To Forgottenblog, Year Two!

12/8/03: PAYING HOMAGE

Let me get this straight: Huge crowds assemble outside Rock Plaza, in the cold, the rain, the wind, and now the snow, to pay homage to people sitting inside in a warm studio who are grossly overpaid...

12/7/03: IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME IN THE VILLAGE

Given Manhattan's strict grid plan, there's not a whole lot in the way of streets that meander around seemingly aimlessly, like in Boston, MA or any old-world city in Europe. If you photograph a NYC street, it just goes on and on until you can't see it any more at the horizon. Of late, I've become interested in limited street vistas, ones that come to a finite end, because they provide glimpses of mid-block architecture that just can't be glimpsed elsewhere in NYC.

A walk in Greenwich Village during December 2003's blizzard offered some cases in point. Snow makes everything "timeless" and so enhances the charm of these, for NYC, unique settings.

Sometimes the ends of things are better than the beginnings.

We're doing something a little different this time: Click on the links under each of the pictures below to get a bigger view and a short description.

12/5/03: I NEED DR. DOAN, NOT DR. DEAN

I sat on the bed and bent over to pick something up. That was my mistake.

YEEEEEEEOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW

12/02/03: HAT ON THE CAT

The critics all despised The Cat In The Hat, but so far, the movie has made $72 million. I'm rooting for it. F!@# the critics. You know what? If a kid goes to TCITH and laughs his head off for a couple of hours, Mike Myers has done his job. I hear sniggers when I tell them I enjoyed the Austin Powers flicks. Myers is funny.

11/25/03: PLAYING IT SAFE

It's strange seeing Katey Sagal and Courtney Thorne-Smith playing standard-issue domestic goddesses on TV sitcoms. Sagal, of course, was the gum-cracking, sex starved spouse of Al Bundy on Married, With Children for 12 years, while Thorne-Smith played vixens of varying temperament on Melrose Place and later, Ally McBeal. Looks like they've been tamed.

11/23/03: WTC MEMORIAL

I didn't care for any of the designs..too much glass in all of them. I'm not one of those who says, build nothing there, but I think the best memorial would be to leave the exposed wall and part of the crater there and a handwritten sign that says, 'here's what they do to good people.' There's an ad in the trains for a charity or something, and there's a 40-ish career lady saying "I was there on Sept. 11th."

What we are not grasping is that 40-ish career ladies are what the Muslim extremists want to wipe from the earth. They want women in the chador, and they want them beaten or killed if they protest. I do not see the anger and the determination that it will take to see that these fanatics never obtain power outside their sorry, benighted territories.

Too many of the memorials look like big, windswept plazas, the kind I thought they weren't going to build any more.

I'm sort of disappointed with the progress with the WTC replacement as well. I liked Libeskind's original plan, that had a large needle shaped tower and 5 or 6 jagged towers that appeared to be falling toward each other, but it's going to get watered down and what you'll have is five or six standard-issue office buildings; that's what Silverstein wants. NYC will never be the hotbed of innovative architecture that say, Chicago has been.

11/22/03: PLACES THAT ARE GONE

Of course, you remember where you were when it happened. I have only a vague, sketchy memory of it: after all, I was six.

But I remember the nuns sending us home in the middle of the afternoon. It was Friday, if I remember correctly; I could be wrong about that. Probably was, since Thanksgiving hadn't happened yet. In Brooklyn the sky was blackly overcast, as if from an impending storm (a decade-long storm was impending, as it turned out). My mother told me what had happened, but I was too young to be really upset about it; all I knew was the adults had drawn faces and were quite subdued about things. I remember watching things unfold on TV the next few days, and I even vaguely recall Oswald's murder by Ruby. But I also remember being relieved when the cartoons came back on, I think, by Monday.

Anyway, I was just thinking about how many other people are gone since Nov. 22, 1963. My mother (1974), my father (2003) my maternal grandmother, who took care of me then (1977). On TV, Jackie O (1994); Robert Kennedy (1968), Peter Lawford (1984), JFK Junior (1999). Many of the cops on the scene are gone, though some are old now and are interviewed on TV. Oswald and Ruby are gone. Most of the teachers I had in grade school were middle aged and are probably gone now.

My grade school's gone now too, for my purposes, anyway. I was ill-used and disrespected by many of the students and some of the nuns and teachers the 8 years I was there, and when I graduated June 17, 1971 I was just 13, but I vowed never to enter the building again, a promise I have kept. So, those teachers and classmates I dismissed from my life.

You know what...probably the only people I still have a connection with from that day are the ones I saw on TV, but since I was six, I didn't ground them in any particular place or time. Looking at the old films now, in 2003, there's Bob Schieffer, a newspaper man then, with a snap brim hat he now says he affected because it made him look like a cop, and would thus have more access. There's Dan Rather, then as now at CBS. There's a young Canadian guy named Peter Jennings; he combs his hair the same way today. There's Uncle Walter Cronkite, straining mightily to keep the tears at bay as he reads from a bulletin. 38 years later I would see a whole lot more anchorpeople cry. Funny, but the people who appeared in black and white on a cathode ray tube are now a whole lot 'realer' than the flesh and blood people who were so much a part of my life then.

