of people—young mothers, Asians, Hispanics, seniors, or friends from the neighborhood—frequently stake out spaces for themselves. At Jacob Riis Park in Queens the beach is divided into fourteen bays. One is used primarily by gays, two by blacks, and still others by Latino and Caribbean groups. Unlike gang territory, no one is harassed if someone from another group strays into the “wrong” area. The spaces maintain their boundaries more by common agreement, one that, nonetheless, makes allowances for “tourists.”9
Parks are often lightning rods for conflicts between contesting groups over space. A debate at a public hearing in May 2010 highlighted that issue. A city proposal had been made to cut the number of artists and craft vendors allowed in Battery Park, High Line Park, Union Square Park, and in heavily trafficked portions of Central Park by 75 percent. The question was how to choose between two core urban values: an oasis of tranquility and a venue that allows one to select and purchase works of art.
Artists were highly visible at the public hearing, some wearing shirts proclaiming, “Artist Power.” “A park without art is like eating spaghetti without spaghetti sauce,” declared one partisan who sells oil pastels. (The logic of that analogy could clearly be challenged, since those who didn’t want the art might prefer a different “sauce” or no sauce at all.) Indeed, those opposed largely objected to the whole scene, with one person adding, “We don’t want to make a mall out of our parks.”10
The highly popular High Line Park (at least twenty thousand visitors on weekends) was born amid considerable controversy. Developers wanted to demolish the old West Side railroad line where the one-mile-long park now sits and build on it, but in the late 1990s there was fierce resistance to the plans, and a group formed to oppose them. Called Friends of the High Line, the group sought to convert the space to a park in a unique location, even organizing walking tours of the area. Although the old tracks were overgrown with weeds, the place had a strange, peaceful, almost haunting beauty, one accentuated by its lofty perch above the ground. The High Line had originally been used by railway freight lines to deliver goods door to door, since the tracks literally ran through the factories and warehouses they serviced. The last rail delivery, a load of frozen turkeys, had been made in 1980. A key victory in the battle between preservationists and developers came when Mayor Bloomberg threw his support behind the park idea in 2002.11
The High Line is one of New York’s most unusual parks. It runs from Thirtieth Street and Tenth Avenue down to Gansevoort Street, which is near Twelfth Street. Because it runs along unused elevated railroad track, it’s more of an open space than a park, though it does have landscaped flora and fauna. It’s really a promenade, as opposed to a park, and it’s about as high as the third floor of a building. You feel as if you’re walking through an urban forest of buildings, because you’re slicing through the city, much as you would if you could traverse many blocks via alleyways, which you can’t. The elevation gives you a chance to view where you’re walking against the scale of the larger space in which it is found—namely, the city as a whole. Up here I spy graffiti that I wouldn’t see on the ground floor level.12 The presence of High Line Park has also positively affected real estate values in the general area.13
The best-known, longest, and largest protest over space that became parkland in recent times was the controversy over Westway, a proposed but unbuilt highway. Perhaps because New York City is the example par excellence of high-density urban living, attempts to remove parkland or to create it frequently generate fierce struggles. The 1972 plan envisioned replacing piers, warehouses, and other unused structures with new housing, commercial space, and parkland on about seven hundred acres. Since there was funding available for federal highways, city leaders also wanted to rebuild the old West Side Highway in the area. It would be set back far enough from the shoreline so that up to eighty-five thousand housing units could be built between it and the water.
But the plans became mired in controversy for years, generating the type of opposition engendered by the proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway, opposed earlier by Jane Jacobs and her allies. Too many people were viscerally opposed to anything that smacked of the big projects engineered in the past by the then much reviled builder Robert Moses, who was instrumental in creating New York City’s highway structure.14 The Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that rebuilding the highway would lead to significant pollution did not help. In 1990, bowing to reality, the federal government ended its efforts to gain approval for Westway. The preservationists, casting themselves as “the little guy,” had won again. It ended up as a very pretty park along the Hudson, with bike paths in the downtown area and with some piers and streets being renovated and improved. Federal approval for the park was finally given on May 31, 2000.
While streets and sidewalks are clearly public spaces, the minimal degree of privacy that walking through New York used to afford has been eroded by the thousands of cameras that blanket the city, most prominently in heavily trafficked areas. For example, at last count there were eighty-two city-owned cameras in the seventeen blocks between Thirty-fourth and Fifty-first Streets. And that does not include the private cameras used by stores, building owners, and the thousands of people who regularly video whatever they see, including—whether inadvertently or intentionally—you. So if you think you can scratch yourself in private in a public space, think again. One consolation is that they probably don’t know you personally. Moreover, these cameras, usually monitored by former FBI or Secret Service agents, are set up for review only after some crime has been committed, like a bomb scare or a theft. In addition, people who watch the videos live often become deadened to what they see after a while.15
Presumably, the ubiquitousness of these cameras makes criminals think twice, and that makes the city a safer place. Is it worth the tradeoff? To a degree that depends on how important privacy is to you. Maybe you want to feel that you’re walking down a street with your lover in blissful anonymity. Or possibly you don’t want the lie you told about where you were that evening to be discovered. Perhaps you just don’t like the idea that someone’s looking at you from somewhere in the basement of an apartment building as you pass by, even if it’s for your own safety.
Regardless, what we do know is that even when people realize they’re being observed, it’s unlikely to affect their behavior in the long run. Why? Because most people are far more interested in whatever it is they’re doing than in who’s watching them do it. Sociologists who require informed consent when they do studies involving observation or taped interviews know this all too well. After a brief period people become less self-conscious and go back to what they’re doing. Nevertheless, the outcome is that public space becomes far less private.16
The city’s streets are going to be changed, says the New York City Department of Transportation. It will encourage streets with European-style trajectories, mini-islands in the middle of the streets, with landscaped greenery that will slow down automobile traffic and will be friendlier to cyclists and pedestrians. The goal is to get people “to think about streets as not just thoroughfares for cars, but as public spaces incorporating safety, aesthetics, environmental and community concerns.”17 The approach, supported by Mayor Bloomberg, is very different from the way Robert Moses saw things. But some people are worried that such plans will slow down commerce and prevent them from getting to their destinations efficiently. Nevertheless, as part of the move, portions of Broadway have been closed to vehicular traffic, and the overall reaction to the concept has been favorable.18
It’s amazing how even a temporary event can provoke a fight over space. The city had ordered permanent chairs and tables for the pedestrian section of Broadway. When it belatedly discovered that opening the area months before the seats arrived meant that people would mill around with nowhere to sit, cheap, folding lawn chairs were ordered. That went over like a bathing suit in the Arctic. People, including Hizzoner, said the chairs cheapened the space and looked low-class and very unappealing, not suitable for the greatest city in the world. Many, however, liked them and thought they were cool and “campy.” Besides, the situation was only temporary, they asserted. Tim Tompkins, the Times Square Alliance’s president, best summed up the range of opinions when he remarked, “I’ve had people say to me both that it’s a stroke of genius and that I’m the king of trailer trash. The lawn chair decision is far and away the most controversial decision I’ve made in my seven years as head of the alliance.”19
In a New York Times opinion piece, Susan Dominus wrote that the pedestrian mall “looks a little unworthy of New York,” arguing metaphorically that it looks like the city is “already letting itself go, like some Lehman Brothers wife who has not just forsaken her golden highlights, but given up on grooming altogether.” Dominus says the problem might be the image of people sprawled out in the already sagging plastic chairs. “New York City is a city of walkers, not sitters, a city of motion, not repose.” True here, but clearly not in all cases, like parks. The Sheep Meadow in Central Park regularly features hundreds of people lying down on the grass. Rather, it’s a sense that the pedestrian mall is just a tacky-looking place, not fit for the Big Apple. Dominus describes Times Square as “halfdefined by the city and half-defined by tourists.” It’s clearly the city half that she feels was encroached upon, and the controversy demonstrates how space is defined by vision, class, perception, and geographical identity.20
The fact that the chair issue generated so much heat shows how important public spaces are to so many people. When you walk in places like Times Square, you feel they’re yours. Why? Because Times Square is a quintessential representation of the city. After all, when people talk about New York, they don’t think about your block in Washington Heights or Lefferts Gardens. They think of the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Fifth Avenue, and we all know that; thus what goes on there is a central concern to New Yorkers. Besides, people in this town have strong views about lots of things, and space is a great venue for playing them out, especially when your tax dollars are involved.
