Week in Seven Words #559

This covers the week of 10/4/20 - 10/10/20.

discombobulated

A couple of lively restaurants, and around them blight. Farther south, an eerie funhouse feeling to the streets, as Disney characters shamble around and breakdancers try to work up enthusiasm in disjointed knots of people. A cowboy in underwear poses with his fans.

disruption

Borne out of sleep on a wave of anxiety. 

gauging

The teacher's voice is strained, because she can't see us. She can't know for sure if we're looking confused or distracted. She does ask questions and hopes that she won't be met by the ominous silence of ignorance.

gossamer

Two violinists with scruffy gray beards play Vivaldi at one of the entrances to the park. The music is like spun gold. It threads through traffic and past shouts and laughter.

normality

It's a pleasure to sit at a tiny table that looks like its legs are made of toothpicks and just enjoy a drink, a conversation.

normothermia

I ask him why the building's heat isn't on yet, and he tells me with a wry smile that some people are still using their A/C to keep cool. Are we all of the same species, I wonder.

sun-warmed

At lunch, the sukkah is warm. It has basked in the sun, like the heavy garden next to it.

Week in Seven Words #552

This covers the week of 8/16/20 - 8/22/20.

adviser

Two young men are having a conversation on a stoop. "To be honest," one of them says, when an old man walking past them interrupts by shouting, "Don't be honest. Deny everything!" He shakes his cane and cackles.

angst

The Scrabble game is like a scene from a French film full of existential dread. ("Mes mots sont horribles. Je veux une cigarette.")

canary

We walk past shells of restaurants and "Coming Soon" signs that have failed in their promise. The city is showing its ribs. In Times Square, it's easy to keep a quick pace. There are no crowds to push through. We do see one sign of liveliness, though: The Naked Cowboy, in all his cowboy-hatted, tighty-whitie-wearing magnificence. As long as he's there, things can't be too bad. Like a canary in a coal mine – if he isn't singing, it may be an alarming sign of the city's decline.

intensify

On the green surface of the lake, small rapidly vanishing white circles show that it's raining. The rain steadily thickens, until I'm squishing around in my shoes.

leniency

It's pointed out to me that I'm judging someone with leniency, which is true. I don't have all the facts, and why assume the worst? 

lulling

In a dim, piney place, there are no children on the swing sets, only a couple of adults enjoying the gentle back-and-forth, the toes kicked up to the sky.

sentimentally

On a cool gray evening, beside a fountain crowned by the statue of an angel, a man sings "Lean on Me." Close by, a middle-aged couple dance slowly with goofy, self-conscious smiles. 

COVIDiary: Masked and On Foot

One thing I've been doing during the pandemic is walking for miles. Here are some of the highlights:

The 42nd Street branch of the New York Public Library

A small park near the American Museum of Natural History

Week in Seven Words #502

With these Weeks in Seven Words posts, I'm still catching up to the current week... and it's eerie to see the contrast between life then and now (virtually empty Times Square, for instance, and going to a restaurant).

automatic
She opens the door, receives the gift, and closes the door after a bland thanks that says nothing.

cityscape
We walk up 7th Avenue, the lights of Times Square tiring our eyes, before we switch to 6th Avenue. Homeless people are folded under scaffolding.

consumers
When we arrive at the restaurant, it's empty. At one table, three workers are on their phones. One of them springs up to take our orders, which we take with us to a round green table several blocks away by a massive library.

denying
If I deny my own past, if I pretend that I was wiser than I was, then I also deny how I've matured.

earworm
"La, la, la, la... la, la, la, la... Elmo's song... La, la, la, la.... la, la, la, la... Elmo's song..." The toddler keeps squeezing the doll, bringing forth new bursts of Elmo's song. More Elmo's song. Elmo loves singing.

lunch
The restaurant is still a small cube where people are crushed elbow-to-elbow at the counter. But they've broadened their menu. I pick a salad with barbecue chicken and tortilla strips and find a bench in a nearby park outside of a museum. "Enjoy," says a guard, eyeing the salad bowl with unmasked appreciation.

patchily
She tries to hide by ducking behind her backpack and slipping on a pair of shades. It's like when a younger kid plays hide-and-seek by sticking the top half of their body under a bed but leaving their legs exposed.

