If Colson Whitehead’s Colossus of New York is a transcript of New York’s great mundane collective and self-absorbed consciousness, it surprises me that he only briefly settles on the apartments most New Yorkers go home to. Searching for my own first apartment over the past month I became briefly mired in my own self-absorbed quest for a new home and was reminded of the Colossus of New York. Finding an apartment is a consuming, emotional and automatic experience that is amplified by New York’s absurd and perilous real estate market. Almost everyone who has found somewhere to live here has shared some degree of my experience so as an act of telling my story and releasing my own mundane and egocentric thoughts here is the experience of finding an apartment told in the style of Whitehead’s Colossus of New York:

The lease is up and they scramble for shelter. A month is to early and not enough time. Nothing for your date will be available for the next two weeks. Sending out pleas to friends and combing the Internet. There are no realtors in New York, only brokers and Craigslist and brokers through Craigslist. City Focus, Urban Domus, Souvenir Reality, Gotham Habitats. Agents and fees – 15% of 12 months = 3420$ = a year’s rent anywhere else. This one is good, it’ll go quick. 1800 a month, no fee, 2000 straight deal. Fee, no fee.

He pulls up in black on a motor scooter with 35 keys on his belt. You’ll like this one, I’ve lived in this building for 20 years. Great location - perfect for you guys. Sure it’s in the basement but the landlord is good. Burglar bars add character and you know they just renovated. How about another one, the one upstairs is better, you’ll love it. I used to live in this apartment, I put in the kitchen myself. If I were you I’d loft the beds and take on another roommate!

Downtown or Brooklyn. What about the upper west side. What about Harlem? What about Queens? Astoria is nice - or long island city? I can’t bare the train ride. Its too far. They say that area isn’t safe – its safe, it just used to be a toxic waste site. Six flights up or 8 stops out.

What time are we meeting that broker? Do you think she’ll find anything worth seeing or anything we couldn’t find ourselves? Finding an apartment is a bad part time job, signing off contracts with agents, doing math and heading out to survey the location. Its also a new lens on the city. What if we lived up in that tower? I’ll live anywhere with a skylight a spiral staircase or just a window. She asks: Was this closet a bathroom? Was this bathroom a closet? Do we have to use this bedroom as both a closet and a bathroom?

She shuttles them from apartment to apartment, neighborhood to neighborhood. Railroad apartments, flex three, flex two, flex studio. 900$ a month or no kitchen. There’s a cute restaurant on the bottom floor but how do I feel about bugs and fires? Have we looked enough? and why isn’t there more time.

Finally there is a list. This one has a view of the water. That one has a roof deck. This one is 600$ a month. Visiting a second time and settling in on the application. Will the credit check go fine? Will the money come through? Do I have enough for three months in advance? Four?
Congratulations – you’ve got it! The landlord prefers Italian Americans and she doesn’t usually like students but its ok, she thinks you’ll make a fine tenant.

A shift in perspective. All she can see are mattress stores and fliers for moving services. Maybe someone’s throwing out all their new furniture, maybe her friends from Pennsylvania can drive out to help. Is there room for a bed and a desk? A couch or a bookshelf? Why does the new neighbor talk like that and where will he find his new pizza place and deli?

Why do I live where I do and how long will I stay? Where are you? Why?

2 Bros. Pizza

There's a place on St. Mark's Place where you can get a slice of pizza for $1.00. Yes, you can get a slice of cheese pizza for the same amount of money as a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, a small, black coffee at Dunkin Donuts, or an unwashed plum at my corner store; you simply place your dollar on the off-red counter, recieve your slice with a quick, stern glare remove yourself from the cafeteria-like line, and eat...it's literally brilliant.

