Adventures on either side of the Triboro

For the past few weeks, Saturdays have started off with bike rides over the Triboro to Randall's Island. Not everyone I talk to knows (or cares) about this place and most of the time they get it confused with Roosevelt Island. But for the sake of clarity, Randall's Island (which is actually part of Manhattan) sits in the East River above Roosevelt Island, nestled between East Harlem, the South Bronx and Astoria, and is connected to Ward's Island to the north. (Click here for an interactive map.) It's an odd mix of stadiums (such as the massive Icahn Stadium), a golf center with an ajoining biergarten, a psychiatric hospital, horse stables, wetlands, and some lovely waterfront fishing and barbeque areas, where last weekend we passed a group of men roasting a pig on a spit.

The area has quite an eclectic  history; in the later 18th century, the island was used as a base by the British to launch attacks on Mahattan, and has also housed an orphan asylum, burial ground for the poor, and a reform school (all in the 19th century). Rightfully so, Randall's Island does have a bit of an eery feel. But, supersitions aside, it is a great place to go bike riding, if you prefer not to taunt the fates in busy city streets. There is minimal traffic, bike lanes in most places that run alongside the east river, and gardens strewn with lavender, aster a number of other plant species. If you're feeling adventurous there are also some opportunities to go off-roading and explore the more vacant areas of the island.

View of a soccer field on RI from the Triboro. 

Colin on the pitcher's mound on one of RIs many baseball fields.

Astoria park and pool, as seen from the Triboro on our way back into Astoria. 

The Hell Gate, as seen from the Triboro.

Last week, after our romp around RI, we decided to extend our journey a bit longer and bike up towards the Steinway Piano Factory, located at the tip of Steinway Place and Berrian Boulevard. En route, we made a quick pass by the divey and downtrodden Gussy's (this particular Gussy's on 20th Ave does not show up on any streetmaps--not to be confused with the Gussy's on 29th Ave) and stopped to explore what looks like an old freighter shipwreck at the end of 19th Ave.

Potential crime scene area leading to the shipwreck. 

An inlet to the East River, this now down-trodden pier must have once been a busy port. Oddly though, I can't find any info (thus far) about what ship this was and how it wound up rotting here, along with it's surroundings.

More info to come...

Broken promises

Thunderstorms have been threatening the city for days now. I was looking forward to the thematic accompaniment to my BBC mysteries. I even thought myself a bit daring on Saturday for biking over the Triboro with Colin, as the wind and raindrops seemed sure signs that we'd be stranded at the Randall's Island Beer Garden for a few hours. But, nothing.  

Here are a couple of pictures of the impending bluff taken from Randall's Island. 

Summer in Astoria

Almost two months without posting. Maybe a break was in order? My lack of posting is inevitably due to my lack of explorative walking, which can be blamed on a number of things--weddings, working, a mini-vacation. I'm also trying to fit in some studio time at Earthworks Pottery, where I've been taking wheel classes since January. It's a teaching studio with a friendly atmosphere, and I'm now in my third session and still breaking a terrible sweat while centering clay. But, alas, nothing worthwhile comes easy. So far I've managed a couple of cylinders and small bowls to house my guacamole, and I'm beginning to add handles to things.  My goal for this year is the beer stein, such as this one:

As mentioned in earlier posts, in March we moved out of the "Grace Chateau" on 33rd Street and into the second level of a two-family house owned by a warm Greek family. We finally have some time to enjoy life at a slower pace and have realized that it (and Astoria) suits us perfectly. So, since the weather has warmed up, I have been walking about, but many of those trips have been close by, particularly to Peter Cooper Florist to purchase potting soil and herbs for the garden we've been cultivatng on our new--and very much loved--balcony.  For the past month we've doted on tomatoes, jalepenos and bell peppers, and though the recent heat wave seems to be reaking havoc on our tallest tomato plant, the basil is still flourishing and flavoring many of our dinners.

Colin trimming the tomato plant. 

I've been enjoying my summer mornings and evenings out on the balcony, watching neighbors gather or walk by, and eavesdropping on conversations. My lanlord will often stick his head out of the front window to check out the street or talk to the other Greek neighbors. His wife, Tula, can be found watering her front garden of bursting begonias below. Real Astorians know their flowers; a walk down any of the more residential streets in the neighborhood offers a colorful display of blossoming gardens, sprouting from front yards, brick terraces and spilling off of balconies from both pots and flowerbeds. (Check out Crescent turning onto 24 Ave, or 36th street approaching 30th Ave, for starters.) It gives summer in Astoria its own particular charm. Aside from the Biergarten, of course.