11/15/03: SANDMAN, BRING ME A DREAM

For the two FF's inquiring about my health, thank you. Improving now.

Author/journalist Neil Gaiman is a casual FF. Neil is the author of American Gods, Neverwhere, and, of course, the long-running Sandman series for DC Comics, concerning the adventures of the God of Dreams. How do I know? Ah, his 6/18/03 online journal proves it.

Now, can Robyn Hitchcock reveal himself a Forgotten fan? I know you are, Bobby.

11/11/03: YOU'RE SICK, YOU'RE OBSCENE

Your webmaster is at the stage where you keep swallowing, hoping that the burning throat will not burn THIS time you swallow. No luck.

11/9/03: AND NOW, ON WITH THE COUNTDOWN

Till now, I haven't been bowled over by any of the new i-apps that Apple has been pushing over the past few years. My Forgotten NY photos are pretty organized anyway, so iPhoto hasn't floated my boat; I don't shoot videos yet (though I'd like to get video into Forgotten NY eventually) so I'm not using iMovie yet; but iTunes is another matter. I now have 1648 songs in iTunes. What I do is burn the songs on freebie discs from magazines like Uncut and Mojo, as well as the other compilation discs in my collection, but not entire albums. I think CDs should stand on their own as albums, so I don't usually burn them to my hard drive; each song should follow each other as the artist intended.

What iTunes has done, though, is revive the milieu that made the 45RPM single such a sensation in the mid-50s on into the mid-90s, when technology superseded it. Each song can now be sold as an individual song, on its own merits, or as part of an album.

Radio countdown shows were a big part of the 45RPM experience. I remember each week I would anticipate the WMCA Good Guys' weekely countdown show, which I think was Wednesday afternoons into the evenings. In the mid-60s, playlists were less restricted than they would be in the 70s (though since I was nine, I wasn't thinking in those terms). Later, in the 70s, if I happened to be home on Sunday morning, I would catch Casey Kasem's weekly AT40 countdown, which was syndicated and played on WNEW-FM, then a pop station, as it is again. The national Top 40 would have wild cards that the extremely conservative WABC wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole.

iTunes has permitted users to compile personal Top 25's. Mine is influenced both by that fact that some of these songs were the only ones I had on iTunes at first, but most are in the Top 25 pretty much because I play them a lot. I'll briefly pass along my iTunes top ten since I first acquired the app in October 2002:

10. Comin' Through, the Soft Boys (2002): this is a song on Side Three, the four-song EP sold by Robyn Hitchcock on his website and sold at stops on the Soft Boys' tour in the fall of 2002. The Soft Boys' new material sounded as fresh and original as it had when I first heard the Boys' Underwater Moonlight on a compilation tape sent me at Christmas 1982 by my friend Steve G., who has since relocated to Charlottesville, VA. Hitchcock's appetite for weirdness-as-metaphor has always intrigued me, and the Soft Boys' music has always stood apart from the era in which it is produced, which, as well, has been an inspiration for my approach to my own work. (21 plays)

9) The Fool, Sanford Clark (1956): Clark was an early Elvis imitator. Not that that's a bad thing. Some mighty pop records have been made on the back of Elvis, like Jack Scott's "The Way I Walk", Ral Donner's "You Don't Know What You've Got" and of course, Terry Stafford's "Suspicion". For me Clark's record stands out since a guy named John Fogerty would take its minimalist approach and score a whole bunch of Number 2 hits a few years later. (21 plays)

8) Cobblestone Road, the Cryan' Shames (1968): Chicago's Cryan' Shames had a hit in 1966 with a sugary cover of the Drifters/Searchers' "Sugar and Spice" and made the TV rounds in suits and bowl haircuts, like all the other pop bands of the time. By 1968, though, they hopped aboard the relevancy bandwagon, and on the LP Scratch in the Sky, while trying not to lose the signature sunny sound, came up with this song about an itinerant peddler. It's captivated me over the years since Irene Trudel of WFMU sent it to me on tape. (21 plays)

7) There's No Other Way, Blur (1991): Blur, like Cliff Richard or fish and chips, are nowhere near as big in the States as they are in Blimey; for some reason 90s Britpop never broke through in the States. To be honest, most of Blur's stuff except for this and "Girls and Boys" leaves me cold, but this is a great pop song that the radio guys in the States overlooked (22 plays)

6) Never to Be Forgotten, the Bobby Fuller 4 (1966): Bobby Fuller was a Texan who pretty much picked up the baton where Buddy Holly dropped it: a rockabilly guy with something extra. But like Buddy, he too died much too soon. All of his songs are mini-symphonies of Stratocaster guitar (23 plays)

5) Everything Flows, Teenage Fanclub (1990) In the early 1990s, Teenage Fanclub would be the next big thing, like the White Stripes or the Strokes were in the early 2000s. Those bands followed up on the hype and came through with hits, but Teenage Fanclub didn't, despite a Saturday Night Live appearance, either in the US or in England. "Everything Flows", from 1990s' A Catholic Education, is produced sludgily, which endeared it to me in an era still emerging from the Phil Collins big-drum production. They pretty much reached their apex with Bandwagonesque; several Fanclub numbers permeate my iTunes collection. (25 plays)

