The Forlorn Elephant of Broadway

My tragic looking new friend standing watch outside of a shabby little midtown shop.

There is a small diagonal stretch of Broadway in Manhattan between Koreatown and the Flatiron which is home to a street bazaar of peculiar wholesale establishments. Most contain bins full of unnecessary plastic knick-knacks that can only be purchased in minimum quantities of one hundred. The adjacent Fifth and Sixth Avenues are a tourist wonderland full of souvenir shops, hot dog stands and a legion of salesmen offering  "lowest price" guarantees to get to the top of the Empire State Building. This little stretch of road, however; is strictly for folks in the business of doing business.

Sometimes unsuspecting tourists will wander in to one of these shops and bring a single item to the salesperson only to be directed to read the "Wholesale Only" signs hanging rather unnoticeably in yellowed plastic coverings above the door. Some will try to plead their cases to uninterested store clerks for several minutes before giving up and continuing on their way without their coveted treasures. This anomalous zone feels like a relic of dead epoch that will surely be discovered by savvy real estate developers before the decade is over. Until then, the streets are still buzzing with merchants chattering away in a melange of Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, North-African French and a peppering of languages my dull American ears are not yet tuned to pick out.

Recently I've been enjoying the summer weather and taking long walks during my lunch breaks. This helps restore remnants of sanity that my day job holds captive during business hours. I usually buy something along the way, and eat on a bench in Madison Square Park under the shade of stately old trees that have seen many generations of the midtown workforce before me enjoy a moment of daily respite, just as I do now. I like to sit and enjoy an over-priced sandwich while watching the traffic dance around the delicate intersection below the Flatiron, and enjoy being un-tethered from my desk for a few short minutes.

By the time I've finished, and I'm compelled to return, I say hello to Seward's statue perched above the flower beds, and pay my respects to General Worth resting beneath his forgotten obelisk before continuing back up Broadway. Each time I navigate my way through the narrow traffic crossings and construction zones that define this part of town, I try to keep my eye out for details that stand out among the swirling crowds going about their weekday business.

Recently I came across a rather worn out looking figure of a baby elephant made of papier-mâché chained outside of a chintzy looking shop that sells plastic costume jewelry. The poor little character looks as if he's seen a heavy share of life's injustices. He once had a dark vinyl skin which has peeled away around his face and trunk, revealing untreated wounds. Innumerable seasons of hot and cold have made their mark in the materials exposed. One of his font legs was broken and crudely taped back together causing him to lean unevenly on the gum-speckled pavement. Children with ice cream stained fingers assault him with regularity. Tourists use his back as a resting spot for their bags as they rummage to recover misplaced guidebooks and cigarettes. Mostly, he is overlooked.

In my sentimental mind, this little elephant represents so many of the pieces of old New York that have been cast aside and allowed to crumble, even though I know that I am probably over-reaching a bit. I don't know the real history of this object or how it came to be placed outside of a shop in this odd section of the city. I don't know how it received its many scars, but I do know that it has become an enchanting detail that I look forward to seeing. There is something behind the layers of decay that conveys a simple and sweet sentiment given freely to anyone who stops long enough to notice. Part of me wants to rescue the little elephant and take him home to be repaired, but there is something more genuine and powerful about his presence on the street. Who knew that bits of paper and glue molded into an animal would provoke such a reaction in me. Perhaps he has that effect on others as well. I hope so.

Summer in the city...

Seventh Avenue in Midtown on a hot July afternoon...

There is a strange sense of joy that is produced by the smells of ripening garbage baking in the sun mixed with taxi exhaust and the aromatic smoke dancing about in the air from food carts along the streets of Manhattan. When the air is heavy with moisture and you can actually see the heat waves bouncing up from the sidewalk, the thought diving headfirst into the pollution of the Hudson River seems like the happiest of retreats from the sun overhead. It begins in late May and lasts through September. Generally by the second week of June all of the stores are sold out of window air conditioner units and herds of dejected looking sweaty wanderers can be seen staring at their empty spaces on the shelves in disbelief and utter devastation. Now that summer in New York City is drawing to a close, I feel my heart sink ever so slightly when thinking about all things I will miss as three seasons must come and go before she returns again. New York is a town that embraces all seasons, but summer above all...

