L: 14th Street/8th Avenue, Manhattan

Friday, March 18, 2011

This trip feels oddly important. It’s the first time we’ve finished both ends of a subway line, but more than that, instead of exploring new ground it’s a return to my old neighborhood—I lived on 14^th Street and 9^th Avenue from 1996 to 2006. I know the station and the neighborhood very well, but I try to see them with fresh eyes. Anyway, it’s been a minute since 2006, and things change fast in a New York minute.

The L train pulls to a halt to the familiar conductor’s announcement, but we’re not in the station yet. We stop in the tunnel, perhaps waiting for another train to pull out and make room. Damaso stands to photograph the “Last Stop” sign, and a heroin-chic six-foot tall Asian woman in skinny jeans, tattoos, headphones, and a torn white t-shirt asks him why he’s taking her photo. He says he isn’t; he’s shooting the sign over her. She gazes languidly through over-sized sunglasses (it’s actually not that bright on the train), clearly convinced that he’s lying.

“You can’t use my photograph without my permission,” she says. I bite my tongue.

“What is this for?” she continues.

“It’s for a blog,” answers Damaso.

“What is it about?

“Food.”

“Why do you need my picture in a food blog?”

"We don't need your picture. I was shooting the sign above you."

“Where can I find it?” She presses on. “What are you doing it for?”

Damaso says that it’s not up yet. I remember that the neighborhood was always full of models, who of course make their living from having their photos taken and from those photos being used for commercial publication. Damaso and I both are in professions that people often expect to volunteer. She may actually be confused by his project not matching her expectations as well as suspicious that it actually does. Once the train pulls into the station we walk away without incident.







The station is the same. I’m no longer surprised by Tom Otterness’ playful bronze figures, although they still charm. On autopilot I choose the southwest exit, which is closest to my old apartment. I’m selfishly disappointed not to see the drunk homeless man who used to propose to me each morning, but if he had been there I would have been selfishly disappointed when he failed to recognize me, as he surely would have. Heck, I’m not sure he recognized me even when we spoke to each other regularly. Every day he would ask me to marry him, and every day I would ask where my ring was, but the next day when he proposed, he still wouldn't have that ring.

The terminal lets out on Eighth Avenue, but it doesn’t feel like an end of the line because the island itself only extends for two more blocks; Tenth Avenue is definitely the end. I make a faint effort to play by the rules, but the only real restaurant I see is a grill, and we’re both sick of cheeseburgers. We walk west, and if there were any new restaurants on the block, I would have gone, but when there aren’t, I suggest going to the Hog Pit for barbecue.

As we walk, I tell Damaso about the last time a stranger told me I needed permission to take his photo. I was walking past a construction site on Bowery around Bond Street, and I passed what looked like a Port-o-San amid the construction rubble. As I walked by, I noticed a man sitting inside on what looked like a bench without a toilet. The man wore a stained t-shirt and tan slacks that were too big for him but cinched in with a ragged belt. He was a white guy of about 60 with a grizzled and dirty face, crew-cut white hair, and several missing teeth. And he was working on a laptop.

I passed him but then stopped in my tracks. He couldn’t have seen me even if he had looked up from the computer because the white plastic walls surrounded him on three sides. I pulled out my phone, got ready to take a picture, and actually walked backwards the few steps till I could see him, at which point I snapped the photo.



He looked up. He didn’t look happy. I decided to disarm him, so at the exact moment that he asked, “Are you taking my picture?” I asked, “May I take your picture?”

He repeated his question.

I repeated mine.

He said, “You can’t take my picture without my permission. It’s against the law.”

I responded, “I’m asking you whether I can take your picture.”

He refused to give me permission and launched into a tirade about how you can’t take someone’s picture without his permission. What are all these people afraid of? In any case, I already had his picture; I just wanted another one because I didn't make it all the way to the door before he looked up and I snapped prematurely.

When he wouldn’t give me permission to take a photograph, I walked away, but I didn’t get far. I felt a familiar roiling in my head that happens when I can’t let something go. Did the grizzled, toothless, Port-o-San dweller know something I didn’t? How could it be illegal to take someone’s photo? I’ve seen front-page pictures of thousands of people, for example at a demonstration on the capitol lawn, and it doesn’t seem likely that, say, The New York Times would either not know a law like that, not follow it if there was one, or get signed waivers from every demonstrator.

A friend of mine recently told me about his nephew telling him, “You know, Uncle Tim, the problem with your generation is that you spend too much time fighting about facts.” The kid was right. I had the technology clenched in my fist, and instead of wondering or arguing with a homeless Port-o-San-dwelling laptop-user, I could find out what the law actually said about taking someone’s photograph. I stopped on the sidewalk about two blocks past the construction site, did a quick Internet search, and determined that the only restrictions in American law apply to the use of the photographs not the taking of them; anyone can take a picture of anyone else any time they want to. In fact, I stumbled on a bunch of laws protecting photographers from assault by photo subjects who don’t want their picture taken!

I stood there, arrested on the Bowery under one of its many sidewalk construction bridges and tried to talk myself out of what even I knew was a stupid and possibly fatal mistake, but I’m not as persuasive as I am, and I’m also apparently stupid and stubborn. I turned around and marched back to confront Old Toothless.