4) Narcissus, The Soft Boys (2002) another song from Side Three. It's natural that Robyn Hitchcock be on this list twice, since I have seen him a few dozen times, dated Trudi, the president of his fan club (6 dates, actually), and have nearly 100 separate Hitchcock recordings in my collection. Trudi? Well, one day Trudi begged off a date because she had to dog-sit. Yes, she picked a dog over me. (25 plays)

3) Qualities of Mercy, Penelope Houston (1996) Penelope, formerly of the punk band The Avengers, was part of the earnest-chick movement of the mid-1990s that brought us Alanis Morrissette, Paula Cole, Liz Phair and Meredith Brooks. Of course, a lot of them like Liz and Jewel have moved on and seeing that Christina and Britney-style sex sells, decided to sex up their image. I got Houston's "Qualities of Mercy" from a compilation CD in one of Richie Unterberger's books and like it enough to have played it 25 times. Hey, I liked Paula Cole's "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone" too and Jann Arden ain't bad, either.

2) Sun's Going Down, The Outsiders (1967) These are not the Cleveland "Time Won't Let Me" Outsiders; rather, they're the Dutch Outsiders with amazing phonetic singer Wally Tax. They were the vanguard of a mini-Dutch Invasion that produced chart toppers Shocking Blue, Tee Set, the Golden Earrings (later Golden Earring) and the George Baker Selection. The Outsiders had a minimalist approach to garage rock that I liked. (25 plays)

1) Every 1's A Winner, Hot Chocolate (1978) These British discoers had one of the most annoying hits of the 70s, "You Sexy Thing" but they also had this one, which has a groove that kind of proceeds majestically behind Errol Brown's whiny vocal. It's a near perfect production. Alan Vega covered it, rather incomprehensibly, a few years later but then again you don't listen to Alan Vega songs for the lyrics....(27 plays)

11/1/03: THE WEARIN O' THE BLACK

I think the Halloween Parade has now surpassed St. Patrick's Day as the epicenter of revelry in NYC every year. The Puerto Rican Day parade is up there, too. Don't get me wrong, Halloween's fun, but it's almost become too planned and corporate. I'm still a Mermaid Parade man because it's still grass roots.

Halloween's never been my holiday. I left my pants at a phone booth on Halloween about 17 years ago. Another time, I had a wisdom tooth pulled that morning and went to the party with a swollen jaw and blood trickling down my chin. "What a great costume!" they all said. The next morning, I awoke to find the sheets covered with blood. Down, Renfield!

As a kid, I could be seen wandering Bay Ridge in an old yellowy sheet with eye holes poked out, or with a cheap plastic mask, but my heart wasn't in it. Eventually, my parents just bought the candy, and we ate it, and my mother bought husky sizes for me.

10/31/03: OH, THE PLACES I'LL GO -- NOT

I guess I just wasn't made for these times, as Brian Wilson said. Travel agencies and bureaus believe that when Americans go on vacation, they want to go to theme parks, the beach, or gamble. I don't like amusement parks-- the rides are built to make you lose your lunch; despite 46 NYC summers, I still resemble the Jersey whitefish with my shirt off and I fry like bacon; and I laugh at the concept of going to Atlantic City or Las Vegas: so here's what it's supposed to be: I enter an establishment owned by Steve Wynn, Marv Griffin, or Donald Trump ... all of whom are billionaires ... and give them more money. I don't thin' so, Lucy.

When I'm on vacation, I like to poke around smaller towns. Last year I spent a week in Portland, Maine; this year, I was going to visit Pittsburgh, but my father died. When I'm in a bigger town, I explore the funkier neighborhoods and the transit system if they have one.

10/20/03: KEV, DON'T EAT IT

Can we dispel the notion that all New Yorkers eat bagels? I was born at Maimonides Hospital in Borough Park in August 1957 and have rarely spent a lot of time outside NYC but I have never gotten into any kind of bagel habit. I find them hard to chew and essentially tasteless. I don't like cream cheese, and lox, is, what, raw fish? Sushi? Yecch. The exception is the hand rolled cinnamon raisin bagels I get at a joint in Bayside. They are exceptionally soft and accept butter very well.

I have never had a blintz ( I believe they are folded crepes with fillings?) egg creams (NYC 'egg creams' use chocolate syrup and seltzer but no eggs and no cream) and believe it or not, I never ate at Nathan's Coney Island until the fall of 1999.

I drink about 5 cups of coffee a year. If dragged into a Starburst, er, Starbucks, I'll have the iced tea no matter how cold it is out. I drink gallons of diet Coke which means I'll get whatever horrible thing is happening to me from caffeine from that, instead of from coffee. Though I eat tons of pizza a year, I never ate it until I was about twelve or so. I was a fussy eater and didn't like all the oil dripping out of it.

I trim all the fat off the outsides of any cut of meat I eat. When making burgers, I buy round so there's no fat or gristle in them. The stuff catches in my teeth. I won't eat ribs or Italian sausages because the fat is marbled in and can't be easily extricated.

I will not eat oysters. They say it was a brave man who first figured out you could eat them. If Jeff Probst made me eat them on Survivor, I would eat oysters. But I can't swim, so I couldn't be on Survivor, and so I shall never eat oysters. If it's slimy, I will not eat it.