If you ask me, the pizza tastes rather exquisite, the perfect blend between what I assume "classic" New York pizza tastes like, and the counterfeit beauty of Domino's; others argue you merely get what you pay for. Either way, the small storefront located on St. Mark's Place just west of 2nd Avenue is rejuvenating the neighborhood. I hate to admit it, because I've spent so many days dodging the sweaty stretch of street, but St. Mark's is back! I've completely abandoned my Cooper Square shortcut from my house to school, or the ever-scenic 10th-to-Stuyvesant Street trick on my way to the gym. I've found myself more and more curious about the crowd "dollar slice," as my friends and I affectionately refer to it as, tends to draw.

I thought I caught Whitehead. When reading The Colossus of New York I was convinced I caught Whitehead plagiarizing.

It was not even a week after my colloquium that we were assigned to read The Colossus of New York. The past two months I had spent an epic amount of time pouring over various books regarding New York City - picking out favorite passages, key ideas, so when April 14th rolled around I would be mind-blowingly prepared for the onslaught of questions regarding the current lack of communication between urban dwellers and urban planners.

One book, The Subway Chronicles, an anthology of subway stories, was a particular favorite of mine. And when I read the following from Whitehead, I was sure the idea was plagiarized from The Subway Chronicles:

"We are stuck in the tunnel on account of a sick passenger on the train in front of us. Him again, that rheumy bitch. For someone so sick, he sure gets around a lot. Perhaps he is merely more evolved and now allergic to filth and speed. Take up a collection to subsidize a private limo for the sick passenger."

Sunset on the boat

After reading Jackson’s chapter, “Living outdoors with Mrs. Panther,” I was left thinking… not barbaric just bizarre. When I conceptualize my life out of doors, with my first priority as experiencing nature immediately, I imagine a life with considerably less luxury than the Panther family enjoys.  To me, the house sounds like a modern gismo box that happens to be positioned with a view of the forest. With their heated driveway that never requires shoveling, or their temperatroll system, I got the impression that there is certain hypocrisy in place here. They live amidst nature but still have built-in and controlled for a significant amount of natural events. Like snow, noise, and temperature change.   While they are surrounded by natural landscape, it has taken on the role of spectacle.  If that is the goal – then mission accomplished. 

Yummy Goodness

The line stretches around the block but you wait. It’s really that good.  It’s the end of a blaring night out – out and about- and nothing is better than an order of hot, salty, greasy fries. Perfection. Plain or with sauces. By sauce I mean flavored mayonnaise. Warsauce, pomegranate teriyaki, horseradish, garlic rosemary, are the classics. Malt Vinegar and Ketchup also do the job.  You get closer and closer to the door but you’re not in yet – still waiting. Finally! You’re inside the place and you’re cramped with your friends in the narrow space between the wall and the counter.  Laughing, stumbling, struggling to read. Pretending to read the menu. The two guys behind the counter have their shit down. Working together to put in new batch, take out the one that’s ready, salt them and serve them. They move around one another in such a tight space it seems choreographed. With surprising patience, they’ll give you a taster. But you better decide quick – the line is still wrapped out the door and around the block.  To stay or to go? No seats in back, all 6 are taken, so to go. Piping hot, fries and sauces are bagged and you head out. Two blocks to the stoop – two blocks till you can sit. The bag is torn open to make a plate and you slide the fries out of their paper cone. Otherwise they’ll lose their crispiness. Open all the sauce containers and enjoy! Everyone was chatting before, but now we eat. You think there are so many but they’re gone so fast – and are always left wanting more. Pomme Frites – delicious. 

Kiss!

When we were first assigned Lopate’s  Waterfront, I considered myself to be well acquainted with the waterfront of New York City. And then it occurred to me that although I live in the East Village, when I want to get some fresh air or go for a run, I go west.  So this time, I decided to try going the other direction. So I stepped off my stoop, and ran down 2nd Avenue, took a left on Houston.  I passed the familiar Russ & Daughters and Katz and after a few minutes, I’m at the river.  My uncle and I have a Sunday morning tradition of bike-riding south along the river so for curiosity I headed north.  Lopate describes the connoisseur of the streets as someone who “is charmed by the leafy quiet and exclusive shops in a wealthy area, but more likely to grow enthusiastic over a section a bit more ragged,” (200).  I think the East River Park has an inherent raggedness that is refreshing in contrast to the wealthier west side counterpart.  While the west side is well-kept and precisely manicured, the East River Park seems less intentional, or maybe just older.  Lopate describes peripatetic lyricism as the way in which one describes or articulates street-side encounters and experiences place through walking.  So this time I decided to pay particular attention to my train of thought throughout my wandering. 

