|
recent posts
----------
Domestic Fictions
Move Over, Little Ladybug
Post-Patrum Productivity
Nobody's Perfect
Cover Your Eyes!
New Stats: Change Is Interesting
The Precariousness of Things
Diaper Anatomy
Dress-up
In Defense of "Red"
|
 |
You've got questions, she's got answers. Be among the first to read Elise Mac Adam's new etiquette guide.
Pre-order from:
- Simon & Schuster
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
Ghost Town
New York makes children of all of us. I mean that in both a good and a bad way. On the bad side, we get petty and squabble over cabs in the rain, get snotty about the bagels in other parts of the world, and in this moment at least, one person is spending over $65 million of his own money to keep the city as his own playground. (This isn't so weird. It's a job requirement that NYC mayors be eccentric.)
On the plus side, if one lives here, it is hard not to become at least interested, if not obsessed with neighborhood lore and history. The city encourages this intimacy. It shares secrets and allows for crazy stories. Fictions become real. Over the summer, the New York Times created a map that pointed out hundreds of spots where things that never really happened occurred in literature. (Not just Eloise at the Plaza but Lyle the crocodile at East 88th street, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Sophie's Choice, Henry James's Washington Square...) They solicited suggestions and I spent a naptime trying to figure out if Nick and Nora Charles were living at the Normandy apartments on Riverside Drive, but the place they stayed was called the Normandie, which I'm sure was different. And I can't visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art without thinking about From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
And then there's "real" city mythology. Everyone has a ghost story (I just heard about a sighting in a nearby bar), every building is loaded with lore, scandal, mystery, intrigue, politics. Just as fictional lives shine in the landscape, so do the hauntings, rumors and dramas.
So I was intrigued yesterday when someone told me a neighborhood ghost story. Apparently, a woman, a neighbor I don't know, but who has lived here for over 20 years kept walking past a weird sanitation department storage area (following the construction of the Holland Tunnel) on Canal Street, and sensed a Presence. (Just one? Really? That seems low. I wonder how many irritated spirits the Department of Transportation is currently inspiring.)
She started to research the park and this Presence apparently influenced a library microfiche reader, scrolling through page after page without human assistance until it pointed her to a page explaining that not only was this ugly sanitation department heap was once a park, but that the law of this land is that it had to become a park once again. Canal Park was reborn after it had been mowed down in 1921.
My husband and I took Felix there yesterday and it is indeed pretty if a little stodgy. None of us sensed the helpful Presence, but I am glad that it managed to wrestle its park back from the Department of Sanitation. I hope I remember to tell him this story, not because it is so wildly fascinating but because it will let him know that his city is alive and if a neighbor could revive a park that was buried for 84 years, he could also bring some part of town back from the dead. He will live in city history and if he wants, he can become part of it.
posted by Elise at 3:02 PM
........................................................
........................................................
<< Home
........................................................
|