If presented with broccoli, cauliflower or other cruciferous vegetation as part of a meal, I'll swallow it first and get it out of the way. That way I can enjoy the meal. I also eat fruit-at-the-bottom yogurt, yogurt first. Then I can enjoy the fruit at the bottom. "You're extremely Catholic," says Mary Beth. "You're a weirdo" says Christy.

Steve, don't eat it

9/27/03: IT'S OVER, JOHNNY

I'll celebrate my father's birthday (9/27/18-6/14/03) one last time today with a trip to Brooklyn.

9/25/03: ANOTHER HAPPY RECAP

I attended Bob Murphy's retirement ceremony at Shea Stadium Thursday night. Bob has been a Met broadcaster for 42 years and has been a professional for over fifty. There have been less of his "happy recaps" over the years than there should have been, but it was a great night at the creaking Shea. This was also the night that Mike Piazza debuted at first base in the top of the 9th. The first guy hit a line drive right to him, and Piazza made all 3 putouts in the inning. I get out to Shea only about twice a year, but I've been there for some memorable moments...

9/69: Pirate Bob Moose no-hits the Mets, who go on to win the World Series anyway. ( I also watched Yankee Jim Abbott no hit the Indians at Yankee Stadium in September 1993)
4/70: Nolan Ryan strikes out 15 Phillies while allowing just one hit
7/70: Tommie Agee hits for the cycle
7/78: Pete Rose rings up Number 39 in his hitting streak which would ultimetely reach 44
4/83: Tom Terrific's first game back as he returns to the Mets. He goes six innings in a no-decision. The game is ultimately won by Doug Sisk
8/85: Mets sweep Astros, 8-5 and 16-5
5/86: Mets lose to Reds as Pete Rose hits a three-run single (it happens when the bases are loaded, there are two outs and the runners are in motion on a 3-2 count) I also saw the Mets lose at frigid Veterans Stadium in April in 15 innings, meaning I had attended two of the Mets' 5 losses to that point in the season
4/87: Dion James hits a pop up that goes for a two base hit. The pop up struck and killed a mourning dove
7/88: Mets retire Tom Seaver's Number 41
5/98: In Mike Piazza's first game as a Met, he goes 1 for 5 with a double
9/03: Bob Murphy retires and Piazza debuts at first base

9/22/03: I SHUDDA STOOD IN BED, VOL. MMMMDDDCCCXXIII

On Saturday, I was ready for another round of Forgottening on the East Side when I pulled out my Olympus digicam...and...nothing. Didn't work. New batteries from Duane Reade were no help either. On Sunday, I was cycling around Hollis Hills. Flat tire.

9/21/03: EVERY DAY I WRITE THE BOOK

Ah, the Weird NJ guys have a book out...the JINXmagazine guys have a book out... Julia of Darkpassage has a book out (in German, yeah, but it's still out)...I gotta get cracking...or just shoot myself.

9/20/03: DREAMS OF THE EVERYDAY WEBMASTER

I've been dreaming vividly the past couple of nights. Thursday night, I dreamed that I had had an operation and the surgeon left a kitchen knife in me, and sewed me up. So, I'm walking around with this kitchen knife in me, I can feel it in there, but I can't convince anybody. An ex-boss in particular doesn't believe me and questions my motives, and mental competence, in making such a claim. Friday night, though, was the real horror. Though I'm an adult in my 40s (like I am now) my parents are alive and they're insisting, demanding, that ... I go camping with them. And I can't bring magazines or a radio or battery TV or anything. Jeez, whatta nightmare.

9/13/03: GO SPEED RACER GO

I biked the brand new Hudson River walkway/bikeway from 35th to 95th Street and back for the first time last weekend, and I'm afraid I have to give it decidedly mixed reviews. The good stuff first: the landscaping is super, as is the even pavement from Battery Park City north to 59th Street. I like the neo-Corvington posts as well as the neo-Triboro lamppost knockoffs between Christopher Street and about Gansevoort. There's always something to stop and see along the way, like the trapeze school, the old Yankee ferry, the Intrepid museum farther north and NYC's very first cable-stayed bridge in the same area. That's the problem. You're not supposed to stop.

North of about 34th the path narrows considerably. Now, a feature of bike paths is that you always have your Alpha Cyclists who want to race. I was stopped at the Intrepid, waiting for a flock of Alpha Cyclists to pass so I could get on the roadway, when I got barked at by an Alpha Cyclist going in the opposite direction for blocking his way. I didn't want to get into a fight with a big guy wearing those dopey bike pants, rainbow shirt and painter's cap so I just said, 'yeah, right' and got into my lane.

It shouldn't be that way. They should have designed it with enough space for the Alpha Cyclists as well as the casual Sunday cyclists, like your webmaster, who want to stop along the way and shoot pictures.

9/9/03

September 2001

I stayed at work, actually, until around 4PM, after everyone else had cleared out. The radio said there were no trains leaving Penn anyway, and the station was mobbed. They finally restored some service in midafternoon. I was pretty numb. I watched the thing on TV from hom for awhile, then headed over to the Bayside Times, where I work every Tuesday night anyway. The buses were free. I went to work the next day and there was actually some work to do, since only about ten people showed up. It wasn't till Wednesday when I was sitting at a Blimpies during lunch hour that the tears came. Not too many but they came.