I have my own opinion too. When I first saw the offending chairs, I thought people had brought them there to sit on, but when I saw hundreds of the same type, I realized that this was unlikely, though it did cross my mind that perhaps the chairs had been rented. Actually, some people treated the folding chairs as if they were their own, with about fifteen of them reported stolen. Ultimately I supported the idea, because people get bored or tired after an hour of just walking in the pedestrian mall, and they need to sit somewhere to rest. In a way the area is like a park.
Streets are clearly public spaces. And so are the signs indicating their names. Street names can provide teaching moments about New York City history, and there is much information available about the thousands of streets in the city and how they received their names. Let’s take a curious-sounding example. I’m walking on Force Tube Avenue in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, a street that also extends into Queens. How did it acquire such a strange name? It refers to the cast-iron pipes through which water was pumped up, or forced through tubes, to the Ridgewood Reservoir, completed in 1858. Not only that, but the path of these pipes actually runs along Force Tube Avenue, which may explain why it’s the only diagonal street in the neighborhood. The pumping station was nearby, on Atlantic Avenue and Logan Street.21
I ask a Pakistani homeowner who lives on the street if he knows why it’s called Force Tube Avenue. “I have no idea,” he responds. He’s only been living there about a year. But it’s an address he uses every day—on letters, job applications, drivers license, and so forth. Wasn’t he curious? And the answer is no. Should he be? Who can say? But his attitude may reveal an interesting perspective—namely, that it doesn’t matter in his eyes, because it has no effect on him. He’s too busy trying to make it in America to worry or even think about such things.
I pass a Bronx street called Cottage Place off 170th Street, just east of Fulton Street. It is a short block, dead-ending into a school whose property is marked off by a high fence. On the left and right side of the street are the backs and sides of apartment buildings, none of which has an entrance facing it. In short, it’s something of a nothing street. There are many other such blocks in the city, like Kluepfel Court in Ridgewood, Queens, or Bonner Place off Morris Avenue in the South Bronx. Hardly anyone’s heard of them. These are literally tiny slices of the Big Apple. Yet to those living on such blocks the space matters, because it’s theirs. It’s home. In fact, it’s almost private because of its size, the small number of people who live there and who usually know each other, and because you wouldn’t normally be on it unless you lived there or knew someone who did. Why do I insist on walking these tiny blocks? Because I feel it’s unfair to neglect them just because of their size. Real people live on them, and, besides, I want to truly be able to say I walked all of New York.
Short streets exist even in the busiest, most traversed parts of New York, like Cliff Street, near Wall, John, and William Streets, and Maiden Lane, the financial heartland of this town. What is Cliff Street? It’s a block long with one or two buildings on it; a couple of bars; the headquarters of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, Local 831; and a McDonald’s. There’s also an office for rent. You want to be on Cliff Street? It’s available. Another short street is the curvy Doyers Street, off of Pell Street. But it’s not unimportant, because the Chinatown station of the U.S. Postal Service may be found there. In fact, this branch was a crucial scene in the 2012 film Premium Rush, an underappreciated flick about the world of bicycle messengers working the streets of Gotham.
Sidewalks are an important part of street space. Though used primarily for walking, they are also home to sidewalk vendors of all sorts, including men like the ones described in Mitchell Duneier’s Sidewalk, who live on society’s margins. The vendors sell everything—pocketbooks, apple cake, sunglasses, books, apple cider, CDs, vegetables. People believe that the prices of these sidewalk goods will be lower because the vendors have no overhead, and, indeed, they usually are. Coordinating organizations like Greenmarket have sprung up to license and monitor many of the food purveyors. In 2010 Greenmarket listed fifty-one areas in all five boroughs, from the Staten Island Mall, to Hunters Point in Queens, to Broadway, by Columbia University. A progressive group called Sustainable Table provides questions to ask local farmers (the emphasis is on locals) who participate. Questions include “Are your cows ever given antibiotics?” “Are your hens ever force-molted?” “How much time do your chickens/turkeys spend outdoors each day?”
New Yorkers are forever expropriating public space for themselves. In fact, as Elijah Anderson demonstrates in his book A Place on the Corner, hangouts along the sidewalk, often in front of stores, are an integral part of many a community. Above all, they give those who frequent them a sense of self-worth. It’s almost an aggressive sort of thing that relates to feelings of territoriality. I come across a group of middle-age Puerto Rican and Dominican men wearing sleeveless, ribbed undershirts and Yankee caps, seated on metal folding chairs and playing dominoes at a card table on the sidewalk in Williamsburg. Nothing new there. What’s different is that where they’re sitting is only one small part of the space. Behind it is a grass lot that the men call their park. It’s where they barbecue and party on weekends and holidays. A Halloween-type skeleton dangles at a crazy angle from the high wire fence, behind which is the men’s park.
About five feet from the table on the sidewalk, next to a metal closet containing a baseball bat, some beige duffel bags, and a tan raincoat, is a four-foot-high bookcase along the wall of a brick building. The bookcase is lined with a bound set of legal volumes, inside of which are the proceedings of hundreds of cases brought before the New York State Court of Appeals. The men jokingly tell me, “These books could get you out of jail,” as they offer me the whole set of twelve volumes for twenty dollars. I guess it’s an example of a Fiddler on the Roof item, there “just for show.” As further evidence of their entrepreneurial mind-set, they offer to teach me how to play dominoes for just five dollars an hour. I plead a previous engagement and continue on my way. It’s clear to me that this space is an important quality-of-life place and that they treasure it. Like the men in Anderson’s study, they will defend it. Rather than tear it down every night, they pay a homeless man to guard it.
Sidewalks can also be used for artistic purposes. I walk along Wadsworth Avenue and stop in front of a typical apartment building on 192nd Street. What has attracted my attention is actually the ground in front of it. Usually, as I tell my students, people look straight ahead, sideways, and occasionally upward as we walk, but rarely do we look down. There are about twenty squares on the sidewalk, basically the length of the apartment building’s front section. Carved into these squares are beautiful and delicately drawn trellises and vines as well as tulips, roses, and leaves. The designs alternate. (See figure 17.)
I ask people walking out of the building who made them, but they don’t know. It doesn’t even seem to interest them. I find the Dominican super and ask him. “Me and my brother did it in 1992, when the sidewalk had just been made,” he tells me. Even though he has been in the United States for twenty-seven years, he speaks almost no English. His eleven-year-old daughter translates. He drew them using a plastic mold pressed into the wet cement. Why? “I did it to make the place look nice.” It turns out he’s an artist, with paintings he made hanging proudly on the wall inside his apartment. The sidewalk carvings demonstrate how people take pride in where they live, as well as how the creative impulses they have can find a way to be expressed. These works of art are anonymous, just a little space the man and his brother have literally carved out—that is, until somebody shows up and makes inquiries. But for this immigrant the space has great personal meaning, and perhaps ethnic meaning as well. It is a more or less permanent symbol that he was here, that he made his mark, one that he can be proud of it, even if he has the modest job of superintendent. And he’s not finished yet, because he’s planning on painting the artwork soon.22 What is amazing to me is that this individual can meet me, a stranger whose language he doesn’t speak, invite me into his apartment with his young daughter there, and give me a tour simply because I expressed interest in his artwork. This trust, or relaxed attitude, if you will, was repeated hundreds of times in my many forays into the city. People opened up much more easily than I anticipated.
Spaces can be both permanent and temporary. The sidewalk is permanent, but its uses change according to the flow of human traffic and how people opt to use it. William H. Whyte, the urban planner and sociologist, describes how people have public conversations on the street in New York City and in other metropolises. Surprisingly, many conversations seem to almost always take place in the middle of the crowd instead of near the street or the walls of buildings, thus forcing pedestrian traffic to flow around them. “Just why people behave like this I have never been able to determine,” he says, wondering why people would choose to block traffic and not mind being jostled by it.23
One possible explanation is that these meetings are invariably unplanned, the product of people who know each other meeting accidentally. They are on their way home, to work, another meeting, dinner, an appointment, whatever. Regardless, the chance encounter is not on their schedule, which creates a conflict: they want or feel obliged to have a conversation, but are loath to give up on their planned activity. They feel pressured by time constraints. To move to the edge of the sidewalk would be to admit defeat—namely, that their plans have been disrupted and amends may not be possible. So in order to keep alive the hope that they can accomplish what they set out to do while not offending those with whom they are speaking, they retain their position in the center, the place where they were walking originally.
Thus, we see yet another instance of how space is deployed to express territoriality, only in this case the physical boundaries are invisible, permeable, and temporary. Yet they are very clearly delineated psychologically and even, perhaps, subconsciously in the human mind. Conceptualizing space in this manner helps explain human behavior in public spaces where intentions are not obvious. Other examples of asserting control over a space would be standing near a park entrance or sitting on the stoop of a building.