Brooklyn BridgeIt’s ironic that back when I read the second half of Lopate, it had been years since I had made a connection with the easy river, and just after reading, I ended up in a hospital bed overlooking the East River and the 59th street Bridge. As I was admitted to the hospital, my cousin who stood by me for ten hours in the ER, commented on what a great view I had of the East River. Well not to slight New York Presbyterian, I think I’d rather remember my first memorable encounter with the East River.

Freshman year, one of my closest friends and I put together a list of all of these fun things we wanted to do in the city. We were determined to take advantage of all New York had to offer – be it dim sum in Chinatown or visiting various museums. On our list was “walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at night.” [Of course, looking back now, four years later, many of the original ideas that appeared on that first list are still not completed] So we worked it out with a friend who was living downtown at the time, to meet at the base of the bridge on the Manhattan side and walk across. We made “Juniors” famous for their cheesecake our destination. After photo ops, getting over a fear of heights, getting lost on our way to cheesecake and many other laughs and memories along the way, we were initiated into the life of New Yorkers who had ventured across the bridge into Brooklyn.

Purple & White for NYU Graduation!I first read Tuan’s Space and Place in preparation for my colloquium on “Architecture in the Urban Environment.” Tuan, to many architects and designers, is considered a sort of philosopher on understanding place and how people relate to it. For me, going to design school in the Fall, will mean that understanding this relationship is very significant to the line of work I want to go into. As an interior designer, I will not only design places that are beautiful and visually appealing, but they will also be places that are functional and even a place which people can bond with. Tuan stresses the idea that as a person’s emotional bond to a space increases so does their comfort level and feeling of belonging. When a person has no control over the space, that emotional bond is much slower to develop, he points out. Think of this in relation to say our bedrooms verses our classroom. A room which we can call our own is full of things that make us comfortable and happy – photos of friends and family, cherished belongings, bedding and furniture that is appealing to our own personal style. We find comfort and refuge in this place. Our classroom on the other hand, with its stark walls and impersonal conference table is a place we have to be under a sort of obligation. Only when our friends and classmates are in the room, does it begin to feel like a more comfortable space, but when they leave at the end of class – there is little drawing us back to that room.

Tuan talks extensively in the beginning of Space and Place about the importance of children and their connection to people and places. Anyone who knows me, knows I spend a good deal of time babysitting. Avery, the two-year-old love of my life, has been like an adopted child to me since she was just five months old. Every week I spend a great deal of time at the Wilson’s home in the West Village taking care of Avery on the weekdays or veging out while she sleeps and her parents are out on the weekends. I have watched Avery grow as she took her first steps, ate her first solid food, said her first word and many other milestones. While being with the Wilsons certainly is a job for me, it is also an education. I was really able to understand Tuan’s description and explanation of how children relate their worldly explanations in relation to how near or far they are from their parents. When I first started working for the Wilsons, Avery was a bubbly baby who didn’t cry much and was very easy to please.

East River Park

I walked to the East River Park for the first time to do this post, and I used the bridge by the Jacob Riis houses. I guess a softball game had just ended, because my path over the bridge was blocked by a team of preteen softball players holding a team meeting in the middle of the bridge over four lanes of traffic. It was a very odd spectacle, the uniforms clustered right in my path, and it didn't make a lot of sense since the cars below made it hard to hear anything on the bridge. But the coach just stood around yelling at the team, screeching over the noise. Then they did a team cheer, and I was reminded of how much I hate organized sports.

When I got into the actual park, I sat on a bench and watched people doing odd things, like a man walking his dog and his toddler and talking to the dog instead of the child, and a speed walker who kept throwing her arms out at odd angles as she walked, these kind of spastic seizure movements that were very startling up close.