Just treasure your loved ones and friends, as well as the landmarks in the places where you live. They're all unique and they make wherever you are special. You never know when they will be taken away.

9/6/03: CLASS....CLASS...CLASS...WAKE UUUUUUUUPPPPP! Thank you.

I found this while surfing about. The url had 'georgetown.edu' in it, so maybe they're teaching Forgotten NY at Georgetown.

"THE PAST is all around us in New York. It's on the buildings high above and in the subways and tunnels deep below. It's even in the paths the streets take. This site is your gateway to a New York City that existed long ago -- and still exists in a hidden form today." - - Kevin Walsh, "Forgotten New York"

The "Forgotten New York" website serves as our introduction to the idea of urban ruins. Urban ruins demonstrate the ceaseless flux and change that define modern city life. Part of this assignment is to simply enjoy the surprise and novelty of ruins at your doorstep. The other part of the assignment is to use urban ruins to understand the history of the city and the historicity of the city.

Your goal here is to use Kevin Walsh's website to "read" the history inscribed into the urban landscape.

How to read ruins:

1) Open the "Forgotten New York" website ((http://www.forgotten-ny.com/index.html).
2) Browse the site. Take a look at some of the geographical and historical backwaters of New York City.
3) Find one page on the site that intrigues or at least interests you.
4) Some questions to ask yourself:

- - where is this bit of forgotten New York located? (Boro, neighborhood, landmark zone)
- - what is your conventional perception of this part of the City?
- - what hidden history does the "forgotten" New York narrate? does this piece of forgotten New York also narrate an imagined future for the City?
- - how does this contrast with the site's current location or situation?
- - what past "New York" does this forgotten site summon up? how does that past New York differ in significant ways from the present incarnation of New York City?
- - why was this piece of the City forgotten? who forgot it? what city experiences or images of the City have been forgotten along with the material site? what is worth remembering about it?
--[why don't they pay me to do this?] Ah, how'd that get in there?

5) Write a two to three page essay explaining what your piece of "forgotten" New York means.

9/1/03: ANYWAY YOU WANT IT

Too new for CBS-FM and not classic enough for Q104, Journey, the megaselling pop band featuring Steve ("Oh Sherry") Perry, racked up several hits between the mid 70s and mid 80s, but these days are never heard on NYC radio. But they've been ubiquitous on TV of late since a car company uses the first three lines of a 1980 mid-charter:

Anyway you want it
That's the way you need it
Anyway you want it

Semantically, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but the horny teens the song was marketed to knew what it was all about. If you're curious what the entire lyrics are...here it is...

Any way you want it
That's the way you need it
Any way you want it

She loves to laugh
She loves to sing
She does everything
She loves to move
She loves to groove
She loves the lovin' things

Ooh, all night, all night
Oh, every night
So hold tight, hold tight
Ooh baby, hold tight

Oh,she said,
"Any way you want it
That's the way you need it
Any way you want it"
She said, "Any way you want it
That's the way you need it
Any way you want it"

I was alone
I never knew
What good love could do
Ooh, then we touched
Then we sang
About the lovin' things

Ooh, all night, all night
Oh, every night
So hold tight, hold tight
Ooh baby, hold tight

and so on. Of course, an analysis of the Beatles' early lyrics would produce similar banality.

8/30/03: THE HANDMADE BRIDGE

They sprung us from work on Friday at 2PM, so naturally, I made a bee line for the Brooklyn Bridge and walked over it. I had not walked the bridge since before 9/11/01, and I figured with a few hours to spare, I'd do it again because I genuinely enjoy walking it. I had had a forced march over the Queensboro on August 14th, when we had a blackout and the buses were too packed for my taste, but this time, I walked a bridge entirely voluntarily.

The Brooklyn Bridge was the first major bridge built in New York City and the first steel suspension bridge in the world. The details of its construction can be read in a variety of publications, most notably David McCullough's The Great Bridge and Sharon Reier's Bridges of New York, but here are a few of my own observations.

The Brooklyn Bridge was built just before the great age of mass production and assembly lines, so it has a distinct personality that no doubt reflects the sensibilities of John Roebling, its chief architect who died of tetanus before the bridge could be completed. It was a bridge built primarily for walkers and carriages, so it has a human scale quite unlike the mighty suspension bridges that followed it: it still has a relatively wide pedestrian walkway in its center, and indeed, even park benches for people to rest if they are weary. Though subsequent bridges, such as the Manhattan and Williamsburg, do include pedestrian walkways, it seems as if they were included to fulfill a legal requirement. The Brooklyn Bridge's walkway seems central to its existence.

Along the walkway, you can actually reach out and touch the cables that hold the roadway in place, something that is impossible on the other major NYC suspension bridges. About twenty years ago, the Brooklyn Bridge was falling into disrepair, as deferred maintenance had loosened some of the cables. One of them actually came loose and struck and killed a pedestrian. Since then, there has been a restored sense of what the Brooklyn Bridge, the subways, et al. mean to NYC, and greater importance has been given to their care.