Although a store is a public space, store owners have the right to adorn or embellish their business any way they want to and many do just that, sometimes in pretty idiosyncratic fashion. Here are two unique instances of such efforts. As I was walking by a Washington Heights pharmacy, my attention was drawn to an ancientlooking Underwood typewriter in the window. The owner of the store, the Hilltop Pharmacy, located on Fort Washington Avenue near 187th Street, has made a display in his window that features memorabilia from the 1940s and 1950s of mostly drug-storerelated items. Included are medicines like iodine in a blue-tinted bottle and a weight scale from the period. The scale proclaims, “No Springs,” suggesting that it provides honest, accurate weights. Next to the scale are a box of Sucrets, a container of Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder, Dr. Sheffield’s Oral Pain Reliever, and other old brands like a radio made by Grundig. I ask Bill, the pharmacist, why he decorated the window this way, and he says, “I don’t know. The forties and fifties looked more vintage to me. I like old stuff. I have customers who give me their stuff from those times. It’s a quirky thing, I guess. My best friend’s father was a doctor, and when he died he cleaned out his office and gave me the stuff. I’m not gonna do anything with it. It’s more of an aesthetic.” Bill doesn’t really have a clear-cut reason for his hobby, other than liking “old stuff,” but it’s obviously something he values.
In this next case, the rationale behind the décor is much clearer, though the reason isn’t readily apparent. I notice some books piled high in a window of Le Veau D’or, a pricey French restaurant on Sixtieth Street just west of Lexington Avenue. (See figure 18.) Some of the volumes are novels by Danielle Steele, one book is a travelogue, another was penned by Oleg Cassini. A third is titled The United States of Arugula, and there is Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Mystified by this intriguing use of space and the seeming haphazardness of the literary selections, I enter and inquire. An older man says, “No big deal. I have no idea.”
“What do you do here?” I ask.
“I’m the owner, but my daughter runs the place. Ask her; she’ll be here soon.”
She shows up five minutes later and immediately clears up the mystery: “These are all books written by customers who eat here and who have mentioned my father’s name or that of the restaurant in their works. My father was in the restaurant business for fifty years. People come in here all the time, wanting me to put their books in the windows, and I explain the conditions and they understand, of course. And if you mention us in your book, then you’ll be in the window too.” Obviously, the owner, Robert Treboux, a man in his eighties, knew exactly why those books are there. He was merely being modest. Problem solved—and an interesting use of space for sure, not to mention a novel way (no pun intended) of publicizing the establishment.
And here’s a territorial appropriation of space that’s as weird as it gets, because it’s a secret to the owner of the space, a deli, at least until he stumbles upon it. Fed up with the TV watchers who are clogging the aisle for customers who want to buy something, he looks for a quiet place or space. It’s shortly after he has taken over the deli.
“Maybe I can hide in the stockroom and read,” I think wishfully. But as I venture back, I hear voices there too and smell something pungent and sickly sweet, like an air freshener—except it smells as if it’s on fire.
“What’s going on back here?” I demand, sweeping aside the stockroom curtain…. No one answers, so I squint, and in the smoky haze I begin to discern bodies: three, maybe four, seated on milk crates.
“Can I help you guys?” my mouth says, not because I want it to but because sometimes my mouth says things without asking me first, to fill up awkward silences.
“I don’t know,” someone finally says. “That’s not the question.”
“What’s the question?” I ask the figure, who appears to be made out of smoke.
“The question is, Can we help you?”
It’s at this point that the owner of the deli realizes that the men don’t know who he is. “Clearly I interrupted something,” he concludes. “Who am I anyway?” he asks himself. He suddenly discovers that he has invaded their space—theirs because they’ve been using it all this time, given permission to do so by the owner’s clerk, who hasn’t told him about the arrangement. To the outside world, it’s a deli owned and operated by the owner. In reality, though, it’s a store for customers and, he has discovered, a hangout for potheads and drinkers who constitute a sub-society in the back of the store, unseen and virtually unknown to shoppers and even the owner.
Dwayne, the clerk, is in the stockroom and tells those gathered, “That’s Ben, the new owner.” …. “You mean the owner of this store?” a large man described as “a human Brinks” asks incredulously. “Everyone looks at me as I nod dumbly, feeling as if I’ve just been identified as the perpetrator of an unspeakable crime.”24
One lesson to be learned here is that you can think you own a space and be shocked to find out that in some ways you don’t, because the place you lock up every night has areas you’ve never been to and aren’t particularly welcome in. In truth, space is often what we make of it—in short, how and whether or not we use it. Until we do so we may formally own it, but we really don’t.
The line between the private and public uses of space can be quite porous at times. The same deli owner observes wryly that some customers walk through the door five or six times a day, acting as if it’s their home, “wearing pajamas or stroking an iguana.” The attitude seems to be, “ ‘This is New York. Get over it.’ And, of course, they’re right. What would New York be without bad behavior? And where would people exhibit it if not in delis?”25
The deli owner is obviously being facetious, but is he right to feel this way? These people have broken no law, and while they’re taking the concept a bit far, isn’t the customer always right, even in this sense? The real problem here is that when you own a public establishment, there are limits to how much control you really have over it. Sure, if customers are unruly, you can toss them out. But having a long and loud conversation on the phone (another complaint of his) doesn’t come close to that description.
Unfortunately for you, the proprietor, the customers know you need them, so they can take advantage of that fact. Ultimately this is a casualty of shared space. Of course, if it were a private restaurant, the rules and customs would be different, although there, too, ambiguities would exist. For example, could you eat mashed potatoes with your hands if you wiped them on your napkin just as if you’d eaten barbecue ribs with your hands? Could you sing at the same decibel level that characterizes a loud conversation while eating alone?
Spaces can have multiple uses. Boutique shops can be built in a neighborhood to sell their wares but also to give people the feeling of quaintness and intimacy. This is how areas like Chelsea or Hunters Point in Queens brand themselves. Some customers will object, of course, preferring low prices and large stores that have more variety. Some shops can also be used as places where different groups can meet, like the farmer’s market in Union Square.26
Shopping malls in general are related to the communities near them and are considered part of them. Reflecting that reality, the Queens Center Mall celebrated twenty years of existence with four weekends of free entertainment, featuring klezmer music and songs from the Andes Mountains, from Greece, and India, as well as flamenco and Irish dancing. All of these offerings reflect their location in the multiethnic Elmhurst, Corona, Jackson Heights, and Rego Park areas.27 In the more “passive mode,” such activities serve a lot of other purposes too, such as demonstrating the many different types of uses the same space can have. They’re teenage hangouts, socializing venues, opportunities for market research, a chance to see American culture as it plays out in shopping options, eateries, and the like.
Signs on stores, houses of worship, and advertisements in subways, along walls, and on buildings abound in New York, just as they do everywhere in America. This use of space has many purposes, and what they are tells much about the city’s people and what’s important to them.
Names given to stores are supposed to inform and entice people to come in. They frequently take the name of the community or street, and sometimes they extol the virtues of what they’re offering—delicious, tasty (“Hi-Class,” said one sign) pizza, or “Golden Bubbles” outside a Laundromat. No community, rich or poor, is immune to such appeals. Sometimes they refer to what people generally look for in life. For instance, there are many stores with the word “lucky” in their names, especially corner groceries and delis, perhaps appealing to lotto players. There’s the Lucky One Deli on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard between 147th and 148th Streets and so many more, but, tragically, the businesses themselves are not always lucky, like the owner of a “lucky” deli who was robbed and killed in Brooklyn.
“Lucky” may well be the most popular name for stores in general, perhaps in large part because so many people come to this country to try to change their luck. While I’m walking on the Lower East Side, I see a Chinese-owned seafood shop on Forsyth Street, between Rivington and Stanton Streets, called Lucky Fish. (See figure 19.) Hopefully the owners are lucky, but the fish that end up here certainly aren’t. They’re the opposite—dead, chopped up, and ready to be eaten. “Lucky” is one of a small number of words that have special importance in Chinese culture, and indeed many Chinese stores bear that name. Another such word is “Happy,” also popular among Chinese immigrants.28
On Vermont Avenue, in the hardscrabble Cypress Hills area, you’ll find the Survival Grocery Deli. Maybe the name refers to economic survival, since the deli advertises food offerings called “Recession Specials.” Then there are stores with grandiose names, like the hole-in-the-wall Manhattan Grocery on the corner of 161st Street and Amsterdam Avenue, which actually looks pretty ordinary, or the small Upper East Side duplicating shop with the name Copyland. On Bergen Street in Crown Heights, I spot a bodega with a more intellectual name—Economic Deli and Grocery. The graffiti on the wall has a strange demand: “Say economic to drugs!” Is that a no? I guess so.