Wave Hill: January 2013 and June 2019

There's a beautiful set of gardens in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx overlooking the Hudson River: Wave Hill. I was there once, several years ago, in January, and twice just this past month.

I'm going to share some photos of what it looks like in winter vs. late spring/early summer.

Floating Pumpkins, the Battle of Fort Washington, and Autumn Foliage

Two recent NYC parks events worth noting –

One was on 10/28 and involved a flotilla of pumpkins tugged across the Harlem Meer in Central Park by two people in kayaks.



Here is the flotilla getting set up, around sunset.



A little earlier, I had walked around some other parts of Central Park, including the Reservoir:


This brilliant glow was in a clearing a little north of the Reservoir:


Without meaning to, I detoured to the northwest of the park, where The Pool is especially lovely in autumn:


And I crossed east again, to where the Harlem Meer is, through the North Woods:

Flirting With Heatstroke: Two Hikes on 90-Degree Days

Drinking a lot of water and using sun protection (hat, sunscreen, long light sleeves) made these hikes bearable. So did the fact that we stuck as much as possible to shade and enjoyed a leisurely lunch break among trees. Still, I'd never hiked in such weather, and I found the most difficult part was the air. It's more difficult to breathe and sometimes felt like inhaling cotton.

That said, I'm glad I went on these two hikes: one outside of NYC, and the other entirely in it. Both of them with Shorewalkers.

Ossining and New Croton Dam Loop

This hike, which was roughly 13 miles, started and ended at the Metro North station for Ossining, NY and included a visit to the New Croton Dam. Much of the hike was on the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail.



Where we spotted deer at one point.

New York City Sites for the Fourth of July (All Five Boroughs)

If you're visiting New York City around the Fourth of July (or want to go armchair traveling), and you're interested in American history, this is the post for you. These sites are either connected to the American Revolution or show something of NYC's colonial period.

This list is limited to sites I have visited (so you won't see a photo from the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Fort Greene, for instance). For each site, I also mention other neighborhood attractions. Enjoy!

The Bronx

Stockbridge Indian Memorial (Van Cortlandt Park)



You'll find this memorial in the northeast part of Van Cortlandt Park. It's a tribute to a group of Native Americans, allied with the colonists, who died in August 1778 in a clash with an overwhelmingly larger number of British and Hessian troops. (Here's an article that goes into greater depth about the Stockbridge-Mohican community.)

In the neighborhood: Van Cortlandt Park is massive (one of the city's largest parks) and has golf courses, sports fields, and miles of hiking trails. The Van Cortlandt House Museum on the west side of the park dates from the 18th century, and during the Revolutionary War, both Washington and General William Howe, the commander of the British troops, made use of it. If you're in the area, you can also visit Woodlawn Cemetery, where a variety of historic figures are buried. The cemetery is close to the east side of the park.

Some Jewish Culture and a Walk up Manhattan's East Side

This past Sunday, I took a tour of the Museum at Eldridge Street, or the Eldridge Street Synagogue. There's still a small active Orthodox Jewish congregation there, but its purpose is mainly to preserve a critical part of the Jewish culture that flourished in Manhattan's Lower East Side from the second half of the 19th century and into the 20th century.

This grand synagogue opened in 1887, and the congregants were Jews from Eastern Europe. It's a beautiful example of Moorish Revival architecture.


The congregation began to see a decline in the 1920s when the US enacted immigration quotas that hit hard at people trying to come in from Eastern and Southern Europe. As Jewish families moved out of the Lower East Side, newer immigrants weren't coming in to replace them and maintain a steady level of congregants at the synagogue.

In the 1950s, the main sanctuary was closed off, and the few congregants used only the Beit Midrash (a smaller room for religious worship and study). A restoration project began in the 1980s and was completed in 2007.

Earth Day walk

It started at Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn, where there's a memorial for WWII.


Then south to Borough Hall, where I joined a walking group. We headed west into Brooklyn Heights to look out over the East River.