I haven't been able to find much information about them but I believe that the distinctive lampposts along the walkway are the originals, and held gaslights when they were first operational. They have footholds along the shaft to enable access to the luminaires. Up until the 1980s they held incandescent "gumball" luminaires but they were subsequently replaced by more unobtrusive mercury lights that glow whitish-green. Oddly, I have never walked the bridge at night, which I would like to do soon.

Of course trolleys and els were a part of the bridge's past. By the 1940s, though, it was obvious that the automobile would be the conveyance of choice not only across the country but in NYC itself, and so the trolleys and els were wiped away and their old lanes turned over to auto traffic. As you walk across the bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn, after the initial climb where pedal to the metal vehicles roar by, by the time you attain the wooden-planked walkway you can almost imagine that you are in a city where there are no cars any more, thanks to a major repair to the roadbed about a decade ago that quieted it considerably.

By the time you're on the ramp down in Brooklyn, however, you are slapped in the face with the cold towel of reality as a maze of Robert Moses-ian highways appear. The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway bruited its way through in the early 1950s. You can almost sense that the remaining brownstone buildings spared by the Minister of Automobile's hand are huddling against each other to preclude their collapse. You descend into the median strip of mighty Adams Street, which was expanded from two lanes to ten during the Great Builder's reign.

As a Bay Ridger, I did indeed watch the construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge with interest as a kid back in the Swingin' Sixties. But the completed product is a mere conveyance; without flourish, ornamentation, character, or soul, it demands $7 to allow you entrance into NYC. The Brooklyn Bridge is free, and so much better: it is a handmade bridge built for gawkers and walkers.

8/24/03: I WANT MY MAYPO

I was flipping around the other night and on MTV, there was this chick getting a boob job. Right there in the OR. Blood, boob guts and nipples flying all over the screen. Must have been Road Rules or Real World 15 or something. Yessir, they've come a long way from Video Killed the Radio Star and Monkee marathons. Boob jobs are what the teens want!

By the way, Phil Mushnick is the best TV columnist in town. I read his column and I think he's me.

8/22/03: The MYSTERY TREND

Have the flashmobbers jumped the shark yet?

Jeez, I despise jargon. Jargon is for people who are in the club and want to keep people outside the club out. In that Steinbrenner/Jeter credit card commercial, there's a 1-second shot of a velvet rope. Velvet ropes are to keep the Kevin Walshes outta the places the Steinbrenners and Jeters are let into.

Brian says: "You are a contrarian."

Today is birthday #46. Those numbers are getting entirely too big...only Rather, Jagger and Darkseid are older than me now.

8/16/03: 25 MILES OF BAD ROAD

My Blackout Experience:

4:30 Thursday: walked home to fab Flushing from Herald Square. Timetable:

Reached LIC at 6PM; Woodside at 7PM; Corona at 8PM; Flushing at 9PM. At that point it was dark and I had had enough, so I cheated and took the bus from Roosevelt and Main back to Forgotten headquarters. Cursed out Con Ed to the neighbors outside. The apartment was pitch black and I had nothing to do. I monitored the situation from a battery radio for awhile, then tried to sleep. I can't sleep in hot, humid weather and tonight was no exception. From the bed to the recliner to the bed to the recliner again. At least I was under my own roof. So many people couldn't even get that far. About 4AM I gave up and turned to my Sony Watchman, which survived for about an hour before the cheap batteries sputtered out. At 7AM I called my employer's hotline (it has one) and it said two locations would be closed, but NOT the one I worked at. And, I heard a radio report that Midtown power was restored. So I took three buses to Midtown, to find power out and the store closed. So, took the three buses back home again where I was glad to find power restored. It had apparently come on around 9:30AM. I did have a good rest last night so I am ready for the weekend.

8/7/03: QUOTE OF THE WEEK FROM NIGEY LENNON

"When you never were hip in the first place, you can't become a square."

The moon didn't last long, it's pouring rain again.

8/6/03: MOON OVER FLUSHING

The moon is shining into my living room window. I note that because it means the sky is actually clear.

8/4/03: NEW YORK STYLE

Certain practices are unique to New York City and nowhere else. No, I don't mean waiting 'on' line or calling coffee with milk 'regular.' No, I'm talking about much more insidious matters.

1) The car is absolute king. Once in Hoboken or Yonkers or Cheesequake or wherever, if you step into the street the cars will actually stop to let you pass. Heh. In the five boroughs, the law of the jungle prevails and therefore, whoever is bigger or stronger is going to have the right of way. At green lights, pedestrians meekly wait for drivers to make a turn before crossing the street. And why shouldn't they? They're walking. They don't have enough money to ride and therefore...don't matter.

2) It's OK to not look where you're going. In New York City it is incumbent upon those who are looking straight ahead to make way for those who are not. New Yorkers are busy. They're yapping on cell phones. They get distracted by everything there is in the street. It is absolutely necessary for those who are looking straight ahead, who are obvioulsy antisocial because they are walking alone, to make way for their betters. In small towns, where there are not so many distractions, of course busy people have to be more circumspect, and if they bump into someone, that person is perfectly justified in the admonition, "Watch where the !@#$ you're going!" But in NYC the opposite applies. If you're rubbernecking at a passing fire engine and you bump into an obviously uncaring schlub who plows into you, you must say, "Didn't you see I was looking at the fire engine, you schmuck?" The proper response, if you are the schmuck, is to silently acknowledge the correctness of their argument and tell him you'll do better next time.