He was, understandably, surprised to see me.

"Hey, you know what?” I began amiably, “I just did a search on the Internet, and it turns out there is no law prohibiting someone from taking your picture without your permission. There are a few restrictions on where you can publish the photos, but you can take any photos you want.”

There was a long pause. I felt adrenalin coursing through my annoying and self-righteous veins.

Then, to my vast relief, the dude shrugged.

“Huh,” he responded. “Guess you learn something new every day. Thanks for telling me.”

I was astounded. I got very lucky. I may not know how I’m going to die, but I’d always thought my last words would be, “this looks tasty. Is it edible?” Now I think maybe they might be “You may think that, but actually…”

Anyway, back to 14^th Street, back to the present.

Where the Hog Pit used to serve pulled pork sandwiches and fried pickles is a new restaurant that serves only… burgers. Forget it. We decide to get take-out at Chelsea Market and eat outside on the High Line. Sure, it’s cheating not to stumble upon our locations, but it’s the first beautiful day of spring, and nothing else would represent the neighborhood better.

Chelsea Market is swarming with teenagers who are dressed in some odd combination of Japanese cosplay and American goth—wigs with large bows, skull-n-crossbones printed skirts over large petticoats, tiny Hello Kitty backpacks, argyle knee socks, and high-heeled Mary Janes. They don’t look Japanese, and I fantasize that these are their Purim costumes, but I don’t ask. The last time I was at Chelsea Market was at Halloween, when I was hired to walk on stilts. The cosplay kids have committed more to their roles than most of the trick-or-treaters had to theirs.

We order take-out noodles at Chelsea Thai. As we’re waiting for our food, Damaso walks around shooting the scene, and I gaze into the kitchen. Four men in aprons and caps face four woks, and I imagine it as an assembly line, with one man frying, say, onions and then flipping them into the next man’s wok where he would add mushrooms or whatever ingredient came next. I realize they're each cooking separate dishes, but while I’m still imagining the assembly line, the man closest to me looks up and smiles through the window. I smile back, and as he returns his focus to his wok, the next man, probably sensing the movement, looks up and smiles at me. When he looks down the third man looks up and smiles. I am childishly delighted at the serial smiles and imagine them as part of the assembly line, but the pleasure isn't entirely childish or innocent anyway. Sharing the private smile with each man feels naughty, especially while Damaso isn't looking. I start making faces trying to get the fourth guy to look up so I can complete the set, but he’s too far away. The second guy looks up at my antics, and although he smiles again, I imagine I’ve outstayed my welcome. I step away from the window to browse the palm sugar packets and Sri Racha sauce bottles for sale in the tiny store along one wall.













We take our food to the High Line’s strange little amphitheater of wooden benches that face a window onto Tenth Avenue and settle down for a picnic. The amphitheater breaks the wind a little, but we still wind up chasing napkins a few times. I drench my wide, flat noodles with basil sauce (pork) in hot sauce, but it’s still fairly bland. Damaso enjoys his chicken pad Thai. Of course everything always tastes better outside, and anything would taste good today. This is the first time one of these outings has felt more relaxed and romantic than businesslike, and I’m sorry Damaso’s leaving the country in two weeks. I even let him take some photos of me.











We might have stayed there all afternoon, except we were getting too thirsty, so we threw away our garbage and set off to find drinks. I remembered pushcart vendors, but the only one we saw was selling glass jewelry, and I was already happily wearing the $2 blue and red plastic ring I bought in Chinatown last week. We didn’t find anything to drink. Even the water fountains were still turned off for the winter. After a few blocks we stopped to sit on a bench and watch people walk by. A gaggle of pre-teens held court on the bench facing ours, recognizing and merging with other kids in threes and fours, Most of the girls wore lightweight short skirts with bare legs, but one had miscalculated and had a long black skirt, opaque black stockings, and a jacket tied around her waist. I was half-and-half; I’d worn a dress with no stockings but still had on boots and a jacket. The fresh air felt great hitting my bare legs for the first time in months, and my feet yearned to trade in the boots for flip flops.

Eventually Damaso had to leave to meet a photography student, and I wanted to go back to Chelsea Market for a People’s Pop. We descended, walked back through the Meatpacking District, and said our goodbyes on the street. Despite the sign, People’s Pops didn’t have a store in the market anymore. In no hurry to head home, I walked though a few sample sales with uninspired clothing by designers I hadn’t heard of. At one, I talked a woman out of buying a shapeless blouse that looked like a hospital Johnny. I may not know fashion, but I know she didn't need to look like an escaped patient. Eventually I left the market and went back to the deli in my old building where I bought a pomegranate-cherry FrozFruit for the subway ride home. It's sticky and delicious, and I finish it before I even make it back to the subway, just half a block away.

Photographs by Damaso Reyes

1: South Ferry, Manhattan

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Sometimes, admittedly not as often as I’d like, I learn from my mistakes. After having trekked out to Canarsie on a cold Sunday evening only to find all the restaurants closing, I decided to visit the southern tip of Manhattan, which I pictured as bustling with business during the week and desolate on nights and weekends, in the middle of a sunny Tuesday morning. I imagined we would exit the downtown 1 station into a world of rapidly moving stock traders, still wearing their three-letter badges, and we would eat someplace intimidating in its impatient efficiency.