Limbo, Narratives and Kerouac

I am finally at that place. Sitting quietly, alone, having my first sip of a cold  Guinness and writing. Work seems to have calmed, but more importantly, my final project has been handed in and I now, after a long and drawn out stint, have an MA in Literature. Well....now what to do? My head has spiralled out of control this week trying to figure that one out, and the best advice given to me is when in doubt, BE STILL. At least, for a while. 

While I was working on my final project, I spent a lot of time walking down Vernon Boulevard, into Long Island City. I had a camera and tape recorder in hand in order to create a "video" of images and a narrative written from the walk. I recorded the narrative--which was descriptive, sometimes poetic, sometimes personal, and historical--into an audio that played over the images and an original, ambient score composed by Colin. In the midst of trying to match up the timing of pictures with music and voice, which was difficult to say the least, I realized that perhaps I was unleashing some latent desire to make films (I'll revisit that at a later date). 

This was added on to a larger project that I started last year, based on city walking and constructing narratives from them. It's a simple concept, really, and not a unique one. (Think Whitman, for starters.) But it's still surprising how dramatic a simple stroll down an otherwise un-picturesque area (such as Vernon) can become when you choose to walk through it, notice and in some way document everything around you. It can turn into art. Maybe not with a capital "A," for all of you art snobs, but your art at that; a narrative based on where you are, how you feel, what you choose to notice, extending all the way back to your past and into the future (what you're walking towards, both physically and metaphorically). I personally related this kind of walking to pilgrimage, hence, I wound up with a project that explored the concept of  "urban pilgrimages" that started in LIC and reaches beyond the Queensboro into Manahattan's UES, LES, and the Brooklyn Bridge. But, I will leave all the theoretical fluff--and there is a lot of it--for perhaps another post. For now, I will just share with you some snippets of the script and pics from the bowels of industry; perhaps you can get a taste for my own, rather melodramatic narrative that ensued. Perhaps you can start constructing one yourself! I will post the video at a later date. 

Like a soft organ, the low buzz of a low flying plane strikes the first note of the journey. It always starts out the same. Same route, the same familiar territory that brings me to 31^st Ave. Same slightly empty feeling, walking towards an unknown fill station. Dousing the well.  Filling a void. Stock up on images. Stock up on inspiration. Find ways to reshape words, reconstruct the space around you. Reconstruct your life. Take in the immensity of it all.

Yes, in the beginning, it’s always the same....

Sewage or seaweed wafts in from the river. I enter the labyrinth. I circle each piece at each station, but the stories like the park itself, live in immediacy, and are prone to reconstruction by separate pasts and futures of the the artists’ and the many wanderers of the park.  Sawing. Shaving. Orange fountains of light. Shovels thump the ground. The park is tactile and interactive. You play with it, it plays with you.

....Obelisks, Neolithic stones tailored, shaved and scrubbed into modernity. But still their boundaries, the forms of human and nature, the influence of East and West  are blurred, grey as stone.  They are the potential of what is already there, of what is always before us, but without this art we fail to recognize. These stones walk us through experience. We sleepwalk, they wake us up....

Certeau saw the city as a narrative, as a fiction, and deemed himself a reader of it. To him, migration was blindly poetic; the narrative was not visible to the walker,  stuck in the masses of the crowd, scrounging on the ground. Rather, the story was visible only on the tower from which he stood, watching. Certeau’s heavenly tower may tell a story, but it is a cold and calculated one of theory, framework, and general assumptions of  the “walker.” No, in my simplistic, maybe elementary version, it is the walker who grasps the narrative, which can only be understood in  by moving, imagining, dreaming in the street. It is the encounter with the accidental and insignificant. Footsteps over the trails of what happened before and what will be. The divine is in the pulse of the details, and those must be sought by toil.

Oh yes, and he was there too. 

Photo credits:

Footprint taken from postcard at the Noguchi Museum.

Jack Kerouac smoking taken from IGN boards website. 

Silent blog

Trying to make (or come close to) a May deadline for my never-ending thesis, my blog has suffered and will continue to do so for the next couple of weeks. I will be back in time for the good weather which means tons of treks, an NYC garden stint, and hopefully some more creative endeavors and readings. I've been far from immobile, wandering about the bowels of industry in Long Island City for this project and hopefully, in the meantime, can find some time to post pics and snippets of the work...