8/3/03: THE SIZE OF W'S EARS

George W. Bush has huge ears. At least, he does according to editorial cartoonists who disagree with him. After he attacked Iraq in March, his ears attained elephantine proportions on the editorial page. It's a traditional cartoon practice to seize upon a physical characteristic and emphasize it. Trudeau refuses to even depict politicians he dislikes. Even on the radio, Jay Diamond would repeatedly call Rudolph Giuliani "Giuliano," even though he knew darn well what his name is. The idea is to diminish your opponent by refusing to grant him the dignity of his appearance or his name. However, I fail to understand the emphasis on Bush's ears. They don't inordinately stick out. I mean, look at Will Smith or Reggie Miller. Now, those guys have jug handles. On the other hand, they haven't run the deficit to 500 billion.

8/1/03: AN UNWELCOME GUEST

Hey Forgotten Fans, I've noticed I'm getting a noisy pop-up ad when tuning in Forgotten NY. I have no idea how to get rid of it. Any suggestions? I imagine ValueClick, which does the banner at the top, and nets FNY dozens of dollars a year in sponsorship, is somehow responsible...

7/30/03: 10CC

You younger Forgotten Fans won't remember 10CC, but it around this time in 1975 that they had their biggest hit, the greatest ever pop song about denial, "I'm Not In Love." The song predicted the upcoming decade's fascination with synthesizers, but these guys made it all seem elegiac and wistful. You have to hear the full 6 minute version: the single edit, played by CBS FM, doesn't do it justice.

7/29/03: GODSPEED BOB

"I wouldn't say it's wet out there but on the escalator up, I passed a halibut, three salmon and Mark Spitz."

7/26/03: I OFTEN DREAM OF TRAINS

If you like photos of long-gone subway lines....and you wouldn't be looking at Forgotten NY if you didn't...check out this righteous new site on Brooklyn's old Culver Shuttle that makes a perfect complement to the page your webmaster cobbled together a couple of months ago. Public transit should always be rehabbed, not abandoned. Unfortunately, NYC is chock full of abandoned or rarely used train routes because the people NYC really cares about drive cars.

7/24/03: BREAKFAST IN AMERICA

For me, yellowcake still means Twinkies.

7/23/03: FCUK ME

There's this clothing line called French Connection United Kingdom, or something like that, and they use the first initials of the words to advertise the product. Why has that word, or its allusions or permutations, gotten as popular as it has? People feel the need to prove to others they're not to be trifled with, so they curse, or rev their engines, or snap their gum, honk their horns, yell on their phones, or do something that defines their space and issues a challenge. Everyone curses a lot more than they used to. I hold the line.

Now I'm gonna call myself Super Hero In Training.

7/22/03: IS HE OUT THERE?

In have dreamt about my father twice since it happened.

In one dream, he was sitting in his favorite recliner, looking at me from the side, and smiling. For some reason he had a gold or silver tooth. In the second dream he and his friends are gathered in the living room, where he is playing his accordion (he was a competent accordionist). Other than that, I don't recall much else about that one. I have noticed I don't sleep well unless I turn on the AC. I'm cold blooded.

7/21/03: FLOWERS OF ROMANCE

Smallville has had its Evil Flower show. This has been done over the years on many a sci fi classic:

--Outer Limits: spores from space become Evil Flowers and slaughter everyone aboard a space probe till after returning to earth, they are defeated...by rain

--Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: an Evil Flower from space gets in the head of Admiral Nelson, who becomes a raging maniac and tries to destroy Seaview--the sixth of seven times that happened to him during the show's 4-year run

--Star Trek: Two Evil Flower scripts!

1) Spock, McCoy and the crew fall under the influence of Evil Flowers at a remote colony, threatening to abandon ship. Spock falls in love. Only after Kirk gets Spock to beat him up are the Evil Flowers defeated

2) The Evil Flowers are a subplot to a larger Evil Computer plot (the Evil Computer is a classic sci fi staple), as Kirk, Spock and the crew must save contented natives from the paradisical delusion forced upon them by Vaal

--Smallville: Evil Flowers, this time NOT from space, affect Clark's family & friends: Jonathan and Lana get sexier, while Pete grows a personality

7/20/03. FOREVER NEVER COMES

I like my lo-tech blog page.

What I don't like is waiting forever for programs to open. I have one of those new G4 Macs along with a cable modem, so the web has never been faster. But it still takes forever to open up stuff like Golive, Word and Fetch. It inhibits my updating. If it's late and I'm half asleep, I'm likely as not to bother, because I have to be patient and wait for the software to boot up.

Adobe and Microsoft etc. should really do something about this. Working with a computer should be like turning on a TV.