Sometimes, yes, more often than I wish were the case, I fail to learn from experience. I’ve exited the downtown 1 station plenty of times on my way to the Staten Island or Governors Island ferry, and although it’s a only a stone’s throw to Wall Street and the financial district, that’s way too far for any time-pressed trader to foray for lunch. I began to realize my mistake before we even emerged because the station art stopped me in my tracks. Could anyone bustle through without stopping to admire the images of trees in winter glowing on glass walls? Besides the trees, a dry, brown leaf takes up one wall—if I had to guess I’d say it was a maple leaf—and an old-fashioned sepia tone map shows contemporary lower Manhattan overlaid on an earlier map of the island.



In addition to the translucent images glowing on glass walls, similar imagery is repeated in other media. One wall shows the same trees in glittering mosaic, and the steel gate that curves through the station is fashioned into branches instead of bars. Rocks from the nearby excavated battery decorate one wall. This project is making me even more appreciative of the city’s Arts For Transit program. Damaso had told me about the city’s Percent for Art law, which mandates that "one percent of the budget for eligible City-funded construction projects be spent on artwork for City facilities. “ Later I looked up the law online as well as the South Ferry station artists, Doug & Mike Starn, and learned more about the 2008 permanent installation, which is titled “See it split, see it change” referring both to the city itself and specifically to the branching 1 line.

The station interior was bright and light, and so was the morning, but it was cold, and a sharp wind cut across the concrete plaza fronting the lovely Staten Island ferry terminal. We’ll board a ferry another day; this time we headed back towards buildings, along the way passing a mysterious white building reminiscent of the Candela structures in Queens. This one was larger than the World’s Fair remnants, newer of course, and still had its walls and windows, although they were closed. We decided that it was probably a ticket office, perhaps seasonal, and I knew I wouldn’t look it up online but would instead look forward to finding the truth only when I returned some summer day and found it open.

The wall of buildings across Water Street did not look promising. Museums and office buildings loomed large, but I didn’t see any restaurants. We headed east and spotted it at the same time: Fraunces Tavern. George Washington’s watering hole. The oldest, well, the oldest something in the city—maybe the oldest pub? The oldest original building? Neither of us had ever been inside, and that had got to change right then.

As we walked up Broad Street, a man leaned out a second floor window to hoist a banner. We strained to read the unfurling flag as it flapped in the wind. It proclaimed the Angler’s Club of New York. I imagined the same man leaning out the same window every sunny day for decades. We smiled at each other, and something about the interchange made me yearn to enter that red brick building and beg the flag man for a tour.

Instead we turned the corner onto Pearl to check whether Fraunces Tavern served food. It did, and somewhat to my surprise the menu looked entirely appetizing and reasonably priced. It was only 10:40 am, but the host let us browse through the rooms as we awaited the 11 am opening. The Long Room, in which General Washington “bade an emotional farewell to his officers at the Revolution's close,” was warm and wonderful. Damaso photographed the art, which included a reproduction of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence and a portrait of George Washington, while I curled into a leather sofa facing the hearth. I wondered whether they had wireless and anachronistically wished I’d brought my laptop so I could spend the day working in this cozy, historic room.







At various times, at least three staff members let us know the restaurant wouldn’t open till 11, but none of them minded us wandering through the open rooms. I was even tempted to walk upstairs into the museum (which wouldn’t open till noon), but I didn’t want to betray their trust. The Long Room was my favorite, but I also liked the main dining room, which was airy and open, filled with long, wooden tables that reminded me of my college’s dining halls, although some of the seats were benches.

We didn’t want to disturb the staff, who were having their pre-opening early lunch, so we tried not to peer into their room, but we roamed into the bar, which was bathed in red neon light and loud music. To my surprise, Damaso wanted to eat there instead of in the main dining room, and his reaction was so strong I could tell he assumed I’d prefer it also. Actually, I liked the open feeling of the large dining room, but maybe he would feel awkward being the only customers in such a large space. Damaso noticed my disappointment and insisted we could eat wherever I wanted, even suggesting we stay in the Long Room I liked so much, but in a Gift of the Magi turn, I decided that my momentary aversion to the bar was only due to feeling like it was somehow less authentic or less historic than the dining room, whereas under the neon and music, maybe it was just as old. Anyway, I had never heard the place referred to as George Washington’s eating hole. Maybe he stuck to the bar. Or maybe “eating hole” just sounds obscene.

After making sure the menu was exactly the same, which involved a confusing story about the Porterhouse Brewing Company taking over the kitchen, we opted for the bar. It was chilly, so I asked for a booth far from the entrance, and we settled into a corner booth with a wooden table and a cowhide-upholstered banquette. The taps, blackboards, and menus listed dozens of oddly named beers, and I tried to convince Damaso to order a Smuttynose or Left Hand Ju Ju. I, as usual, asked for an iced tea and was delighted that it was refilled rapidly and regularly. When I drink caffeine, I want to drink a lot of caffeine.