Some signs evoke subliminal, though not necessarily sublime, connections. On Columbus Avenue near Ninety-sixth Street you’ll find the Sing & Sing Market. Most people, especially New Yorkers, think of the state’s Sing Sing prison. Inside I ask the Hispanic woman behind the counter what the name means. She’s heard of the connection, but insists, as though I thought otherwise, “It’s not a jail. It’s a market.” I thank her for her assertion and depart.
Perhaps these unusual names are a sign of the times—namely, the constant stream of arrivals from foreign countries who open businesses yet have difficulty with English. A kosher breakfast nook on Cliff Street advertises “Fish & Cheeps [Chips].” Nearby on Broadway a cafeteria offers a “plan [plain] baked potato.” Signs can also attempt to appeal to community loyalty, as in a pet store in Park Slope named Pup Slope.
Signs can also address people’s fears, as in the following sign I spotted just off Flatbush Avenue: “Advanced Dentistry.” Now, what do they mean by that? “Quality, Painless, and Affordable,” the sign continues. But what caught my attention was, “We Cater to Cowards.” Most dentists seem to be annoyed with cowards; this one caters to them.
Some store signs don’t seem to make any sense, like one I saw in Bay Ridge on Fifth Avenue and Seventy-sixth Street: “Tap House—Great Pub Food,” says the first part of the sign on the awning. But the next words are really sort of contradictory: “Same as Always, Better than Ever.” Was the Tap House “always” better than ever? Then what is the “Ever” referring to? Then again, perhaps the strange wording is nothing more than an attention-getting device.
The Chabad/Lubavitch Hasidic movement is also very consumer- and advocacy-oriented. In the Gramercy Park section of Manhattan I see a tiny movie marquee with small, round yellow bulbs surrounding it. The black letters read, “Chabad of Gramercy, Now Praying,” instead of the usual words, “Now Playing,” and rated “G.” Anything to draw attention. By the way, the Chabad menorahs, which are visible outdoors wherever Chabad puts down roots, are iconic. Possessing silver metallic, streamlined, angular lines extending from the center in a V shape, they remind me of the chevrons that often adorn Art Deco buildings throughout the city.
Signs in, on, or for stores, past and present, can also be used, just as bumper stickers or graffiti are, to communicate sentiments or emotions. I pass a shop in Staten Island with a sign over it, reading, “From Another Time: Antiques, Collectibles—USED.” Well, that seems obvious. But when I peer in through the open door I see that it’s a social club, with people watching TV and playing cards. A man sitting on a slatted wooden chair outside the store confirms it, adding, “This used to be an antiques store.”
“Why did you keep the sign after you took it over?” I ask.
“Because this is a place that’s especially for veterans, those from the Vietnam War, and even World War Two, and they, well, you know, feel like they’re really from another time.”
Private businesses sometimes make use of space not only for business purposes but also to deliver social messages, expressions of what New York City is all about, and other communications. These messages, seen by thousands of tourists as well as residents, can have a powerful impact if delivered in a compelling fashion. A good example is the advertising of Manhattan Mini Storage, which uses large outdoor signage stretching up several floors of its building, to both advertise and express its views. Here are some examples: “Nobody becomes famous in Des Moines,” thus meaning New York is the place to be. (And, of course, you can store your stuff with the Manhattan Mini Storage Company.) The ad not so subtly implies a lack of concern for the feelings of Des Moines residents, as well as the thousands of smaller communities across America. Another themed message, which demonstrates awareness of both current events and its Chelsea location, is the statement: “If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get gay married.” In other words, no one’s forcing you to, so mind your own business. In addition to the sentiment, the approach embodies the tough-guy, big-city attitude to a T. Besides, it could bring the company some local business in this heavily gay community.
As I’m walking in Grant City, Staten Island, I pass some garden apartments and notice that on the balconies of both the first and second floors are some beautiful little gardens. People have made maximum use of the tiny amount of available space to grow hanging plants and flowers; one even has a trellis. Everyone wants their proverbial “place in the sun.” They’re not for show; they’re for their owners’ own pleasure. These uses can be discerned wherever in the city there are garden apartments. On the other hand, some people have nothing on the balcony, save for an upturned bicycle. Across the street is a private home with a large area suitable for a big garden. Ten balcony spaces could fit into it. And yet, paradoxically, there’s no garden at all. Instead the owner has filled it in with gravel, perhaps so he’ll never have to mow his lawn again. The common denominator here is that people reserve and exercise the right to do whatever they want to in their own spaces and use it as a way of expressing themselves.
Walking on Lower Manhattan’s Henry Street, I look up at two buildings that are next to each other but seemingly as different as night and day. One’s a five-story tenement built a century ago. The other’s a sleek, gleaming structure that looks very new. The tenement has fire escapes and the new age structure has glassed-in terraces. Yet both reveal identical uses for their outer spaces—sit on it, store bicycles, potted plants, and the like. In the end, though it may look different, space is space if you have a particular use for it.
Perhaps the most common use of city rooftops is for sunbathing, and those who do so call these spaces “tar beaches.” But they are increasingly being used to create gardens as well. The New York Times reported on this trend nationally and cited efforts locally by apartment dwellers on the Lower East Side to create a four-hundred-square-foot rooftop garden. Among the reasons for creating such gardens are that they’re good for the environment, it’s good to grow and eat local food, and just for the fun of it. But often the reason is simply having an emotional attachment to the concept.
New Yorker Paula Crossfield reflected on her decision to plant a roof garden: “The bottom line is that I harbor a secret desire to be a farmer, and my way of doing that is to use what I have, which is a roof.”29 Indeed, for many people the roofs of their apartment buildings are part of what makes living in the city so great; rooftop views connect them to the city. As Richard Goodman gazes upon the city, he exclaims, “What a sense of promise this view of Manhattan gives!”30
The stoop is a long established feature of New York life. Generations have hung out on the steps outside their apartment buildings and have made those who come out of the building feel as if they’re walking a gauntlet and intruding on a private conversation. Teenagers have been fond of playing stoop ball, which involves aiming the ball (usually a “Spaldeen,” otherwise known as a Spalding brand) at one of the stoop’s steps. Perhaps only residents of the building and their visitors can legitimately hang out on their building’s stoop, but it does have a public feel to it and strangers do occasionally sit on it.31
In Richmond Hill, Queens, I sat down briefly on the stoop of a private home whose steps bordered the sidewalk. Even though it was a private home, I saw nothing especially wrong with what I did, because, having grown up on a Manhattan side street, I’d always thought that steps accessible to the public could be utilized by the public. Five minutes into my rest, the owner, an Indian, who probably hadn’t grown up in the city, if one could judge by his heavy accent, showed up. “I hope you don’t mind, but I just want to rest my feet for a few minutes,” I said.
“Oh, that’s quite all right,” he said. “Relax and enjoy yourself.” Stoops and sometimes the edges of sidewalks are increasingly used to give away items that are no longer needed. People use space to give to others. Most commonly they put used clothing, toys, and furniture on the street, but in recent years there’s a new trend. Books, especially in neighborhoods where people are readers—Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, and the Upper West Side—are often placed in neat piles on the stoops. These range from novels to dictionaries to unusual categories, like Swedish/English grammar books.
There are literally hundreds of ways that buildings make their mark on the city. They come in many styles, shapes, sizes, and colors. People frequently express concern about a neighborhood’s character, and it’s often an important talking point at community organization meetings and those of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. On East Fifty-first Street between Second and First Avenues is a townhouse that is literally clad almost entirely in metal. Behind the metal is glass, and although it’s possible to peek into the house through the small spaces, you really can’t see anything. It’s a private house, so you can’t do anything about the design.
On the other hand, people have the right to criticize—and they do. A doorman says, “I don’t like it. I know these people. They’re a nice couple, but they got too much money. They don’t know what to do with their money. It’s out of character with the regular, normal townhouses on the block.” In this case the couple isn’t listening, but you can see how public pressure can act to change private space, simply because the block as a whole is public. The issue also involves a value judgment—namely, whether or not you think a house should fit in with other buildings in the community.