Night Garden When I read Invisible Cities I was caught up in the beauty of the descriptions and too busy imagining these fantastical places to think about the underlying story of the book. But going back and looking at the very first page, I realized that it is actually a very sad story. The premise of explorer telling emperor about cities he rules but will never see is a little depressing. Calvino writes about a feeling the emperor feels, following his pride in his vast system of cities, of “melancholy and relief of knowing we shall soon give up any thought of knowing and understanding them.” This concept of dominating and owning places without knowing or understanding them is definitely a melancholy one. It reminds me of the class I took last year on imperialism, where I read countless stories of the dangers of ruling without understanding. But in this story, the ills of imperialism are not so apparent, and the reader can happily imagine impossible places he can never visit.

Walking baby The topic of my colloquium was "Going Home Again", so I've been thinking a lot about different ways of leaving home and how to measure the distances we go in life in relation to the home. Tuan introduced me to a new way of looking at leaving home in his chapter on space, place, and the child. He explains that a child learns to move into the larger world in terms of distance from his mother, that each movement is measured in terms of being closer to or farther away from the protective parent. Now all those images of toddlers taking their first steps have a new layer. I always looked at pictures like that and thought, oh, the baby learned to use its legs, good job. But in fact the picture is showing the first time the baby realizes that it can direct its own movements in the larger world beyond the playpen. I guess some kids can crawl fast, but Tuan made me think about how first steps indicate more than good motor skills, they indicate that the child is ready to choose a path in space that is not directly decided by its mother.

Turnstile Nightmare

In his section on rush hour, Whitehead writes "After hiding behind secretaries and voice-mail all day, little interactions bring anxiety." I just started working in a real office, and I've noticed how hard it is to move from eight hours of preordained conversations over phone and email to real life interactions on the street as you make your way home. As I wait on the J train platform at Delancey, I look at the other people and wonder how many of them are also still stuck in office communication mode, replaying bits of business talk in their heads unintentionally. I like having the time it takes for the J to cross the Williamsburg bridge to look out the window and ease myself back into normal interaction mode before I see my roommates.

I also really liked his observation about how difficult it is to get through the turnstiles at rush hour. Watching people perform the funny dance, trying to dart through before someone comes rushing from the other side can be entertaining, but I often find myself making very angry noises as people block my entrance. Overall, I find his writing style very effective for communicating the collective consciousness of the city. By jumping around to different perspectives and changing pronouns every couple sentences, he gets a much more inclusive feeling in his narrative.

J.D.'s Transfer Bridge Maybe its because he writes about the backyard of my youth or maybe because its just plain interesting, but I really enjoyed reading the Upper West Side waterfront chapter. What really excited me was hearing about the rail yard and the usage of the rails. I never really imagined New York city as a place in which trains transport fresh dairy goods. I particularly never imagined that place as being right behind my house. It was quite ironic that I had seen transfer bridges my entire life and never knew what they were called or what the hell they were doing there. I remember that in high school I used to walk down to the newly made pier by Trump. Everything was so fresh and new, yet there was this huge, rusty, ugly crane-like thing that I noticed each time I got high with friends. My mother had warned me never to go up there, there were crazies there and it was totally unsafe. I was also told that the reason the unsightly obtrusion still existed was because it was an actual landmark.

Subway Seating In his chapter on the subway, Whitehead refers to a moment in which he claimed that telling a fellow subway passenger about a soda spill on a seat was not his responsibility. This reminds me of an incredible moment in my subway riding history. A moment that forever caused me to fall in love with the subway and also allowed me to truly grasp what it means to be a Nuevo Yorquino in the first place.
I had just finished a carefree high school Friday during which I was excited to go visit my friends in NJ that weekend. I hopped on the C train platform at 86th street and a train had just arrived. As the doors opened, I noticed a disheveled homeless man mumble something as he got off the train an passed right by me as I entered the subway car. I looked to my right to see the entire right side of the car empty, which was a rare occurrence at that time of the day. I looked left and I saw a crowd of huddled people and I laughed in my mind at them. How foolish they were, some standing some sitting but all crowded. There was plenty of perfect space on my side. I sat down and did my usual space out routine. Eventually my eyes led me to the floor of the car under a seat and I noticed a neat brown pile. I looked up a little and noticed some fecal artwork had smeared the perpendicular 2-seaters. I smelled a little more closely without moving and noticed immediately why everyone had abandoned the right side.