Damaso will probably object when he reads this, but he isn’t generally a very adventurous eater, and he immediately opted for the cheeseburger. We had been having a lot of burgers, which seems antithetical to my goal of exploring food as well as neighborhoods, so my eyes linger on a smoked trout sandwich with a poached egg, but I'm very suggestible, so once he said the magic word, I started craving a burger too, and we wound up ordering the same thing—bleu cheese burger with fries. To make up for the relatively boring entree choices, I asked for an order of whiskey and ginger roasted nuts, which appeared on the bar special board and sounded suitably exotic. It wasn’t. The nuts, mostly peanuts, were okay, but we didn’t even finish the small ramekin. Guess they would have been better if we had been drinking beer.





The burgers, however, were quite good, and the fries were terrific. I ate all of mine and half of Damaso’s. He’s a light eater for a big guy, and I’m a heavy eater for a mid-sized woman. I was actually tempted to finish his burger when he abandoned it, but I would like to stay a mid-sized woman, so I resisted. We linger for a while over the fries and my multiple iced tea refills. No other customers enter, and the servers neither rush us out nor abandon us in neglect. It does take a while, however, to get Damaso’s credit card back so he can sign the check. Our waiter eventually returns and apologetically explains that the credit card machine was down, so he had to enter the information by hand. I say that doing it the old-fashioned way adds to the authentic 18^th century atmosphere, and both men look at me as though they’re about to correct my history, but fortunately neither does, and Damaso continues the joke, elegantly signing his John Hancock on the receipt.

After eating, we walked up Broad Street to the subway entrance at Exchange Place. Along the walk we admired the buildings’ elaborate entrances, gilt seahorse reliefs, and permanent etched stone names of long-defunct companies. I set out to explore the immigrant fringes of the city but today traveled into its forefather history instead.

Photographs by Damaso Reyes

L: Rockaway Canarsie, Brooklyn

Sunday, March 13, 2011

After 18 years here, the cultural associations of this city are still stronger than my personal impressions. When I wait for an uptown A, Duke Ellington's Take the A Train runs through my head unbidden even after hundreds of real-life A-train commutes. Just seeing the signs for subway lines can fill my head with music: on the 6 I hear J-Lo's Jenny From the Bronx. Battery Park makes me think of the Beastie Boys' An Open Letter to NYC as often as Frank Sinatra's New York New York. Some rap refrain about "uptown baby, you get down, baby" can hit anytime I'm headed in that direction. Unfortunately I have no control over these associations, so I'm equally likely to hear Uptown Girl. Doesn't Billy Joel seem like he should be from New Jersey? Turns out he was born in the Bronx (although raised in Hicksville). Born in the Bronx? I have to admit that's some serious cred. Or maybe it just demotes my opinion of the Bronx.

Sometimes the associations are more of a stretch. I hear Sex and Candy by Marcy Playground as I pass the Marcy stop on the J train and Hard Knock Life when I exit the G train at Flushing Avenue just because Jay Z grew up in the projects near that stop. Non-musical aspects of pop culture also occasionally seize my imagination without warning. In Times Square, I picture sailors dancing On the Town and one grabbing a civilian nurse to kiss her in celebration of V-J day. In Queens, I look for the Bunkers' house, convinced I can identify it; on the upper east side I scan high rises for the Jefferson's deluxe apartment in the sky. Every block of Park Slope could be Sesame Street, and giant bugs are always trying to launch those "space ships" in Flushing Meadows.

My uninvited associations aren't all from pop culture. I experience nostalgia for events that affected my family, even ones that took place before I was born. I've found the East 9th Street apartment my parents sublet for six months when they were first married; it's now a Japanese hair salon. When I was little they referred to it as the "Sludge Pump." The only two facts I remember are that they threw a hose over a pipe to shower into a galvanized steel tub (and would often show up with shampoo in hand when visiting friends for dinner dates) and that twice they were robbed by someone punching through the particle-board walls. Passing the Arthur Ashe Stadium I try to imagine my father as a young ball boy for the USTA, and on Christopher Street I scan the windows trying to figure out which apartment my mother spent a summer in.

The word “Canarsie” fills me with images of vaudeville and borscht, and it was the one subway terminus I was most looking forward to visiting. That word’s inexplicable associations are so powerful that I’ve written 500 words already just to delay the gratification of getting to say… Canarsie. What a beautiful, ugly word. It lilts like a canary then slams home with a rhotic R that I imagine its residents don’t pronounce. It’s a word Bugs Bunny might say in his carefully designed voice that combines a previous era’s Bronx and Brooklyn accents. It’s a place that a 1930s street trolley operator who worked during the day calling out stops at “Toity-toid and Toid” might go home to at night to get a beer from the ice box and listen to the Dodgers game on the radio. I’m pretty sure my father’s late brother’s now also late widow’s late “uncle” grew up in Canarsie. To tell the truth, I’m not sure Uncle Leo (no relation to anyone) was even from Canarsie. Maybe he went there once. Or maybe he had a canary. In any case, he'll always be Canarsie to me. Nowadays the LeRoy Sisters do a vaudeville-burlesque show called Canarsie Suite. I’ve never seen the whole thing, but I have seen a stand-alone routine in which one wore a gorilla suit. Have you ever seen a sexy girl’s fishnet-clad legs and dance heels poking out of a hastily donned gorilla suit? No wonder Canarsie stuck in my head, and now, finally, I was going to travel back in time to see Canarsie for myself.