Another interesting example of a house that makes its mark is a most unusual private home, unique in its design, located in Brooklyn’s Mill Basin neighborhood at 139 Bassett Avenue, where it intersects with Arkansas Drive. On the left as you face the house are three large American flags flying in the wind. The house, four stories high, is made of cement, light gray, with a tubular design. There are squares and rectangles on the walls of the house. There are also silver-colored, metallic, abstract sculptures in front of the home. On top of the home is a sculpture consisting of graceful, flying silver birds. The windows feature wavy-looking lines on frosted glass. The grounds are decorated with various Calder-like stabiles, as well as statues of children frolicking in the grass. A large boat sits in the back, next to the water, framed against a brilliant blue sky.
Viewing this extraordinary home is a surreal and memorable experience. Who owns it? An Italian American family who purchased it from the mobster Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso. The family members, the Turanos, are sort of “private community characters,” since they also have a very close relationship with former state senator Carl Kruger, who was convicted of corruption. Kruger is reportedly a frequent guest at their home. I ask several neighbors about the unusual design. No one seems to object, or at least no one is willing to say so openly. Typical of the responses: “Anyone can do what they want when it comes to designing their homes even if someone else doesn’t like it. They paid for it and it’s their own business, not mine.”32 (See figure 2.)
Sometimes the design of a building may be deliberately muted when a group or organization wants to be accepted in a community. One example is when the managers of group homes buy houses and try to make them look like any other private home in the neighborhood, despite the number of people living in them. Clearly the hope is that if they blend in physically, acceptance will follow.
There are also instances where a structure may be designed so that it will go unnoticed. A great example of this is a synagogue in the Richmond Hill, Queens, area. It’s only a few blocks away from the Kew Gardens border, an area that’s heavily Jewish, but the location is definitely not Jewish and, in effect, crosses a border into a section that has many Muslims, Hindus, and Christians. The synagogue is a one-story affair that has almost no markings to identify it as a Jewish house of worship—not even a mezuzah—even though it is an Orthodox synagogue. The building’s Art Moderne glass blocks make it virtually impossible to see inside, and there are no windows. The entrance has a combination lock and a small sign with English letters above a door of plain heavy metal identifying its name. But those letters would not give away what it is except to a knowledgeable observer. Most startling, there’s no address on the door, no Star of David, no menorah, nor any of the usual markers of temples.
A conversation with one of the synagogue’s members establishes that the users don’t want to attract attention at all. “We try to keep a low profile. It’s not a Jewish neighborhood, and we were advised that it’s best to not make waves.” This is clearly a beachhead, since young Jewish families have been moving into other parts of Richmond Hill in search of less expensive housing for their growing families. This place means a shorter walk to a synagogue. I ask a Sikh neighbor, owner of the house next door, and he corroborates the member’s comments. I ask him if the congregants are afraid that the building will be bombed by Muslims. He laughs uncomfortably. “They just don’t want any trouble, no rocks thrown by kids passing by.” I notice that there is a camera aimed at the building.
On my walking trips through the boroughs of New York, I rarely observed this level of concern. In changing neighborhoods where there were only a small number of Jews living in the area, no attempt was made to hide the religious identities of buildings, though there were sometimes high fences and cameras. When I did see it, it was always a mosque in a mixed community, most likely because of political or security considerations. At the other extreme is a synagogue on Amsterdam Avenue at 105th Street that makes no bones about its existence despite its sensitive location. It shares spaces with the old, established West End Presbyterian Church headed by Reverend Alistair Drummond. The congregation is called Kehilat Romemu and is run by David Ingber, a wellknown hip rabbi with an Orthodox background. The space also houses the New York Piano Academy.
I’m standing in front of a typical ten-story apartment building at 59 West Seventy-first Street, built in 1924. In the middle of the structure, between the fourth and fifth floors, surrounded by bricks and clearly visible from the street, is a large concrete M with an engraved garland extending from its sides. (See figure 20.) Why?
I see two women exiting the building. Approaching them, I ask, “What’s the meaning of this M?”
One of the women looks up and, in a surprised tone, says, “Gee, I never noticed it.”
“How long have you lived here?” I ask.
“Over forty years, but I guess I never looked up and I didn’t notice it.”
“What floor do you live on?”
“First I lived on the ninth floor and now the fourth, right below the M, I guess. It must have been the architect who did it.”
She has a point. Architects and builders in all boroughs often name buildings after themselves, though usually, like Trump Towers, it’s the full surname. Or they may name the building “The Laura” or “Theodore Arms,” after a child, parent, sibling, or spouse, or for some other reason known only to them. It’s far less common to see a place identified boldly with only a letter. The origin of this practice is uncertain, but what’s most interesting is how a person living in the building for decades has never even taken notice of it. The single initial expropriates space on the front of a building in order to draw attention, but it hasn’t registered in anyone’s mind. Was it worth the effort? I ask a few more residents about the M, and not one of them is aware of its existence. The current superintendent and the management company don’t know what the letter is doing there, though the super thinks it may be named after the architect or builder. He informs me that at one time the apartment doorknobs all had the letter M on them. If I were an advertiser, I’d stop paying for the ad.
On Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn, near Grand Street, I come across a most unusual display. Its lack of clarity makes it similar to the M story. Draped over a wire hanging from a utility pole fifteen feet from the ground is a plastic doll, about sixteen inches tall. The doll, with long, light-brown hair that looks and probably feels like smooth straw, is a scantily clad woman wearing what appears to be a bathing suit. In her hand is a green bottle of what looks like ginger ale. Gazing at her smiling face, I find myself wondering whatever possessed someone to put it there. It’s almost certainly not a matter of territory. Perhaps it’s just a prank, done for no other reason. There’s a redbrick public school at this location, but the children standing outside the building have no clue as to why it’s hanging there. Eighteen months later I walk by and the doll is still there. That’s a long life span for something like that. It reminds me that we can’t always make sense of everything we see, because we weren’t there when it happened.
Buildings can have a life of their own that extends beyond past usage and affects the present. They can evoke thoughts and feelings in people’s minds. In Washington Heights, on 157th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway, I come upon a Seventh-Day Adventist church that has taken over a site where an Orthodox Jewish synagogue previously existed more than a half century earlier. In New York City, due to ethnic succession in communities, churches often buy and redo synagogues they have bought. But there was a difference here. The Adventists’ form of Christianity has many similarities to Judaism. They take the Bible literally. Thus, they do not work on Saturday, observing it as the Sabbath. Nor do they eat pork. So taking over a synagogue meant something to the Adventists. It was a sanctified place. Indeed, as I enter the sanctuary, I see that much of the original interior has been beautifully preserved—the pews, the windows, even the social hall.
I speak with a Hispanic member who is modestly dressed in a long skirt, just like Orthodox Jews. She tells me, “Every Friday night we eat dinner together in the social hall. We don’t work on the Sabbath, we don’t cook, and we don’t buy anything, although we turn on lights and we drive. We follow the Old Testament. Whatever it says, we do. We eat only kosher food—no pork, no shrimp or lobster. We have two hundred members, mostly Dominican and a few Puerto Ricans.”
I ask, “Since you have many Jewish practices, how do you feel about the fact that this was once a synagogue?”
“Well,” she says, “we feel a special holiness about this place because it was a synagogue before, and many of the customs and laws we have are the same as the Jews. They also observe the Sabbath. And I heard they were more comfortable selling it to us because of the common customs.”
One of the most unusual church-related stories I heard on my long expedition through the city’s streets involves the Church of All Saints. The beautiful, large stone building is on Madison Avenue between 129th and 130th Streets. It’s an imposing-looking structure and as I gazed upward, I noticed several smallish but clearly visible Stars of David in various places. Unlike so many churches in New York that retain signs of once having been synagogues, this one had clearly never been a synagogue. In fact, the Venetian Gothic building was designed as a church in 1893 for the area’s Irish immigrants by James Renwick Jr., who was also the architect for St. Patrick’s Cathedral. So what were these symbols of Judaism, which have been used as such for centuries, doing there?
Intrigued, I contacted one of the ministers, who told me the following: “This church has been around for well over a century. The story that’s been passed down is that a Jewish man owned the property and was uncomfortable selling it to a church. He asked that if a church were to be erected on the site, it should contain several Stars of David to memorialize the fact that it was once a Jewish-owned piece of property. I’ve never been able to verify it, but it’s as good an explanation as any since it was never a synagogue.” If this story is true, it’s a most unusual use of space, one where a person might have made his mark on property, but most people who pass by have no idea as to what the architect did and why. I say “might have” because there’s no hard evidence to support this story.33
Making all sorts of grinding, squealing, and squeaking noises best known to regular subway riders, the number 7 train slowly snakes its way through the Hunters Point neighborhood, past the Citigroup Building and the Sunnyside Yards as it heads toward the city. As you hear the whistle of the adjacent Amtrak train, the groans of subway cars, trucks passing by, engines in full throttle, and walk under the subway trestle past a nearby bus depot with graffiti all around you and Shannon’s Tavern on the corner, you get a distinct sense of being deep in the bowels of this great city.