Week in Seven Words #396

businesslike
There are several groups meeting in the atrium. One is for learning Spanish, another for figuring out how to make your home more neat. Although the neater home group is the one I should be signing up for, I've joined a discussion on streamlining business processes. It takes a while to get started. The host shows up late; most of the people who RSVP'ed don't turn up at all. (The conversation is interesting anyway.)

entertaining
A mariachi band steps into the subway car with the suddenness of a channel change. Everything's bright and lively and loud for a couple of minutes. Later on in the ride, as the train stalls on a bridge, breakdancers appear, a hair's breadth away from head injury as they swing wildly from the poles and do backflips.

gratified
A young boy and his mom sit in the mouth of a blue tent that's backlit by the sun. They take turns blowing bubbles.

happenstance
The different parts of Prospect Park feel only loosely connected. We explore a forest where a stream slips through tumbled rocks. We come to a dog beach where people wade ankle deep and throw toys for their dogs to splash after. A picnic area floats past us at one point, in a mist of smoke. We follow the tail of a larger body of water; it's serpentine and keeps changing shape. Clearings open up, criss-crossed with shadow, and large meadows suddenly spring into view, bared to the sun. These places don't feel like parts of the same park, only that they settled next to each other by chance the day we visited, so we could walk from one to the other.

overspread
In these narrow streets, a theme emerges of brick submerged in leaves. Trees screen polished windows, and plants spill out of window boxes.

preaching
A passionate sermon in a woman's voice resounds through a barred door. It's a storefront church that contains a cauldron of apocalyptic feeling.

transportation
The lower level of the museum is home to vintage train cars, one of them displaying an ad for cocoa with eerie children. The upper level shows a history of city transportation and its challenges, from overcrowding to extensive flooding.

Week in Seven Words #386

clubhouse
The conference room smells like grease, leather, and aftershave. The attendees, mostly men, scarf down pizza and sit on colorful plastic chairs. They're talking about cutting-edge technology, while pretending that they're in a school cafeteria. There are board games stacked on every table.

colossal
The giant seated ballerina looks like a float that broke off from a parade and came to rest among skyscrapers.

future
Ten years ago, did you imagine your life as it is now? (When I ask her this, she shakes her head and frowns.) So that means that ten years from now, your life may also become something you can't currently imagine. Hopefully in a good way. You aren't stuck.

needling
After demanding that he prove his identity, they ask him a bunch of questions about himself. Like, "What's your nickname for string cheese?" He answers each one, but they look skeptical, telling him that they're not sure it's really him. These are the kind of mind games older siblings come up with.

overtures
Building a fragile trust with the baby, who smiles with saliva-bubbly lips and then breaks into a wail.

pause
Sunlight, green leaves, and a pale gray pond in the early morning.

prelude
Balloons float off into a dusky sky as the orchestra warms up.

Five Short Stories Set on Staten Island

Staten Island is an underrated borough, sometimes talked about as if it's basically a landfill with some homes. However, there are beautiful places on the island, like these:





And there are plenty of interesting stories to be told there. The ones here are from a collection called Staten Island Noir (part of the Akashic Books noir series, which collects stories about crime and mystery from around the world...). So all of the stories here are dark in nature. A couple are quite funny though. And yes, a landfill plays an important role in a couple of them too (that's inevitable, for Staten Island).

Dyker Heights and Its Extravagant Lights

Yesterday evening I joined a local branch of the Appalachian Mountain Club on a walk that had nothing to do with mountains, forests, or hiking trails - it took us through Dyker Heights, a neighborhood in Brooklyn known for its elaborate display of Christmas lights and general winter holiday decorations (like smiling snowmen waving from front lawns).

Week in Seven Words #370

baby
She's a cute little peanut, slouched in her stroller. Disgruntled, squirmy, delighted, and peaceful in turns.

capsizing
Our conversation is a lazy river that turns into Class IV rapids.

darkening
Rot has crept into every petal. Rotting roses smell like potatoes.

droplets
Near Times Square, an animated display of M&Ms attracts the kids. They run to the cloudburst of candies, the shower of colorful sugar.

pond
She doesn't want to use the steps at first. They're slippery and lead to a path smeared with mud. But the view is worth it for her: A stone bridge, a pond that doesn't bare all its secrets but asks you to follow it as it curves out of sight.

tailed
As I head north, they catch up to me at each crosswalk. When I veer west, they give up their pursuit.

unsettled
This time we meet at a Dunkin' Donuts the size of a pocket. She raises the coffee to her nose, lowers it without taking a sip, and describes the wreckage of her life.

Van Cortlandt Park and a Laura Mvula song

This past Sunday, I went on a hike through Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The hike leader also gave a talk on the role the park plays in the city's water supply, and the challenges of supplying water to a city of millions.