So on a cold Sunday night, Damaso and I set out to ride the L train to the end. In Chicago, people refer to the public transportation system as “the El” because many tracks are elevated. In New York, most of us refer to even the elevated tracks as “the subway.” I used to experience a moment of cognitive dissonance facing an elevated "subway," but I’m over it. Apparently those personal associations don’t last as long as the cultural ones. In Brooklyn, the L does travel above and below ground, and it ends at ground level. The platform runs parallel to the bus terminal, so if you ignore the signs telling you not to enter, you could walk right off onto the sidewalk (or, presumably, from the sidewalk onto the subway platform without paying the fare). It feels like you’re walking off an interstate train instead of just exiting a subway station. The station is small and bare, but the inside boasts a beautiful sign welcoming travelers to “Canarsie: A Caring Community,” and the outside is topped with gorgeous, widely spaced art deco letters surrounded by the familiar green subway entrance globe lights.







After we’re done admiring the station entrance, we turn around to face modern Canarsie, a perfectly normal working class neighborhood that experienced white flight towards the end of the last millennium (I’m lazily taking this from Wikipedia with no cross-referenced support) and now supports a large West Indian community (witnessed that myself). I wonder where I got the Jewish immigrant-vaudeville-time warp idea. More importantly, I wonder whether hard reality will replace my fantasies, or whether “Canarsie” the idea will maintain its allure even while Canarsie the actual place solidifies in front of me. Well, a lot of that may be decided by the restaurant, and standing in the cold, I was relieved to find a bustling business district, but closer inspection revealed a dearth of non-chain restaurants, and we didn’t travel all the way to Canarsie for Golden Krust, McDonald’s, or Popeyes!

Peering to the left, a sign beckons “Tastee Pattee,” so we head towards it. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a patty that wasn’t tasty. Hey, wait a minute—the real words already end in the same letter. They didn’t need to change the Y to an EE to make them match! It’s like that N.W.A song that rhymes “toofless” with “roofless” as though toothless didn’t already rhyme with ruthless. Back, pop culture, back. Get out of my head now; we’ve got some eating to do.





Tastee Pattee has only a counter and a few seats, but a sign promises hot meals, and the glass cabinet front is clouded with steam from soupy chafing dishes full of what looks like jerked goat, barbecue chicken, and other comfort food. Damaso orders jerked goat, and I’m under-dressed and freezing so I ask whether we can close the front door while we eat. The woman behind the counter first tells Damaso they’re out of jerked goat, and then tells me I can’t close the door because they’re about to close anyway. Maybe she would have let us order hot food to go, but it’s way too cold to stay outside very long, so we ask for patties to snack on while we look for someplace we can sit and eat. The sign in the window advertises, among other tasty patty treats, Lead Pipe, Tennis Roll, and Choice Bread. I’d be happy to make a meal of mysteriously named patties, but she only has one veggie patty left, and the tone of her voice does not imply that she’s interested in selling it to the likes of us. We head back into the cold, empty handed.

What I’d taken for a business district appears to be only one street wide and maybe four blocks long. Tastee Pattee is on one end of it, so we headed back past the subway station to check the other side. In front of the station is a gyro cart and a concrete plaza. If it were 20 degrees warmer, I’d be so happy to eat cart food and sit outside, but instead I hug my hungry stomach for warmth and keep walking. Another patty shop is closed. Inside we can see leftover patties filed on baking shelves and luridly colored cupcakes in disordered rows on wax paper.

Finally we spot the word “Yummy” on an awning and head towards it. Yummy food is actually my favorite kind, and anyway we’re out of options. Yummy turns out, not surprisingly to be a Chinese take-out storefront of the kind that usually divides customers from employees with bulletproof glass. Here the kitchen is exposed, and a few stools face the front window. We study the food photos over the counter as well as the offerings in the paper menu, although like any other New Yorkers, we know full well what’s available without needing to see. We order combo platters—egg roll, pork fried rice, and sesame chicken for him, General Tso’s for me. I spent a lot of time in China asking people about generals and chicken, and that guy just didn’t exist.





The food was—well, if you’re a New Yorker, you know how the food was. If you don't, well, it had a lot of corn starch in it and was gluey and bland. I was so cold and hungry that I nibbled off the end of my egg roll as soon as it came and then had to put it back in its paper wrapping so Damaso could take a photo of all the food. Before I had a chance to put it back though, he somehow stole a photo of me clenching the egg roll like a starving waif. The egg roll is mostly dough and cabbage, but it’s hot and fried, so I enjoy it. Neither of us manages to finish our main course though. Damaso tries to engage the deliveryman in small talk about how the neighborhood’s changed, but the reticent local isn’t much help. I’m pleased to see a uniformed MTA employee picking up dinner, as we’ve seen on several of our trips. Maybe I should have waited to see what he ordered.