My last summer in the city, or rather I should say my very first, was so frantic that I hardly had time to stop and enjoy it.  Being that I had just moved to New York with no job or prospects, my main goal was survival. Between finding three different bizarre jobs and inventing my "I'm too poor to pay rent AND eat multiple meals a day" diet, the hot summer months quickly melted by as a very strange and colorful blur. When I think back, although it was chaotic and difficult, I can't imagine who I would be now without all of the craziness of that initial adjustment period. This summer, now settled in and a bit more well-nourished, living my glamourous Manhattan lifestyle from paycheck to paycheck, I found myself much more aware of my surroundings and all of the lovely summertime experiences the city has to offer.

One evening in June, I was visiting with a friend in Central Park. He's a very lovely and very peculiar sort of fellow. Partially French and partially Californian, he devotes a great deal of his time to the study of Eastern philosophies and meditations. I think in his "legitimate life" he's some sort of lawyer, but I am horrible with remembering such things. Generally when other people talk about their jobs, I just sort of glaze over and ponder things like, what kinds of dreams might cats have, or what would the world be like if humans were amphibious. By the time someone has finished explaining their profession, I have successfully nodded along while absorbing absolutely nothing. I think that this, by some definitions, may make me a "flake," but I can't be bothered to really care. In any case, I met my friend of unknown profession in a meadowy part of The Ramble while he beat some sort of animal skin drum made specially for him by a member of a Native American tribe with whom he was trying to become affiliated for the purpose of ritual spiritual practices (I think he met up with them sometime before of after Burning Man one year, but I sort of glazed over for that story as well). It was a beautiful evening, and I enjoyed meandering about barefooted in the grass while my friend drummed away in some sort of trance, communing with the "nature" in Central Park. Once I had stepped on one too many cigarette butts in the grass and my companion had finished speaking with the trees, we decided to walk through the park and enjoy the setting sun. We strolled along the winding tree-lined paths of the ramble, up and down the rocky hills until me reached the lake and the Bow Bridge, which then lead us to the Bethesda Fountain and up into the Central Park Mall. Upon passing all of the stoic stone statues of the Poet's Walk under a canopy of stalwart old trees, we began to hear lovely and strange music playing in the distance. As we drew nearer, we could see a large crowd of people moving about in beautiful motions ahead, swaying around like flowers in a breeze. They were all dancing to Argentine Tango music, some dressed in fine clothes and others wearing shorts and t shirts. Under the pink light of the sunset, the swirling mass of people of all ages and colors dancing on that summer evening was a hypnotic scene to behold. It's not often one stumbles upon hundreds of people dancing the tango in public, but it's just one example of the many unexpected happenings that are so easy to come across in New York. It was like viewing a piece of a dream, only the dream was simply one of many realities of the city in summertime.

There are other less pleasant realities of the summertime, such as the amount of tourists crowding the sidewalks and the sight of exposed sweaty cellulite on the subways, but they are all manageable when mixed with the number of outdoor farmers' markets, musical performances, street fairs and bizarre parades from cultures you would  have never known existed. On holidays like the 4th of July, Gay Pride or the Puerto Rican Day Parade, an influx of overly tanned young people with an abundance of hair products find their passages through the bridges and tunnels on the west side of Manhattan from their native New Jersey and they graciously stink up the city with the sounds of elongated vowels and the smells of cheap caffeinated booze. They run about the streets, throwing litter and tragedy along their path, and eventually go back from whence they came, somewhere in suburbia, leaving New York in shambles. In August, Europe comes to the city in droves, enjoying the generous vacation time granted to citizens by their social-democracies and labor practices that would make members of the Tea Party shutter at the thought of the taxes that support such a human-friendly system. Walking about neighborhoods like SoHo and Greenwich Village or the shopping districts of midtown, one can hear a rainbow of languages spoken by strangers in posh sunglasses and sporty shoes (Europeans always have the best shoes for some reason, and it makes me jealous). I always find it curious to see a large group of Italians or Brits completely enthralled by the squirrels in Central Park. Don't they have squirrels in their own countries? Then this line of thinking gets me to wonder if they mentioned that at some point in high school biology class, but I was too busy glazing over and pondering the dream life of cats or the thoughts in the heads of those monkeys they used to send into space before they allowed humans venture that high into the atmosphere...