Davis Street is virtually empty of people, save a lone Japanese tourist with a camera hanging from his neck as he peers into a Japanese guidebook. The Empire State and Chrysler Buildings are clearly visible across the East River, so near yet so far from here. The new condo buildings are also metaphorically far removed from this area, though they are physically only eight or nine blocks away on the Queens waterfront. John Coe runs a truck parts company here on Davis Street, inherited from his father. I ask Coe if he ever gets tired of looking at the graffiti. “No,” he says, “because it changes every year. People come here all the time, put black paint over an existing piece of art, and then create their own work there.” Next to him is a place that supplies fireplaces to penthouses. Now, there’s a specialty store!
This is the home of 5 Pointz, centered at the intersection of Twenty-third Street, Davis Street, and Jackson Avenue.34 People come from everywhere—Korea, Sweden, Venezuela, and California—to put up their own versions of art. It’s open to the public and there are always camera-happy tourists walking around, snapping photos, as well as occasional fashion and film shoots. Tour buses make 5 Pointz a regular stop in Queens. One artist whose name appears frequently on these murals signs his work “Meres One.” There are superheroes galore, monsters, stick figures, and nearly naked women. One mural, filled with clowns, asserts, “We don’t clown around.” The building on which most of the wall art appears is home to many art studios. Across the street on Davis, Manhattan Ignition Company has two trucks painted on the wall outside its offices. The area’s culture seems to have rubbed off. The neighborhood even had a slight brush with notoriety when the Weather Underground placed a bomb under the Jackson Avenue courthouse in October 1970.
Street art is one of the most interesting aspects of New York City’s industrial areas, home to some of the most creative murals and graffiti you’ll ever see. Unfettered by limited space, industrial areas are a great location for experimentation and expression, and one of the best places to see it is in East Williamsburg. In general, these parts of the city come closest to what New York City used to be as a manufacturing center. Here you’ll still find granite factories, electrical parts centers, makers of heavy machinery, dried-foods producers, building materials suppliers, brick inventories, bus garages, shoe factories, pipe supplies, and the like. When manufacturing occupied more of a center stage fifty years ago, these types of artists didn’t exist in the area. While the artists may find that the large outer walls of old factory buildings provide an ideal canvas for their work, their presence in these industrial areas may also be an attempt to reconnect with the city’s former inner soul.
Nearby, at, and around the intersection of Meserole and Waterbury Streets in East Williamburg, Brooklyn, are some astounding artistic displays. (See figures 21a and 21b.) Those in the know come from all over the world with cameras to view and photograph the murals, many created by world-famous graffiti artists. A sign indicates the breadth and scope of the work: “Over 100 artists from 11 countries for eight days in three galleries between two cities,” signed, “Paper Girl New York, 2010.” There’s one exhibit in the form of trompe l’oeil (French for “fool the eye”) down both sides of a street, depicting, it seems, the era of the 1930s or 1940s. The exhibit becomes smaller as you move away, so that it appears as though you’re looking down a street when it’s actually a flat surface. Another display features a sculpture of a small child pointing at a globe of the world. His entire body from head to toe is covered with small army toys—tanks, missiles, helicopters, soldiers, and trucks.
You can gaze at a metallic structure whose gigantic metal claw reaches out over the edge of a nearby building rooftop. The sculpture has a huge misshapen head. Another mural has a black man with a knitted cap on his head that reads HP. There are old-fashioned portraits of movie stars from earlier eras. Another section of art has vibrant paint from seemingly every color of the rainbow that is made to look as though it’s dripping down. There’s also a face of an orange and pink bear. By accident, most likely, one wall mural incorporates the shadow of a pair of sneakers on a nearby telephone pole wire swaying gently in the air. The effect is sort of psychedelic. As the displays constantly change, at least some of what one sees at any given time may no longer be there a year later.
Some coffeehouses have sprung up in this rediscovered area, and one barista at the Newtown Cafe on Waterbury explains when and how things got started: “I guess it began about two or three years ago. People just came here. Some moved in and others made the old buildings into studios. And now there are concerts on Saturdays in the buildings. There’s a guy, Shepard Fairey, who did the mural across the street. He’s like the Michael Jordan of graffiti art.” Indeed, he designed the famous Barack Obama “Hope” poster. Another great location for graffiti is at Troutman Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in nearby Bushwick.
Graffiti murals also adorn the walls of the low-rise businesses that line Boone Street in the East Bronx. Though not of the same quality as East Williamsburg, they’re elaborate, colorful, and evocative, featuring comic book and movie heroes. Moreover, they are seen by the outside world, as tour buses come by every so often, filled with visitors, many of them foreign tourists from China, Japan, Spain, and other lands. Why do the owners of these businesses grant permission to the artists to use their outer walls? Aside from the fact that the artwork looks nice, if permission is not given the kids may vandalize the walls, and supporting art is a far better alternative. There are different types of murals here—political, religious, gang-related, those that memorialize people, and simply works of art.
Although there are many books on graffiti, this form of art has never made it into the mainstream except for an occasional exhibit of photographs in the Hamptons or in Los Angeles. It may be because the avant-garde graffiti types do not fit into the establishment art world with its galleries, art shows, and exhibits. Moreover, how do you commercialize graffiti art? Charge admission by turning the space into a private property? You certainly can’t sell it, though one could imagine building owners paying for it. Regardless, street art is in a different universe from that of the commercial art scene.35
Murals are often used as teaching tools. Some community projects emphasize large themes like diversity, unity, and peace; memorials to the neighborhood fallen; political movements and protests like that of the Irish hunger strikers; and Hispanic or black heroes. Some of these are created by well-known artists like James De La Vega or Chico. I pass by a typical mural in Harlem, on Edgecombe Avenue and 165th Street, visible inside the lobby of a West Harlem public school through an open door. It was created by children with the help of teachers. The people depicted, all of them alumni of the school, include an unlikely trio: Diana Sands, a black actress who starred in A Raisin the Sun and other plays, and who graduated from the New York High School for Performing Arts; singer Harry Belafonte; and Alan Greenspan. The last image indicates that the children are given not only black role models but white ones too—and a leading economist at that! Similarly, in East New York we have P.S. 149, the Danny Kaye School, on Sutter Avenue near Vermont Street, named after the comedian.
When we think of art space in subways other than advertising billboards, the murals in certain stations come to mind. They are examples of how artists expropriate public space. It’s their work, but it’s overseen by Arts for Transit, a New York Transit Authority division. And now comes something new, also under the purview of Arts for Transit—“chirping birds, rustling leaves, a burbling brook.” The plan is to pipe these new sounds into a rebuilt IRT station house on Ninety-sixth and Broadway via hidden speakers. The concept stems from “the ideas and iconography of Asian pop art and contemporary graphic design.” It will be the backdrop for a display in the turnstile area consisting of about two hundred stainless-steel flowers hanging over the turnstiles. The flowers will even sway a bit, giving the appearance of a “shimmering garden.” No one will be fooled, to be sure, but hopefully commuters will be lulled into a feeling of calm and peace. There’s even a connection to the past, since this part of the Upper West Side was known as Bloomingdale (Dutch for “vale of flowers”) when the station was constructed in 1904 and was actually a relatively rural area then.36 Today many subway stations contain artistic representations of one kind or another.
Standing on 168th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, rediscovering Washington Heights, I am struck by a very beautiful six-story mural painted on the side of an apartment building. It depicts a man with his arms wrapped around vegetables, and a woman holding a baby and standing next to an elderly lady. It’s by the Groundswell Community Housing Project and is titled Live in the Environmental Area of Your Destiny. The mural is an example of the tremendous creativity in these neighborhoods by people hellbent on expressing themselves. Artworks like this are one of the many things that beautify a city. Seeing them in the middle of a drab neighborhood is always unexpected and a pleasant surprise.
The people who helped make the Groundswell mural possible are duly listed on the wall: Manhattan borough president Virginia Fields; the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation; Lowe’s, Modell’s, Valspar Paints; and special thanks to the 33rd Police Precinct and the Washington Heights-Inwood Community Council. So, to paraphrase Jimmy Durante, everyone gets into the act—the politicians, police, community groups, and private industry. They need to be recognized so that they can justify their positions, their funding, and their tax breaks. It’s “pay for play,” a common phenomenon in other communities too, often depending on how important it is to those whose names are to be invoked. Whether such involvement is good, bad, or in between is a hotly debated topic that comes into sharper focus in the next chapter.