Back on the cold street we pass African and West Indian supply stores, for-rent signs, and a plethora of beauty supply stores selling human hair. As usual, I’m not satisfied and insist on stopping in a deli before heading back. I want dessert, and I want it to be more exotic than the meal. The deli doesn’t disappoint. I load up on three-for-a-dollar homemade coconut-ginger clusters, tamarind chews, and mint squares. I also buy a bag of Grace brand plantain chips (platanitos), a package of Busta almond-coconut candy (everything has coconut!), one large bottle of premium aloe vera drink (the word “juice” does not appear on the bottle), and, at Damaso’s suggestion, a box of Tunnock’s caramel milk chocolate wafers that come in a beautiful red and gold foil package. On the subway home we savor the chewy wafers, and I just washed down the plantain chips with aloe vera juice, oops premium aloe vera drink, while writing this. Guess Canarsie wasn’t a total wash, but neither was it a vaudeville paradise. I’m ready to hop on the next train to the end of the line.



Photographs by Damaso Reyes

6: Pelham Bay Park, the Bronx

Monday, February 21, 2011

We went to Manhattan. We went to Queens. Now we’ve gone to the Bronx… on what felt like the longest train ride ever. It’s unnerving to check the electronic map and discover you still have 17 more stops to travel.




Exiting the 6 train at Pelham Bay Park reminds me of exiting the M in Middle Village, but instead of a cemetery, a vast expanse of highways and overpasses signals the end of occupied territory. Trying not to linger under the tracks where the sidewalks are covered in pigeon poop, I reject a few fast food outlets and head to Villa Barone Ristorante, but it’s too nice, by which, of course, I mean that it’s too expensive. The $24.95 special includes appetizer, main course, and dessert, and if the place is good enough to justify its entree prices, then the promotion may be a great bargain, but it’s still more money than I want to pay for more food than I want to eat.

We turn back past a beauty supply outlet and spot a signless diner we hadn’t noticed. Actually there is a sign, a faded picture of a coffee cup, but we can only find the name by checking the inspection notice on the front door: Sophie’s Diner. Unfortunately, the department of sanitation has given Sophie’s a C rating, but Sophie’s customers have countered with their own homemade sign, and they give the restaurant an A. Under the warring signs, the restaurant has posted a long, defensive response to the sanitation visit, claiming among other charges that the inspector assaulted an employee. Sounds interesting. We’re definitely eating here.
 

Inside, the diner is brightly black, white, and red. Photos of customers and specials signs handwritten on paper plates cover the walls. The ceiling is in the style of pressed tin panels, but the actual metal seems much shinier than tin, and strings of Christmas lights hang from it in a giant web. Valentine’s decorations fill every horizontal surface, and along the back wall are the exact same untouched modern jukebox machines from the bar in Queens—Broadway and My Touch Tunes.
 

The early bird special here only $8.95, but we’re not early birds, so we read the whole menu, including a page dedicated to international specialties from Spain, Greece, and Italy. We’re both craving burgers though, and isn’t the burger the classic test of any diner?

Our middle-aged waitress has long black hair pulled into a ponytail, long purple fingernails, and long bottom eyelashes so thick with mascara they remind me of eyelashes painted on a doll. Damaso orders a Coke, but she tells him they only have Pepsi. He asks for a Sprite instead, and she looks across the room to confirm there is some in the cooler. I comment that it’s odd for a restaurant to carry only Pepsi but still have Coke products, and she says they usually carry both brands but that they thought they were going out of business and had let their stocks run down. She directs our attention to an empty cooler by the front door. At the 11^th hour and just a few days ago, a friend of the owner had come through, buying into the business with enough cash to keep it from shuttering. Damaso says, “Wow, they really were at the end of the line.”
 

I order Sophie’s Special deluxe, which hits both of the things I like in a menu offering: it’s the home special and it’s the weirdest combination, bacon, feta, and grilled onions. It arrives overcooked, but who cares as long as it’s got bacon on it. The real treat though is the fries—curly fries for Damaso and waffle fries for me. Both styles are seasoned and crisp. I even like the coleslaw, which comes in those tiny paper cups that look like mini toques, and the pickle spear.




The bathrooms are locked by a key that hangs from a five-foot string attached to the opposite wall. The advantage, I suppose, is that you can’t accidentally lock the key in the bathroom. The disadvantage, which seems more salient, is that anyone else can unlock the door while you’re inside. Apparently I don’t understand a lot about how other people do things. A giant glob of green soap squirts onto my hamburger grease-covered hands, but the water is only a thin, cold stream, and it takes forever to wash the chyme-like grease-soap mixture from my hands.

When I come back to the table, Damaso has struck up a conversation with a uniformed MTA employee eating alone. I wonder whether the end of this line is an MTA haunt the way the end of the M-line was stock trader central. Turns out the MTA dude has spotted Damaso’s Leica, and they enjoy geeking out together about the pricey camera. I don’t care about the hardware at all and am slightly sad when the transit man leaves before I can ask him what he would shoot with a multi-thousand dollar camera.

