Pepe Rosso

Wandering around downtown reminds me of why I moved back to New York. At night, it always means a night out. Every bar and restaurant is brightly lit. People are out really living, where in Midtown, people are out either gawking or wishing they were out really living. Working in Midtown in winter, it is easy to forget this side of New York. Hidden on Sullivan Street between Houston and Prince is a tiny Italian restaurant with decent $10.00 meals and only five tiny tables – all squeezed together in this hole-in-the-wall place.

A sign on the brick wall behind Sara reads:

A meal buys you a chair and
half a table for 15 minutes.
Enjoy!
–Benito.

The couple next to us consists of a short-haired woman in glasses, my guess, a village native, and a long-haired, completely disinterested man. She rambled on about exploring Oregon. He silently focused on his panino.

The problem with the window seat in Pepe Rosso is that it’s the kind of place where you actually want to stick around, watching the dog walkers and the delivery boys pull up with their been-through-it-all bikes. When you’re living and working in New York in winter, it is essential to find an escape in your favorite part of the city…and nowhere near midtown. Even in Manhattan it is alarmingly easy to feel claustrophobic. But after feeling it on Long Island, Boston, South Florida, Australia, and New York, I begin to wonder if maybe it isn’t the location after all.

You Can't Make this Shit Up

It’s 7:30pm on a Friday. I’m standing on 57th at the intersection of 57th and Madison waiting for the bus back to Queens after work, when a boy about 8 or 9 years old comes hopping down Madison Avenue on a large silver metal spring. Not really a pogo stick – more of just an actual metal spring. He was wearing a big head-to-toe blue hooded winter coat and at first, I thought that he was all alone. I sort of did a double take since it looked like I was the only one paying him any mind. There was a young “Park Avenue” looking man strutting a few feet away from the boy and gazing off in the opposite direction. Anyway, as I said, it looked like the boy was alone until he approached the corner. All of a sudden the spring sprung out from under him and he fell flat on his back, right in front of one of those R2D2 shaped green NYC garbage cans. The boy did not cry, and he did not move. After several seconds, the man walking near him walked casually over to the boy and stood over him. A tall blonde “Park Avenue” looking woman with big earings and a peanut sized dog joined the pair and also looked down at him while continuing her cell-phone conversation…the peanut pooch stood patiently by the boy’s feet. Finally, after several minutes of awkward silence save for the woman’s cell-phone conversation, the man knelt down. The boy sat up, stood up, picked up his spring. The trio with dog walked to the corner, at which time the boy leapt back onto his spring and hopped across 57th, regardless of oncoming traffic. I’m still not entirely convinced the man, woman, dog, boy, or spring had ever before been acquainted.

Overheard at 49th street bus stop on a snowy February evening

“You couldn’t take her buddy? She’s got a freakin’ baby!”

“Sir, Sir, it’s okay I’m heading downtown…

“Nice, asshole!”

“Thank you though. Thank you.”

[Bus brakes screech]

“What the fuck…fucking organization – fucking bus come don’t even stop to pick up nobody. Freezing my ass off…”

[Sirens]

“Hi it’s Stacey – it’s 6:00, I’m leaving the office now but who knows what condition my car will be in.”

[Whistle] “You free? You free? [Bangs on window of cab] You free?”

“Phil there’s someone in the backseat! Phil!!!!”

“He’s busy- he’s taken. Get off the fucking phone already!”

“Hey it’s Stacey, I’m leaving the office now…”

“This bus don’t take this card? Excuse me this bus don’t take this card?”

“Not the express busses – the local do.”

“Oh fabulous. Fucking organization. God damn freezing out here…”

[Bus breaks screech]

“Only the local – the express busses are the only ones that stop here.”

“Ah – well you all couldn’t say something before huh? Excuse me lovey...”

A walk through Flushing on a Sunday morning

Little known fact: The name Flushing is derived from the Dutch Vlissingen, a port in Holland. I have no idea how “Flushing” derives from “Vlissingen.”

If you know only one thing about Queens (besides the fact that it is a borough of Manhattan) you probably know about the big globe thing, the Unisphere, at the site of the World’s Fair that was featured in Men in Black. Although I spent much of my young life here as a kid, it never occurred to me until today that Queens was really the best possible place to have the World’s Fair because it is the most diverse county in the United States (if not the world).

While tourists to New York visit Chinatown in Manhattan to get the “Asian experience,” the real Chinatown (the one not for tourists) is actually not in Manhattan but rather in Flushing, Queens. The real difference is that in Chinatown, you’re one of a thousand different colors – there are much more tourists in Chinatown than Chinese inhabitants. If you happen to be a white girl in the heart of Flushing, however, you’re literally the only one.

[My first experience as a complete minority happened on a hot summer day while on a walk through Flushing Corona Park (where the Unisphere is), about a mile from Flushing’s Chinatown. The park was brimming with Latino families playing in or watching soccer games. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that I was the only non Latina].