The Tuan TowerMost times you read a book you have a few thoughts over the course of reading each chapter. Maybe a really nice thought comes with every page or two, but with Tuan, I find that every paragraph contains delicious morsels of information packed in tightly. His chapter on intimate places instantly transported me to places I hadn’t thought about in years. He is pretty darn good.
On the way home for the Passover holiday, I found myself walking the same route I have walked literally thousands of times. Out of the subway on 72nd street, down the west side of Broadway come Amsterdam to 70th Street and then hang a right. My mother always told me to be safe and walk on the side of the street with residential townhouses and I walked towards my towering apartment building. I still walk on that north side of 70th between West End avenue and Amsterdam, out of habit. That is what us city dwellers are anyway. As I walked down this time, I felt a totally different feeling than I had ever had as I walked down the street. I felt like I wasn’t going home to celebrate my family’s most cherished holiday in the same place. There was a tall building on the corner of the south side next to P.S. 199. They had been building it for some time now, but the scaffolding had blinded me to the fact that there was going to be a HUGE building towering next to mine and sandwiching my post WWII apt building with Trumps gooney buildings.

Portland Water ShotCodrescu pissed me off in the beginning of his chapter on Portland and Salem. I didn’t really care about the restaurant he went to or the fact that his host knew the governor. However, the Romanian impressed me thoroughly with his ability to weave in information about the people of Oregon and their love for their state. Out of nowhere, his dinner and hotel seemed to fit into a picture of something I cared about. His writing was never boring or alliteration free, which is always nice.
His experiences made me think that Oregon might actually be the only state in which people give a crap about the land usage. I can’t ever remember a time, outside of a farm setting, in which a New Yorker bragged about a particular type of produce, like strawberries or onions.
When Codrescu used the word peaceful to describe the place, I was really just lost. I couldn’t even for the life of me describe a place that is peaceful because I just don’t know think I have ever experienced one. My experiences in nature took place in summer camp and they were much more about being at summer camp than being in nature. After reading this chapter, I was truly intrigued to get my behind out to Oregon and even consider going to graduate school over there.

JB Jackson is not the type of writer that after you read, you have a new passion for life. His artwork is nice and his work is informative, but I’m not compelled to visit any of the places he describes or experience any of the phenomena he discusses. It was quite interesting however, when he explains the “Vernacular City.” He starts the chapter off by revealing a little information about himself. He lives in an isolated town in New Mexico, and as if we already didn’t know, how his house is 3 miles down a dirt road.
Jackson’s home location speaks volumes about how he informs us about the places he describes. While his detail and analysis are point on, his charm and charisma match the noise level of his neighbors on a Friday night. Besides his interesting details on how the city street has transformed to become an integral part of how they function, he brings up an interesting point or two about all the different cities he has been to both internationally and nationally. He claims that the cities he has been to nationally aren’t really such a big deal, they are like a dime a dozen with New York and San Francisco sticking out. He says that it’s the international cities that he inspects a little more closely. He also points out that European cities are all pedestrian friendly, while this is not true for American cities.

Five Senses

After reading Tuan’s chapter on “Experiential Place,” I got all excited because I thought I’d found a clear link between Tuan and Codrescu. It was so obvious, I thought; why were we expected to have difficulty with it? Tuan talks about developing and defining a sense of place with our bodily senses, as well as creating our own maps based on experience. I could at least make a connection with the sense thing, right? I seemed to remember Codrescu having a lot of detail and experiencing the places he went; it would be easy.