Until then, here is a guy whose seasoned feet put mine to shame.

Glowing accomplishments

Not too long ago, I wrote about the work-art balancing act that so many people living in the city maintain.  (Apparently, I am having a hard time maintaining that, as this month has been scaled heavily towards "work.") When the toils of that act can finally be expressed through your art, it makes the frustration of maintainence well worth it, and energizes you to keep trudging forward, despite those bouts of what's the point. A published novel, a part in an off-broadway play--these are ideal accomplishments, but smaller victories also keep one inspired, widen perspectives, and curve paths. Last Sunday was one of those instances; GLOW, the creative group that I have taken part in this past year,  had its first public reading/performance at The Creek in Long Island City--fitting since our first meeting was only a few blocks away. It was an evening of poetry and  short stories, read by myself, Leigh Ann Cobb, Angela Tweed, Kat Hinchey and Melissa Miles, while Dana Lang ended the night with music. 

Melissa, our lovely host, also shared a sestina. 

Angela adds some spice with her short stories. 

Yours truly, sharing poems. 

For the sake of long explanations, it's been easier to call GLOW a writing group, but that's somewhat insufficient. While we all write, we're not primarily writers; almost half of us are trained theater actors and performance artists. More than half are musicians. We are playwrights, poets and cabaret stars. Some of us are all of these things. And this pastiche of passions has pushed each of us to at least think of art in ways we wouldn't have on our own. I, for starters, have always dubbed myself a behind-the-scenes-type person, but have started working on something that I can only call a "performance piece, " involving  various media (and guess what--urban walking!). Odd since I was, since I am, terrified of performing.

Leigh Ann, threw in some Marilyn and the Taj Mahal. 

Kat takes the spotlight with Cold Remedy. 

Despite our recent flow of new pieces, GLOW doesn't just focus on work alone. While we all would like to make money pursuing our art, publishing, recording and landing roles is not what solely fuels our meetings. Process, embracing the creative life, having fun, and, of course, support constitute the stronger foundation that will give way to the "professional" outcome.

The following is a write-up from our program, to give a better idea:

One Sunday afternoon last January, a group of us came together in a city apartment with lots of wine and little pretense. Seasoned performers unexposed writers, natural musicians--we were all desperate to revive what had become our somewhat sleepy creative lives. Soon enough, our modern salon became a safe haven for sharing artistic ideas. Weekly writing exercises launched imaginative stories, as unexpected characters doused our session with laughter. We found ourselves having a good time, but we also found ourselves creatine new work and taking more chances. 

Our Sunday afternoons have saved us, reconnecting us to a creative energy that continually reshapes our lives. In this spirit, we are so happy you are able to join us this evening for our first reading, as we encourage you to live creatively--in whatever way you choose. 

And now I remember...

Ah, it was nice to rejoin the living, this weekend in particular. After a week immersed in timelines and editing (job) and coming home to rooms full of boxes (recent move) I felt human again during my stroll to the park--the same Astoria Park that barely a month ago proved to be a haunting experience, with a looming Triborough and phantom Hellgate in the fogginess of a winter snow storm. If my last visit was black, white and grey, this time it burst with the promise of color and new noises, amidst the same old cars and trucks rattling the rafters from above. The pop of metal bats for pre-season baseball practice, the bouncing of basketballs on the pavement, even the slaps of gloves from men boxing in the center of the track, while a little girl played in the sandbox next to them. Soon enough, the pool will be full, chlorine and hotdogs will fill the air, and people will be laying out on the great stretch of lawn with coolers, Frisbees and hookah, as cars and motorcycles promenade down Shore Boulevard below them. And I will be jogging down to the track at dusk, when the heat is somewhat bearable, trying to enjoy the plum-colored skyline as I heave along, the high-school track team breezing by.

So much focus on a busy work week and not enough time to take a breather and merely get outside leads to a loss of sanity, simply put. (The Rolling Stones were right. Lose your dreams and you do start losing you mind.) A little sun heating up my head and a glance at the water, even if it is the East River, reminds me of the trip to Italy I am supposed to be planning.

I must admit, my new route to the park from my new place is a little less enjoyable than my old route, starting off from 30th avenue. I do prefer the long stretch of little brick houses and front yard gardens down Crescent Street to a busy, and at times threatening Astoria Boulevard. But the plus? My new route thus far includes a turn on 24th Ave and a pass of the beer garden. I foresee a well-deserved icy mug of beer and some kielbasa on my way home from the track this summer.