Now the summer is drawing to a close, and the feeling of change is in the air on the streets. Billboard advertisements for fall sweaters and snappy jackets are popping up everywhere along with window displays in shops incorporating images of colorful trees and smiling porcelain white mannequins in tweed. My second summer in the city has come and gone, but I feel like I embraced it this time around. Now, as the days become shorter and school children with grumpy faces pass me by on my way to the train in the morning, I am beginning to look forward to the crisp mornings to come and the opportunities to wear my favorite cardigans again. I am anxiously awaiting another beautiful autumn in New York, but not without a tiniest bit of mourning for the lovely summer gone by. The summer of 2011 was a very nice one, and I feel very lucky to have spent it in such a wonderful place.

Autumn in New York...

A very picturesque scene of the Central Park Mall - It actually looks even more charming in person...

Perhaps it's due to the fact that I'm somewhat of a curmudgeon at heart, but the autumn is my very favorite time of the year. Ever since childhood, I would look forward to the leaves changing colors and flying through the air in dancelike patterns until falling into the community of their previously fallen compatriots, already stuck on the ground, which depending on how you look at it, can be either inspiring or really depressing. In New York, a city known for its fashion-savvy residents, it is safe to say that even the trees seem to be modeling some trendy sort of seasonal wares this time of year, competing with the other trees to be the most outstanding, not unlike their human counterparts turning the sidewalks of the city into runways and catwalks of extravagant outerwear...

My Stupid Hat

Recently my office moved to a neighborhood near Penn Station known as the fur district. It's a rather dingy little section of mid-Manhattan with an abundance of tired looking gray industrial buildings in need of sandblasting and lacking very many good places to eat (I am most affected by this aspect of the move). There are more fur suppliers, resellers and designer fur-clothing manufacturers concentrated in these few blocks than any other place on Earth. I am not surprised at how many of the fur merchants seem to be surly Russian mafia members, but I'm definitely surprised that the streets aren't overwhelmed with PETA protesters holding overburdened paint cans, ready to for action. Being neither an angry animal rights activist, nor a person of wealth, I recently purchased the most ridiculous giant faux-fur winter hat I could find. Aside from looking like a reject from the Sonny and Cher collection, it keeps me warm in the oppressive New York winds that blow through the narrow streets between the buildings. My bargain-priced fall fashion decision earns me disdainful glares from the beady-eyed shop keepers surrounded by their menagerie of animal carcasses. They can notice from a mile away that my hat is both fake AND stupid-looking, as I blithely make my way down the sidewalk in search of lunchtime burritos (ah, Chipotle barbacoa), enjoying their squirms and malignant disgust.

Coming up on "the holidays," I have taken an extra seasonal job in retail working at a clothing store on 5th Avenue at Rockefeller Center. As glamorous as that may sound, retail is retail no matter the setting. The store can best be described as a more drab and less-edgy European version of the Gap (if more drab and less edgy than Gap is even possible). Being as "fun sized" as I am, the employee discount program is not extremely beneficial considering few of their garments even come close to fitting well on my impish frame, so my favorite perk of the job is the opportunity to observe a steady trickle of confused tourists who try to avoid salespeople, like myself, at all costs. I'm learning that I am unable to convincingly lie to strangers to get them to believe that they look "great" in faux fur-hooded parkas that would look strange on even eskimos. I blame my mother for my inability to successfully tell mis-truths as I was never allowed to get away with it when I was younger which killed my chances to hone the skill. Instead I have to find unrelated statements that will sound better, like, "I bet you'll be the only person back in Arkansas with a giant man-bag like this one," or "I'm sure you'll really stand out in that plaid hat when you go back to Japan..." Perhaps if I really believed in what I was selling, I could more convincingly lie about it, much like a politician or televangelist. We'll see how far I go in my sales career, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hope that I make it through the season unscathed.

Retail and unfriendly Russians aside, when all is said and done, New York is a beautiful place to be during this transitional time of the year, even when getting the stink eye from passersby, comparing outerwear. I now can vouch for all of those cheesy movies and songs based on this very phenomenon in the city. Between the beautiful leaves lining the gutters, preparations for window displays on 5th Avenue  and the smell of "a little something extra" in the coffee cups of certain businessmen walking out of Penn Station, there is a magical crispness that makes one feel truly alive.