Until I went back to check on the Codrescu stuff and I realized that I couldn’t make a case for that at all. Tuan describes the various ways in which our senses convey an impression of volume and space, of physical place around us. Codrescu neglects the physical senses in favor of treating the rest of what gives us a sense of being in someplace particular: the history behind the towns and the humanity within the towns. What I didn’t realize is that Codrescu very rarely describes much beyond what he can see. This gives the readers a decent idea of what our eyes would tell us if we were in La Jolla or San Francisco, but without any other sensory description it’s difficult to fully imagine actually walking down one of those sunlit streets. What he does do is describe what we hold in our minds about the places we encounter: what happens to us while we are there, the history we’re aware of, the people we meet and how we get around. Our physical sense of place is underdeveloped in Codrescu, but our mental sense of place grows.

Lower Wacker

First of all, let me say how sad I am that the Westway project never actually came to fruition. An underground highway would have been amazing, so much better than the West Side Highway we have now. I found it strange that both Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses both protested it; it seems like Westway would have been a perfect way to please both of their major foci in urban development. The West Side Highway is a huge pain; I live a few blocks away from the river, and I always end up having to wait for a longer-than-usual time to cross the six lanes separating me from the water. It depresses me that a street-level highway, unfriendly to bikers and pedestrians, finally won out. On the other hand, though, is it keeping the river free from obnoxious polished expensive cafes and shops that would undoubtedly proliferate in its absence? I can’t say for sure; I definitely prefer easy pedestrian access to anything, but I have mixed feelings about what would have happened to river development if the highway wasn’t there. (though polished shops would probably be better than giant polished high-rises. yikes.)

Modern Day Panthers

My Dad has always told me he wished he became an architect, and we'd often spend weekends roaming through open houses for fun and pretending we were very serious potential buyers. His passion for architecture and landscape has rubbed off on me, and I subscribe to a magazine called Dwell. Dwell focuses mostly on modern architecture and design and when I can't focus, I usually cruise their website, dwell.com, during class. One of my favorite sections is "Green" section, which displays eco-friendly, modern homes from all over the world. Although the houses are amazing, there is one house in particular, located in Errington, British Columbia, that makes me wonder how "one" with nature these houses truly are.

In Landscape in Sight, Jackson discusses a family named the Panthers, who admire the environment from a purely aesthetic position, claiming to be a "part of nature," but ultimately curbing and sanitizing it. Now, on one hand, this house has strong ties to nature, perched high in the trees, dangling from branches like wild chimpanzee.  On the other hand, there seems to be something very Panther-like about it, a bubble of sorts that allows you to watch nature, respect its beauty, but ultimately remove yourself from it. In the accompanying article, the designer says, "When you're up in the trees you really get a sense that you are just floating up there, that you're in a different world." Like the Panthers, with their small, groomed tree and perfectly concocted garden, it seems as though the forest the small spheric-house inhabits is merely a decoration. 

Who Loves Ya Baby?

Codrescu's discussion of language as a means of fighting opression and building a sense of community reminded me of an article that was mentioned in the New York Times titled, "New York Accent: Still Talking the Tawk?" The article discusses the classic New York accent, as represented in Hollywood films, glorified mob shows and NYPD Blue-type television dramas. The accent, although fading as a result of the increasingly "mobile" city, is still very much alive, it's merely evolving. 

The author writes, "when people think of New York, it's the classic elements of the accent they're talking about: The "aw" sounds, the dropped Rs after vowels and even the long-dead tortured verbal gymnastics like pronouncing "girl" as "goil." While education and homogenization have treated some of the more profound, stereotypical elements of the accent, the author continues by noting, "It's still a part of New York identity and in part is perpetuated by the outside world. And so there's a sense in which New Yorkers buy into that. So if people keep saying that we talk so differently, I guess we do, dammit why shouldn't we!"