Not surprisingly, political expressions of support or opposition for various figures, local and national, are widespread. A bit more strident, but still typical, is a wall poster on St. James Place near Gates Avenue in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, titled Axis of Evil, with drawings of Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Christopher Cox. It looks like a series of wanted posters. The statement has been made on the wall of an abandoned house. On the more conservative side of the political spectrum is a wall mural in the small parking lot of the American Legion Post on Eighth Street in Gowanus, Brooklyn, near Third Avenue. The mural includes the Statue of Liberty and the emblems of the various armed forces, plus a portrait of an American eagle. A cartoon-like balloon depicts the eagle saying, “All gave some. Some gave all,” meaning the ultimate sacrifice of one’s life for their country. There’s hardly a legion post or fire department company in the city that doesn’t have a patriotic message emblazoned on its outside walls. And tucked away on Mosholu Avenue in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, you can find Shcharansky Square (Russian spelling), named after the Jewish Russian dissident Anatoly Sharansky, right in front of the Russian embassy. This in-your-face decision was made in 1982 by the then Bronx borough president, Ruben Diàz Jr.
What grabs my attention in all this is the diversity of issues covered. Throughout the ghetto areas you can see plenty of R.I.P. murals memorializing gang members, but others are messages of anti-violence. In Crown Heights opposite the western edge of Brower Park, a mural exhorts people not to use guns. It features many overlapping paintings of people carrying guns—children, pilgrims, a man whose tongue is like a snake representing the National Rifle Association, and the Second Amendment on a scroll dripping with blood. A sign painted into the mural reads, “Gun Show Today: No ID Required,” and there’s an image of a pipe with weapons pouring out of it. Another mural in East Harlem comes from a totally different direction. Purporting to be modern art, it is identified as Picasso and Van Goh, clearly missing the second g. The art, however, is in the Picasso style. A sign on it says, “Support Graffiti,” almost as if it’s taking on the lofty mantle of a social movement. This exhortation is common throughout the city.
And here’s a mural advocating for animals on the northwest corner of 103rd Street and Third Avenue. It has beautiful paintings of dogs and cats. I notice that it was completed on September 9, 2001. Little did those artists know what would happen to redefine this city just two days later as the Twin Towers collapsed. My noticing this date is another example of how everything in our thinking is affected by that day. The mural urges people to spay and neuter their pets and includes a contact number to call and learn how to do so cheaply. But not everyone notices or cares. A street vendor in front of the mural has his regular stand there, and he didn’t, telling me, “I’m not interested in this.”
Sometimes there are statements on walls where people attract attention simply by articulating social problems. Here’s a message shaped like a small billboard: “92% of all women who are newly diagnosed with HIV in NYC are black and Latino.” The information is from a report published by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. “For free HIV testing contact….” And beneath it somebody has scrawled, “Who cares?” The sign is on Audubon Avenue and 168th Street, across from Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. The fact is that walls are interactive spaces for communication, not just one-way advocacy.
One of the most unusual, imposing, and, given its subject, incongruous, displays I saw was a four-story-high mural on 124th Street, just west of Second Avenue. It was made of woven, canvaslike material attached to the side of a building, and painted on it were the faces of Bobby Sands and other IRA members who participated in the Irish hunger strike of 1981. (See figure 22.) Why here, in Harlem? Why not in Woodside, Queens, or in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx, both still Irish neighborhoods with lots of immigrants from the Emerald Isle? Several people in the neighborhood surmised that the mural was an effort to show solidarity with black people in Harlem. To learn more I tracked down and spoke with Brian McCabe, a retired New York City detective who is vice president of Federal Shield Security, an investigative firm, and who was instrumental in bringing over the artists from Belfast, Ireland, to create this memorial.
“That’s not the reason at all, though I’m sure there were people in Harlem who identified with our struggle,” McCabe said. “We put it here because hundreds of thousands of drivers use 124th Street to get onto the Triborough Bridge [now called the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge]. And as they’re waiting for the light to change, they have ample time to reflect on what they see.” And what do they see? First, an inscription that reads, “This is dedicated to the ten brave Irish hunger strikers who sacrificed their lives in 1981. Their cause is ours. freedom….” Besides images of the strikers, there are those of Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Leonard Peltier (Native American activist), and Nelson Mandela, plus the symbols of the four ancient provinces of Ireland. “Ideally, I would have liked the mural to be on Houston Street,” laments McCabe, “but space is very expensive there.”
Sadly, this beautiful canvas is gone, a casualty of gentrification. A brand-new apartment building has risen in the space. I don’t know where the mural is now, but its disappearance is silent testimony to the ever changing nature of the city. If old buildings can be torn down and replaced, how much easier it is to remove something from a wall.37
I chance upon what could only be described as an amazing shrine to Brooklyn’s history and culture, with all the icons it reveres. Were I not walking every block in the area, I would not have discovered it. It’s in the form of a private house at 2056 Eighty-fifth Street, right down the block, paradoxically, from Brooklyn’s only Kabbalah Center. I assume the two do not have more than a passing acquaintanceship. The unique house is a striking example of the borough’s richness and diversity.
The bronze sign in front reads, “This property has been placed in the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior.” It’s a white brick colonial with a porch attached to the second story, vinyl siding on the third floor, and many plaster statues arrayed in front of the house and along the driveway. There’s a garbage can with a small monster peering out near a red and yellow sign that reads, “Welcome to Steve’s Place.” (See figure 23.) On the right is a three-foot-tall brown statue of a man dressed in a trench coat and a black hat. In the middle is a fiftiesera gangster clad in a black leather jacket and a hat pulled down low. He has long sideburns, sunglasses, and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. There’s also a biker mannequin with a guitar. Then there’s a cigarette girl wearing a scanty outfit and a little hat. She’s carrying a small tray of fake tulips. Next to that is a seated Godfather-type figure, leisurely reclining and holding a cigar in his hand. And in case you didn’t suspect it, the sign says, “Original Capone Gangster.” At the top it reads, “Jury Convicts Capone.” By contrast, next to Capone’s likeness is a symbol of the U.S. Army. On the window behind it are several gremlins. Nearby is a statue of a marine standing at attention, and alongside him is a statue of a derelict. Above that is the famous photo of the marines planting the American flag on Iwo Jima. An assortment of jungle animals dots the area as well.
Jutting out from the second floor is a statue of Superman appearing to break out of the house. On one side of him is a Batman poster, and on the other is one of Robin. Above a knight in armor is a face attached to the wall. There’s also Betty Boop near a barber shop pole and a sign encouraging the viewer or customer to “ask for Wildroot,” a famous hair lotion of the old days. There’s Elvis and his guitar, the song title words “Don’t Be Cruel” etched behind him, along with a scale of red-colored notes. He is next to Marilyn Monroe, who is standing above the famous grating where the wind is blowing up her skirt.
At the back of the driveway is a brightly colored garage door with a dotted stripe down the middle, just like a road. It’s done in 3-D trompe l’oeil style so that it looks as if you’re driving into it. And where are you driving into? Why, the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, with signs reading, “EZ Pass,” “CASH,” and, “Leaving Brooklyn.” There’s also a statue of Humphrey Bogart. And then Superman makes a second appearance as Clark Kent emerging from a phone booth after a quick change of clothing. I almost feel as if I’m spying on him, especially when I see the famous quote from Perry White, publisher of the Daily Planet, exclaiming, “Great Caesar’s Ghost!” There’s a pirate of a Captain Kidd type, Dracula, Frankenstein, Forrest Gump, and Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli, aka the Fonz.
There’s much more, including iconic photos of Brooklyn, like one of Ebbets Field. All in all, the scene is a rich tapestry of the borough’s history as well as the era in which it played out, depicting characters and real people that residents of Brooklyn liked. It’s also an effort to demonstrate that despite all that’s happened in the last thirty-five years, Brooklyn has hewed to its cultural trappings and its history, unique in some aspects and tied into the larger society in others. To sum up, this unusually decorated home is a part of America and at the same time apart from it. If there are such complex exhibits elsewhere in the five boroughs—other than Christmas displays—I’m not aware of them. It’s an amazing space on private property but there for all who pass by to see.