This is a memorial on Katonah Avenue, right outside the northeast corner of the park, for tunnel workers who lost their lives building Tunnel #3, a major piece of city water infrastructure.



Some photos from the hike:







Also, because it's summer - and Laura Mvula's "Green Garden" (and its music video) is full of what I like best about summer - I'm sharing it here.

Two Recent Walks: Governors Island and Harlem

Last time I visited Governors Island was five years ago, when it was still in earlier stages of development and pretty eerie. In late June, I took the five-minute ferry trip from Lower Manhattan to walk around it again. There's more going on there now, and it's a lovely place to walk, bike, and picnic, play around on slides or zip-lines, and enjoy some art and history.

Highlights for me included the view of the NYC harbor from the area of the island known as The Hills. (The crowd of people in pink clothes were attending Pinknic, a rosé wine festival.)



Another part of the island I enjoyed was the small urban farm and composting center. I was happy to see birds that aren't pigeons.

Week in Seven Words #346

inhaling
At different points in the hike, we smell heavy flowering shrubs, a days-old tuna fish and banana odor from the waste treatment facilities, throat-scorching exhaust fumes, the cleanness of salt water and suntan lotion.

pastels
The homes are in cream, peach, and plum colors. They overlook a river that has a silver sheen in the mid-day sun. Hibiscus shrubs line the paths, and swan-shaped flower pots nestle in the shade.

rib-tickling
We try ballroom dancing one evening, and we laugh much more than we dance.

self-contained
She's a silent, steady hiker. She wears headphones and walks at an unvarying pace.

settings
There's a story wherever we look - off the shores of the island, there was a boat accident that killed hundreds, and in the shade of a massive bridge, a grove of trees has been planted as a gift from a foreign prince.

spray-painted
Most of the graffiti images are cartoon characters and portraits of local residents. They stare at bricked-up warehouse windows and smile across unused train tracks.

wetlands
For neighborhoods along the shore, the marshes offer different kinds of protection. They help filter pollutants. They reduce erosion and flooding. They're a bit of nature stitched to the fringes of a city.

Two Winter Walks in NYC

One on New Year's Day, the other on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. They covered different neighborhoods in Northern Manhattan, including Inwood and Harlem.

Walking from the George Washington Bridge bus station to Fort Tryon Park takes you through some beautiful residential neighborhoods in Washington Heights. These apartments aren't far from Bennett Park, which is the highest bit of land in Manhattan (just a little over 265 feet above sea level). Like other places in Washington Heights, it's a site of Revolutionary War military action (mostly Washington resisting but ultimately retreating from British forces, as they pushed him out of Manhattan).



From Inwood Hill Park at the northern tip of Manhattan, a view of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and beyond it, Marble Hill and the Bronx:

How do you write about the city? On "Here Is New York"

I read E.B. White's "Here Is New York" for Deal Me In 2017.

White wrote this sprawling essay in the 1940s. NYC has changed quite a bit since then, and was changing moment-by-moment even as he was writing about it. That quality is something he tries to capture in the essay - that even as he sits alone in a stifling, hot room, all the city’s activities swirl around him.

A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry…

What I liked best about this essay is how it shows the challenge (futile, perhaps, but worthwhile) of trying to tackle a subject as big as the city. White is trying to capture what the city is and what it means to people, but there’s so much of it, so what does a writer do?

He approaches the city from different angles - making observations about various groups of people, neighborhoods, the way you can remain fairly insulated from major events if you want. He’s trying to throw a net around a massive fish, and in the dark it struggles and eludes capture. Now and then he records glimpses of its body and sometimes clues as to what it is as a whole, but it slips away.

(These are issues general to writing - what details do you focus on, and what do you leave out? When is a work of writing complete?)

White glides from general statistics to descriptions of specific streets. He discusses a trend and tosses out an anecdote. He breathes the romance of the city and lays bare its darkness (“the cold menace of unresolved human suffering and poverty”). You get a sense of what the city is, while realizing that there’s so much you still don’t know. And I like how White does this - with the essay unfolding not so much as a walk, but as if White had wings and were hovering here and there, pointing things out, before going off to have a drink.

All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself, and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.

Whatever the city is, humanity and its burning questions are caught up in it. (For instance, how can so many people live more or less peacefully in a cramped space?) He hopes that the city will endure. It must.