Proposal for Pier 40Since I usually reach the West Side Highway at Christopher Street, cross over and walk north, I decided for a change I’d walk south and check out Pier 40. Located at Houston Street, Pier 40 is the largest Pier on the Hudson River and as a result, developers have drooled at the thought of transforming it into something else. Right now, 50% of the space is allotted for public use while the other 50% of the space provides commuters and community members with 2,200 long-term parking spaces. Their 24-hour rate is relatively reasonable, $25.34, when compared to most street lots. In addition to the Pier’s function as a parking lot – it also provides local athletic leagues, schools, and the general public with playing fields for various sports. The Courtyard Fields, consist of 3.5 acres of synthetic turf comparable to most professional fields. When I visited, I was amazed to see how many people were taking advantage of the facilities on a Saturday morning. There were soccer, rugby, and baseball games all going on at once – and the person standing next to me said it only gets busier. After seeing firsthand how many people depend on this space for their recreation – I understood why the community has worked so hard to defeat the developers’ grandiose plans to turn it into a monstrosity. The more elaborate developer, Related Companies, have “thrown bone after bone to the community, claiming in its plan to have more parking than currently exists; two acres more of sports fields and basketball courts (both of which are all free); and a dog run. But this is the West Village with which Related is contending, and the prospect of some 2.5 million annual visitors and tourists—along with the traffic, attitude, and related development they may bring—apparently doesn’t sit too well.”(Link) The more modest proposal made my the Camp Group was also received poorly by community members and neither of the two proposals were found to be acceptable by the Hudson River Park Trust’s board. It seems that despite the 15-acre pier’s potential to generate considerable amounts of revenue, the community is willing to forego the potential gains to preserve the space as it is now.

Hallways and Pipes

The first thing to hit me when I step into the hall of Chelsea Market is the smell of baking bread. The old building has gone from years of making Oreos, Premium Saltines, Vanilla Wafers, Fig Newtons, Barnum's Animal Crackers, and Mallomars to making premium baked goods, fine coffee, and selling high quality cooking supplies. Gourmet brownies, sandwiches, thai food, coffee, and cakes line the walls, a step up from the turn of the century's National Biscuit commodities. This old factory building should be foreboding and cavernous, with its long halls, high ceilings, pipes criss-crossing above me, but the warm smells, the wonderful food on all sides, and the crowd make for a homey feeling that I am surprised by every time I walk in the door. The hall may be long, but it turns often enough that the spaces seem more intimate, and the stores selling inviting delicacies on either side make for intriguing places to veer off the path. Groups stroll down the wood floors, window shopping for snacks or a place to catch a meal. It feels like a different world, no one is solo, no rushing, just happy chatting couples sharing some classic gelato or considering the ingredients for tonight's dinner. In fact, it feels like a small section of Europe on the West Side.

Empire-Fulton Ferry Park

Though Lopate’s book was necessarily limited to Manhattan’s waterfront – if he’d tried to take on the outer boroughs the book would have been easily ten times as long – I feel like he missed out on at least describing the pieces of the shore that directly face Manhattan, the ones that lie on the other side of the bridges. They’re all much humbler, especially considering that they’re dwarfed by the buildings on the other side of the river. But the fact is, there’s no better way to gain some perspective on where you live – if that happens to be Manhattan – than by staring at it from across a river and knowing that if you want to, you can turn around and be in an entirely different world. I found this out when I stumbled into the Empire-Fulton Ferry Park, the park between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges across the East River.

When I discovered the park – which I later found out had an official name – it was purely by accident. Last fall I took a photo class, and I decided to make one of my first projects a series of photos comparing the land on both sides of the bridge. When I walked over to the Brooklyn side, I took a few pictures of shiny cafes in old warehouses and shortly after wandered to the water. I’m a sucker for weird gritty things that look like they’ve been forgotten, not to mention things to explore and climb over, and the rocky slope leading down to the river was everything I liked. I climbed down the rocks and navigated over them, balancing – the tide was up, so there was very little sand where I was. I stood on the rocks under the Manhattan Bridge, staring at the city in front of me, wondering how often I could come back from now on.