Our burgers are gone, I’m resisting getting a milkshake, and it’s time to go. On the counter near the door we discover a big glass collection jar raising funds to save Sophie’s Diner. It’s a good thing Sophie’s affluent friend bailed her out. The jar contains $3.21.
  Photographs by Damaso Reyes

M: Middle Village, Metropolitan Ave., Queens

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Yesterday kids were playing basketball outdoors in t-shirts and shorts, but today February returned with a vengeance, the wind biting fiercely into any inch of exposed flesh. As this was only our second excursion, I wanted to go as far as possible, to head to the southern reaches of Brooklyn or the northern limits of the Bronx, but Damaso was already hungry and cold and suggested one of the mid-city termini, the G to Church Avenue or Court Square perhaps. We squinted at The Map debating how far we could journey before starvation and hypothermia would cripple our Shackleton expedition, and The Map gave us our compromise: the M train was perfect. The line isn’t too long, so we could get to the end before wasting away from hunger, but no other lines end near it, so my obsessive need to push boundaries would be sated. We set off to take the M train to Middle Village, Metropolitan Avenue—the end of the line.

Not too long later, we were walking towards the yellow metal bumpers that waited to send the train back whence it came. A giant Toys R Us and K-Mart building looms over the station, and a Lutheran cemetery stretches endlessly in front of it. Train behind us, big box retailer to our left, and cemetery in front made it easy to decide to turn right, where we found two pizza shops flanking a bar… and that’s it. It didn’t look like there was another business for miles around, and the wind through the cemetery was brutal, so we quickly turned in to what was apparently our only sit-down choice, P. J. Quinn’s Bar & Grill.

As soon as we walked in, we realize this isn’t what we had in mind. Almost every bar stool is occupied, but the tables all yawn empty, and the strange, odd smell that hits us upon entry does not pique our appetites. It’s 6pm on a Saturday, but the bartender is nonplussed when I ask whether they’re serving food and assures me this is a bar not a restaurant. Is it my imagination, or are the other patrons laughing at my ignorance? We defend our mistake, pointing out that the sign outside announces a bar and grill, but the bartender just shrugs and says it’s an old sign. “Anyway,” she adds, “Bar & grill sounds better.”





Conversation on the bar stools closest to the front door has stopped for our interruption, so we take advantage of the attention to ask where the nearest restaurant is. Again, we’re stared at as people wonder at our clear obliviousness; there is a pizza counter just next door. We explain that we’re looking for a sit-down restaurant, and someone points out that we can get slices to go and return to the bar to wash them down with some beer. Other options are an Arby’s “pretty far” to the right, a Chinese place past the Toys R Us to our left, and a different pizza place with a sit-down Italian restaurant in back that’s the crowd agrees is pretty good: “Just keep walking,” they tell us. “Walk pass the K-Mart, the Toys R Us, and the BJ’s, and you’ll see it.”

 We leave, but the strong wind makes it hard even to push open the heavy wooden bar door.

We make it back to the subway station, perhaps all of 20 feet, which feels like a heroic effort. In front of us we see only the cemetery and the chain stores, and I know Damaso is already regretting not staying in the bar for a beer. We abandon plans. Hey, it’s not really about the food, right? Flexibility is a virtue in adversity, and the bar offers us the chance to talk with the denizens of Middle Village, which (although consciously I realize I’m conflating it with Tolkien’s Middle Earth) still sounds magical and mysterious to my subconscious associations.

We turn in to Metro Deli & Pizza, and although it offers only standard deli fare, we’re both seized with options analysis paralysis and wander aimlessly around touching bags of chips and gazing at tuna salad mounds in the display cabinet. Finally I notice the names of the specialty sandwiches, and while I don’t believe in signs, I do believe in themes. We order the MTA (pastrami, corned beef, and provolone) and the NYPD (roast beef and salami) and ask for them hot. While our sandwiches are being prepared, we grab one bag of childhood comfort in the form of original Bugles and one bag of Middle Village exotica labeled “Jalapeño Trio Smart Fries.” The cashier offers us two free cans of soda with our meals.

 
 

The bar patrons are delighted to see us return, and we’re delighted to be in America, where bar patrons talk to strangers. (Damaso's been living in Europe, where he says they don't.) P.J. Quinn’s doesn’t have anything on tap, so Damaso makes the bartender name every beer they have in bottles but then asks for a Guinness, which she hasn’t named and they don’t have although they do have a prominent illuminated Guinness clock. Eventually he orders a vodka and cranberry, and I order a cranberry and soda. Our drinks come in tiny crystal stem glasses, and we unwrap our sandwiches on the bar to dig in.
 

Except for their proximity to the arctic blasts from the occasional times the front door opens, our corner seats are the best in the joint. To our right, a middle-aged couple appears to be putting money into a large computer monitor. They notice me watching them and explain it’s a game showing them two almost identical pictures, and they have to spot all the differences. Sure, like in Highlights.

They ask us where we’re from, and we both say we live in Brooklyn, “But where are you originally from?” they insist, focusing on Damaso, who assures them he was born and raised here. They’re getting tipsy, and their voices grow louder as they insist that he doesn’t have a Brooklyn accent and that even if he were born there, he must have grown up some place else. He doesn’t have a Brooklyn accent, but neither does he have any other discernible accent, and I can’t help but wonder whether the insistence on his foreignness isn’t covering for something else—he’s the only person of color in the bar. Is a dreadlocked black man an exotic foreigner in this white, middle class part of Queens?