The Q17 bus passed by the familiar dusty brick apartment buildings most common in Queens, arrived at the intersection of Kissena Blvd. and Main Street, and only 15 minutes from my apartment – here a whole new world appeared before me. The streets were packed…the cars were honking, the bright colors of Chinese and Korean shop signs stood out against the blue sky – the silver decorations for the new year celebration sparkled in the sun. The bus drove by blurs of red from outdoor shops selling lanterns. This was my first time venturing into the real Chinatown of New York. I wandered through the Asian markets and malls sipping a Passionfruit iced tea from a popular Chinese tea store, watched chefs chopping unfamiliar meat in windows, passed by street vendors standing behind mounds of Lo Mein and slabs of chicken. Today I was literally the only non-Asian in a community that was not too long ago predominantly Jewish. The only evidence of Main Street’s history, however, was an old church that was once a temple and kept the original Tiffany windows with Jewish stars. Amazingly, despite my background, I felt completely at home. I was born in the hospital just up the road.

I stopped into an art store in the Flushing mall and walked through the aisles of Chinese sculptures. A frightful white marble pot-like object with large three dimensional colored glass flowers that looked like sea urchins disturbed the sense of peace invoked by the beautiful Daoist style sculpture that stood adjacent to it. I was thoroughly disgusted until I came upon some terrifying dragons beautifully carved in intricate detail on large wooden chairs. I stepped outside and heard the loud beating of a drum. I crossed the street and followed the sound to a large crowd watching two white dragons go door to door from fruit stand to dumpling shop asking for treats for the New Year. Mothers watched with their young children and I caught a few older onlookers offering up small smiles as well - as if they had seen it a thousand times before but still appreciated the event.

I passed by the window of a hair and nail shop. Although the sign and list of services was of course, in Chinese, a small sign in the window said “Se Habla Espanol.”
Only in New York.

I walked up Sanford Avenue to get back on the Q17 and passed by some orange balloons going my way. They were headed for a stroll in the street until a large POP POP sound told me that they had been run over by a car. That’s what happens when you jaywalk in New York – event if you’re just a little orange balloon. I tried to take a picture of the remaining balloons, but they bashfully hid behind a van. When I turned around again, they had decided to play it safe and had made their way onto the sidewalk headed back towards Chinatown.

Squirrel

Friday was a sunny day in midtown. One of the ones that you call warm because it's the middle of winter even though it's technically only 40 degrees. I broke out of the office for a walk to the park:

Asian man and woman standing holding a baby, smiling and laughing in Central Park. They cheer their toddler son on as he hand feeds a Central Park squirrel.

Trent says...break out the rabies kit!

I hope the squirrel bites those idiot parents.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

Has this ever happened to you? You’re riding the subway in New York, thrilled just to be warm and safe from the winter cold, despite that nauseating smell of vomit and old beer bottles. The train comes to a stop and you hear a young man shouting, “Ladies and Gentlemen can I have your attention…”

Everyone looks up and goes quiet. Everyone is thinking the same thing. You grab a tight hold of your purse and pull it close to your side. You think for sure, this is it… my first subway stickup, or great…another nut case. But directly after the “Ladies and Gentlemen can I have your attention…” the train starts speeding away and you hear “My friend and I are here to just provide a little entertain for ya’ll tonight…we’ve got some great moves we want to show ya’ll and at the end if you feel like you want to support us, we’ll be walking around.” Or something to that affect.

We travel on while the friends do back flips and dance moves or break out their stereos and play their CDs which they will then go on to sell to their captive audience before getting off at the next stop. Some passengers go back to their conversations, but most just smile, watch and applaud, almost laughing at the fact that for one brief moment, we all thought we were done for. Funny that something so simple can unite an entire train-car of the most diverse group of people you’ll ever see. It’s an emotional ride.
Now generally, I’ll give the performers a smile but no coin. Not because I’m a cheap-ass necessarily, but because I really don’t think taking out your wallet on a crowded subway is ever a good idea…even after such a wonderfully optimistic moment. But on the F train on the way to my friend’s house in Forest Hills last Saturday night, for the first time, I felt moved enough to give in because the “Ladies and Gentlemen can I have your attention…” came from three little boys. They couldn’t have been more than 12. They said, “…we’re not here to sell drugs or anything like that, we’re just trying to send positive messages and perform for ya’ll.” In New York, that’s one of the most inspiring lines you can hear. They smiled and cheered each other on, and it was so much more moving than any underdog story you could see on a big screen. Of course, it also makes you wonder where their parents are and what their story actually is…and if maybe one day, one of these little subway performers will grow up to be a household name.

NEW YORK

It was always music and art that made me love growing up in New York. It amazed me how one place could inspire so much passion. We see it and hear it from filmmakers, artists, musicians, writers... but it also lives in the faces of every New Yorker...from the smallest child looking up at the big buildings in awe, to the oldest man, inhaling the city from a bench in Washington Square Park. Even though I was fortunate to live close enough to Manhattan to be able to explore it often as a kid, the fact that one can never really know New York was apparent to me even then...perhaps it was that knowledge that lured this constant wanderer back home. I am not attempting to define New York here...an impossible task and a waste of time. New York is something completely different for everyone, and that's what makes it great. Here I'll just be sharing my observations of daily life in New York with you, and I look forward to hearing your comments and experiences as well.