Central Park Photo taken from http://www.kiamoy.com/?p=144

The Met

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Cathedral to Fine Art and Free Air Conditioning...

Whenever I'm feeling like life is getting the best of me, which happens quite regularly, I often find myself wandering about the pathways in Central Park, avoiding sticky-fingered children and foreigners with guidebooks as much as possible. Many times, as if willed by some greater power, I find myself facing Cleopatra's Needle directly behind the massive stone structure that is the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or "the Met" as it is called for short. My attraction to this place, especially in contemplative moments of self-indulgent pretension, is likened to the following scenario between Holly Golightly and her unsuspecting upstairs neighbor in the film adaptation of Truman Capote's novella, Breakfast at Tiffany's:

"Listen...you know those days when you get the mean reds?"
"The mean reds? You mean like the blues?
"No... the blues are because you're getting fat or because it's been raining too long. You're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?"
"Sure."
"When I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump into a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away."

Although I can never justify the cost of cab fare (or the risk of personal injury and/or death that may result from riding in a New York City cab), I find that wandering on foot through the meandering walkways from the west to the east side of the park works sufficiently well. Furthermore, although both Tiffany's and the Met have many treasures that sparkle and shine, I prefer those which can not be purchased on platinum cards from any major carrier. There is something to be said for beauty that is truly priceless. These, and several other minute details separate me from the swinging socialite character of Miss Golightly, but our common need for a resplendent refuge from the cruel and unrelenting world unites us in spirit.

One of the most wonderful things about the Met is the fact that admission is by a "suggested donation" policy. They suggest that a reasonable adult should be able pay $20 for the buffet of culture that is offered, or even more if the aforementioned individual is really classy. Perhaps one day when I am, indeed, a reasonable adult, I will gladly pay such a fee, but whenever I get up to the desk and look at the unamused face of the fatigued attendant behind the counter, I flash a crispy $1 bill, and he or she who happens to have the privilege of accepting that generous donation from a starving artist, such as myself, hands me a brightly colored button with a rather decorative "M" stamped to the front that is to be worn at all times while navigating the maze of numerous galleries and great halls housed inside.

In addition to my love of art, there are two other primary attractions that keep me coming to the Met at least 3 times per month. One is the abundance of guaranteed free air conditioning. In July, we had a heat wave so bad, that I went to the museum 3 times in one week during the worst of it. I believe that many other broke artists did the same, as I saw more genuinely tattered clothes and bony scabby knees in those days than any other. The other attraction is the abundance of foreign tourists who seem hell-bent on perpetuating every stereotype about their respective native countries. I know that we Americans have a quite a reputation throughout the world as being rather obnoxious visitors wherever we go, but all those places seem to be evening the score and getting back at us by sending the worst possible delegates from their own homelands to the museums of New York. I can't forget to mention the middle-American families, clad in matching cargo shorts and fanny packs, always dragging some dejected floppy-haired teenager about while loudly mis-pronouncing the names of even well-known American artists. I believe that their job is to make the Europeans feel more important, and even more European. The presence of this unavoidable human theatre always provides a healthy dose of entertainment to add to the flavor of the Met experience.

All sarcasm aside, for me, the Met has become similar to a holy refuge in the vast chaos of New York City. I suppose that I use it as a spiritual center, the way one might attend services at a church or synagogue in the hope of obtaining a sense of meaning or the feeling of being grounded and resolved about the daily struggles and torments of adulthood. When all seems doomed and hope seems out of reach, I can take my "medicinal stroll" through the 19th century painting collection and see drawings by Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec or paintings by Van Gogh and my wilted demeanor perks up a bit (although when I pass Gauguin in the Van Gogh galleries I have to fight the urge to become spiteful and vindictive, but that's a tangent for another day). Perhaps seeing such beautiful work created by such flawed individuals resonates within me in a meaningful way that proves to always be uplifting. I've an attraction to the human will to create, and museums such as the Met function as cathedrals to that holy act of creation and human determination. When I'm at my worst, I can always drag myself into my very own version of Holly Golighlty's Tiffany's to regain, in true Truman Capote fashion, at least a few ounces of faith in life - enough to continue until my next episodic meltdown.