I ask where they think he’s from, and they say he talks like he’s from the Midwest. I say that’s me as I grew up in Chicago, and the man of the couple tells me that although his mother was raised in the Orthodox Jewish Brooklyn neighborhoods near where I live now, he grew up in Michigan.
 

In front of us behind the bar is a cage full of bingo balls, and to our left stretches the line of bar stools. The seat immediately to my left is empty, and the older man on the next stool also gives in to his curiosity. It’s too loud for him to have heard what we told the first couple. “Where are you from,” he asks, in a throaty rasp that I can barely make out over the loud music, “do you live around here?” He eyes me up and down before asking his follow-up question, “You aren’t a Yankees fan, are you?” I eye him up and down too. While we’re talking he pulls on a NY Mets jacket over his NY Mets sweatshirt. He’s also wearing a NY Mets baseball cap.
 
“Nope,” I assure him. “I grew up in Chicago and then lived 10 years in Boston. I’ve been carefully trained my whole life to hate all NY sports teams.”

He nods slowly and thoughtfully before signaling his grudging acceptance, “just so long as you’re not a Yankees fan.”

Above the bar, three televisions play three different channels without closed captioning. Behind us in the vacant main area is a pool table with red felt, and along the back wall is an Internet juke box (My Touch Tunes) and some video game called Broadway. Nobody touches them.

 The bartender, Eileen, keeps coming back to our side of the bar. I thought she was curious about us, but it turns out that she is friends with the couple. Eileen and Vicky worked together at the NY Stock Exchange for 20 years, before Eileen was laid off four and a half years ago and returned to tend the bar she’d worked at two decades earlier. Vicky still works at the stock exchange, so I ask whether she has any thoughts on the Deutsche burse-NYSE merger announced yesterday. She rolls her eyes and says, oh yes, she has thoughts about it, but she can’t say what they are while she still works there.

We ask Eileen how the bar has changed over the years, and she describes how crowded it used to get with heavy-drinking, high-spending stock traders. Before last year’s MTA cuts, the M was a straight shot to the financial district, and the bar was a regular haunt for commuters returning from Wall Street. We’re not the only ones who want to enter the first place they see after getting out of the subway. As Wall Street’s been hit, the bar has had fewer and fewer patrons, and the ones who are left spend less. Vicky’s husband Jim was also laid off from his job as an equities trader and has been out of work for 14 months.

Damaso’s photo taking doesn’t raise any eyebrows, but my note taking does. Vicky asks me what I’m writing down, and we tell them about our project. They say we should do a story on how the recession has affected New Yorkers in each neighborhood we visit. They’re worried about Eileen and about themselves. Vicky feels trapped in an organization that prizes youth and wants the longest-tenured workers out. I ask why she doesn’t leave, and she looks at me with pity for my naïveté. “There aren’t any jobs out there,” she explains sadly. “There aren’t any jobs for someone like me.”

The sandwiches are fine, uninspiring. The Bugles are smaller than I remember from the boxes I used to tear through as a kid. I try to make a full set of Bugle fingernails, but they crack and break off my fat fingers. The Smart Fries are puffed and fakey without much taste. Damaso’s drink is strong, but my thimble of soda leaves me thirsty. We order another round. When Damaso asks the bartender when she got the rose tattooed on her chest, she proudly puffs her cleavage and asks whether he’d like to take a photo of it. She’s a far cry from the Dominican waitress in Inwood who was so camera-shy she almost ran away.



By now the raspy Mets fan has limped out on what appears to be a prosthetic leg. What is his story? I probably should have tried to draw him out more, but it was so hard to understand him over Eileen singing along to Guns N Roses. At least I found out he used to work in sanitation in Coney Island, but that doesn’t even hint at what happened to his throat or his leg.

As everyone who remains grows more comfortable talking to one another, the conversation gets more personal and more heated if also more scattered. In an argument I never quite understand, Jim blames government regulation for the financial collapse, “because the government didn’t stop the banks from cheating.” I point out that his argument seems to blame the lack of regulation, and he says it doesn’t matter how many laws you have if you can’t enforce them. Vicky tells us about her hard childhood and how she’s spent the last six years taking care of her cancer-ridden mother. Jim tells me he hates the Cubs and how the mid-70s Cincinnati Reds were the greatest team of all time. He’s wearing a Red cap. Damaso says he likes the Cyclones. Jim and Vicky lament the lack of local restaurants and say the few times they eat out, they want to support local businesses but that it’s hard without options. It’s a family neighborhood, so an Applebee’s would be do very well they bet and would be a great addition to the area. Again I don’t understand how eating at Applebee’s would support local business, but apparently my sobriety makes me dense, as I’m unable to follow many of the conversation's threads.

When Eileen’s shift ends, we close out our tabs, and she joins us on the civilian side of the bar for a vodka and Coke. “Nobody drinks that,” I point out foolishly and of course incorrectly. She flits in and out of the bar, smoking in the cold and then chatting with the regulars inside. We don’t have any excuse to stay, and eventually we can’t put off our exit any longer. We thank Jim and Vicky for our introduction to Middle Village and head back into the cold. It was a very interesting night, but I’m still hungry.

 Photos by Damaso Reyes.