Another shrine, this one in Queens, exists on a much smaller scale but is interesting and unusual nonetheless. A man in Hunters Point, Joe Colletti, seems to have converted his home into a shrine memorializing the 1912 Titanic disaster. He has created a museum dedicated to telling the story, located at 47-08 Eleventh Street. It’s in a two-story house, and when you step into the vestibule a buzzer goes off, presumably alerting the owners or implying that you are being watched. In the front window is a replica of the famously doomed ship. This is Joe’s chance to ensure that one of history’s great tragedies is not forgotten and to indulge in an activity that interests him.38
“Live Life in a Way That Leaves No Regrets,” reads a sign outside a simple house in Bushwick covered in pale yellow aluminum siding. It’s part of a memorial to a man’s mother. People were falling into a hole around a tree outside his home. So the Puerto Rican man living there put what he called a “lucky bunny” in front of it. He tells me, “She died at eighty-four, but I also did it because in her old age when she looked out the window she always saw the tree. I also took a miniature baby crib, which I painted in blue and white, to cover the hole. It’s also a design just to show that she wasn’t forgotten.” My expression of interest in his project is instantly rewarded with some lighthearted banter. “There’s a club across the street wit’ dancing, but you can’t get in, because you gotta have ID, and you’re too young.” We both laugh heartily. In truth, thousands of New Yorkers have taken city-owned sidewalk spaces and converted them for their own uses.
I come across a very interesting place on Eighth Street between Fourth and Third Avenues in Gowanus, Brooklyn, the only one of this sort that I found. On the first floor of a three-story, brick row house I see in gold letters the words “P. De Rosa, 180 1/2, Grocery” on a window with white vertical mini-blinds on the inside. (See figure 24.) Underneath and off to the sides are neon signs, unlit, advertising Schaefer and Rheingold Extra Dry, two old beers of an earlier New York. The commercial signs look out of place on this completely residential block, and I wonder why the store is there. It certainly appears closed, and I cannot see any sign to indicate that it’s a functioning establishment. I spy an elderly woman sitting on a stoop across the street and ask her about it.
Her answer clears it up. “The grandfather owned the store forty years ago when I moved in here, and then it was open as a store. They’re an old-time Italian family, been here a hundred years, and the grandson lives there now and he keeps it that way. And every Christmas and Easter he lights up the beer signs.”
I cross the street again and ring the bell, but only a dog responds, the deep bark letting me know that he or she is on duty. It is a rather unusual use of space. The grandson has maintained this permanent shrine and tribute to his grandfather and has shown filial loyalty and respect for his forebears. And his deed is known by his neighbors and all others who stop and inquire about its meaning.39
Let’s look at cemeteries for a moment, which are shrines too. People think of a cemetery as a place where your loved ones are buried. But they are often located in places far from where you live, quite possibly in a neighborhood that you wouldn’t visit except for that purpose. Often the area has changed ethnically over time, but since it’s much more difficult to move dead people than live ones, the cemetery remains. And so the cemetery trek becomes a way that people can learn about other groups. You see a community that you know nothing about, you walk around, and you stop for a snack or even a meal there. In this way people broaden their knowledge of different communities and the city as a whole.
This applies, of course, to other nostalgic visits to the old neighborhood. These spaces invariably change, but they are a treasure trove of memories for those who return for one reason or another. You look at a church you attended in your younger days, and as you stand there you wonder what happened to all those kids who attended its youth groups, its religious school. What about the adult members, the committees on which they served? Lives were lived here, political intrigues were played out, and religious events were celebrated. And lifelong friendships began inside its walls. For those who have revisited their old neighborhoods, such a trip is filled with memories. And the church, to the extent that it remains intact, is the vehicle that lends special meaning and even comfort to them. In that sense, the old building, even if it has been transformed into a bingo hall or community center, keeps alive the past that its former occupants yearn to preserve.
Sometimes even a building that is not in the neighborhood serves to awaken memories. Space is often a vehicle for evoking what once was, and a classic example is that of the still-standing Sears, Roebuck Building in Brooklyn, the first one located in the city. Located on Bedford Avenue and Beverley Road, it is an Art Moderne structure built in 1932 that literally towers over the two-story homes and small apartment buildings in nearby East Flatbush. And anyone who lived through the 1930s can appreciate that period when they reflect on the large blue, red, and white letters atop the building that read, “Sears, Roebuck and Co.” Eleanor Roosevelt was in attendance when it first opened. Today the building is shuttered, but those in the know who walk by realize that they’re looking at a monument to a forgotten era. As I ponder this building’s meaning to those who see it, I realize that New York City is sort of like a time machine. Look at the Sears Building and you’re in the 1930s, perhaps a trip down memory lane; amble through portions of Greenwich Village around Washington Square and you’re in the late 1700s; visit the new steel apartment buildings along the East River by North Williamsburg and you’re catapulted into the twenty-first century. There’s something for every taste.
A site doesn’t have to be big to jog one’s memory. In the midst of the street’s humming activity, I spot a small bronze plaque in front of an old six-story limestone and brick tenement at 225 East Ninth Street in Manhattan, one of many scattered throughout the city, commemorating historical sites and events. The plaque announces that the building once housed a branch of the Hebrew Technical Institute, founded in 1884. German Jewish leaders at the time felt that training Eastern European immigrants to be productive manual workers would counter the stereotype that Jews were parasites and unscrupulous moneylenders. One of its founders was the great poetess Emma Lazarus. This building served as the Lucas A. Steinam School of Metal Working. Indicative of its prestige, those supporting the institution included some of the biggest names in New York City—Joseph Bloomingdale, Jacob Schiff, and Henry Seligman.
Statues are yet another physical space worth mentioning. There are thousands of them in the city, the majority of them in parks. Plaques usually tell of their significance, but save for famous ones, like the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Riverside Drive, they are unappreciated by the average user of these spaces. Since the statues are often old and preceded the arrival of more recent groups to the area, people using the park often give the plaques little notice or fail to understand the importance or relevance of what is inscribed on them.
Walking on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens, I come across Major Mark Park, which sits on the south side of Hillside from 175th to 173rd Streets and is surrounded by tall apartment buildings. It’s a rainy day and few people are there, other than some homeless types, laborers, and a guy in a blue T-shirt frolicking with his cute dachshund. My attention is drawn to the elegant bronze statue in the middle of the small park, an angel with a palm frond in her right hand and a laurel wreath in the left. There’s no commemoration plaque, nor even the name of the monument’s creator. The only indication of what it stands for is a span of dates, “1861–1865,” the period of the Civil War, etched into the granite pedestal. But if you were a recent immigrant, foreign tourist, or otherwise unaware of what those years meant, you wouldn’t have a clue.
A quick search reveals the statue’s history and purpose. It was built by the French-trained sculptor Frederic Wellington Ruckstull to remember Union Army soldiers and sailors of Queens who were killed in the Civil War. The statue has been conserved through the efforts of the Adopt-A-Monument Program, created by the Municipal Art Society and the New York City Art Commission. And Ruckstull was apparently an equal opportunity employee, having designed such monuments for Northern and Southern U.S. communities. It was a specialty of his. When all is said and done, the statue is another example of how these organizations maintain the city’s history. A visit to the art commission’s website reveals the following question: “Do you know an interesting tidbit about Major Mark Park that you’d like to share? Please send it to us.” I wonder how many people have responded.
Last, but certainly not least, space isn’t simply the space in your community. It’s what you can see—a skyline, a park, skyscrapers, and so on. A longtime resident of gentrifying Washington/Hudson Heights extols the virtues of his community, saying, “Rockefeller didn’t allow development of the palisades across the river. He owned them. So the New Jersey view on Chittenden Avenue is pristine north of the George Washington Bridge. This is one of the most secret spots in New York, the openness here. People just don’t know about it.” This anonymity gives the area a special status, a certain cachet.
“Would it be the same view south of the bridge?” I ask.
“I don’t think so,” he responds. But only in a sense, it turns out. The fact is that those people also have a great view of both the bridge in front of them and the river. It’s just a different, yet still very nice, view.
In line with this concern about views, the Trivium, a small green space in the city, was built in newly resurgent Washington Heights. “Trivium” is an old Latin word for the space created when three roads come together. It’s located at the confluence of Pinehurst Avenue, Cabrini Boulevard, and 187th Street. When people sit on the benches there, they have a view of the Hudson River, a prized feature for nearby apartment dwellers. Fittingly, the Trivium is named after Charles Paterno, who built Castle Village Apartments, where almost all of the apartments have river views. Its user-friendliness is enhanced by the U-shaped bench that encourages eye contact and conversation.40 These special little touches engender community pride and solidarity, especially when their unique features are made known to the residents.