7/19/03: TELL ME ABOUT YOUR DRUGS

"Rock" TV, like VH1 or MTV, is full of rock stars telling us their stories of how they kicked heroin, crack, coke, pot or whatever they used in their youth. Read books like Jeff Tamarkin's new one on the Airplane, or Mick Fleetwood's Mac autobio, or even read a recent NY Press in which Russ Smith, Jeff Koyen and Michelangelo Signorile all expound on their druggy youth and you'll see how much the shit has meant to society the past fifty years. OK guys, you know what? I'll make a confession for you. I've been clean my whole life. Never smoked a joint, never shot up, none of it. And you know what?

That makes me better than you.

At least in that one regard. Most people get into drugs because their friends do it and they want to fit in. I've never been saddled with that albatross. I've had ample opportunities. I have always had too much respect for myself. So don't come to me and ask for a medal because you used to be strung out and now you're on the straight & narrow. Let the networks and magazine editors come to me. Apparently my story is unique.

I hope to be posting more often. The past couple of months has been hell on wheels.

5/1/03: ATTACK OF THE MICROPHONES

Channel 5's Problem Solvers is ambush journalism at its worst. It's easy to give one side of the story when you own the microphone.

4/26/03: MEET ME IN ATLANTIC CITY

One of my fondest memories of the Swingin' 90s (I can't think of an adjective that begins with "N") is my repeated trips to Atlantic City. I'd pound the 'Hound down at least once a year to one of Merv Griffin's gambling palaces. Why? Not to shoot craps or stand in front of the one-arm bandits. No, I was trying out for Jeopardy! I'd be in a ballroom full of similar pasty-faced geeks taking the Jeopardy! test. For the record, I have passed five such tests and failed just one including one in Boston. I thought I was a shoo-in. But here's a secret for potential Jeopardy! contestants: as William Shatner would say, get a life. You have to come up with something interesting for Alex Trebek to talk to you about. Buying out the entire Roman Pizza stock, or impaling a fly with a flying tack (I did that once) ain't gonna cut it. You have to have something interesting going on in your life so he can talk to you about it. These days, you have to submit your name for Jeopardy! tryouts online. They haven't responded to me for some time; I suppose they're tired of my quixotic pursuit by now.

I was fascinated by Atlantic City. Not by the beach or the casinos. Early in the morning, I'd leave my room at the Howard Johnson motor inn on Pacific Avenue and stalk the streets. Here and there, there were these frame one-story wood buildings surrounded by hotel towers and casinos. Grammas were refusing to sell to Merv and Don, so they were building around them and were prepared to wait them out. One of these days I'll do a Forgotten road trip page about them.

4/25/03: THE SEX OF YESTERDAY

That new movie, The Real Cancun, featuring rutting horny teenagers disporting in Mexico, reminds me of my high school days. While I wasn't that horny (the girls didn't like me anyway) I WAS hungry.

Remember those Roman Pizza ads from the 70s, with a Roman in a chariot flinging pizza boxes at surprised suburbanites? I was Roman's Number One fan. In fact, in the summer of '75, I was devastated when I learned the company was going out of business. There was just one thing to do. I gathered up my meager bank account, brought it to the Key Food on 86th Street, and bought their entire stock. Then as now we didn't have a car, so it took me a good five trips but I got it all home. My father and the checkout girl were incredulous. About 50 boxes worth. They had about a dozen varieties including hamburger pizza, which I've never seen before or since. It took me till January to finish it off. And then it was gone.

4/11/03: YOU HAVE NO FAITH IN MEDICINE

Work, hospital, bed, work... That's what you do when your father is in the hospital.

2/23/03: I'M SO BORED WITH THE ___________________.

Even before I got hit hard with a cold on Friday, I must confess to a certain unexplainable ennui. It rarely happens to me. I have always had Forgotten NY, music, friends to fall back on when that happens but this time, none of 'em is working. I'm BORED.

That's why this column has consistently read like a parody of a weblog. I rarely have much of importance to say.

2/18/03: FISH HEADS, EAT THEM UP YUM

Can any Forgotten Fans tell me how did sushi get so popular? A couple of disaffected Yuppies write thusly in the popular (but now strictly pay-per-view) salon.com:

>>>So why not just pick up and go? We have great jobs that we can't replicate in a smaller city. We are terrified at the idea of spending the rest of our lives working at the local bank or sales office. We can't imagine going without good sushi.<<<

Sushi is RAW FISH. I walk past sushi joints and get a miasmic blast of air when the door opens that smells like RAW FISH. How did it get so chic?

2/16/03: DOLLY'S DEAD, BUT WE GOT OTHER SHEEP

I have the feeling that this little Iraqi adventure just isn't gonna work out. Though he's almost past the point of no return I don't think Bush is gonna do it. The Iraqi adventure has no public support outside the solid south. The public is not buying it.

The public proved to be sheep in other ways though. They jumped when Ridge and the Keystone Kops told them to tape up their windows with duct tape. Macys was buzzing with idiots panicking over imminent attack. I celebrated Ultra Double Secret Orange Alert Week by photographing subway platforms for Forgotten NY to see if the cops would go after me.

But Joschka Fischer is quite a piece of work himself:

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/68934.htm

Strange days when I find myself in league with a former cop beater.

2/8/03: SHAFTS OF GOLD

The day after Christmas, I'm standing at the bus stop on Beach 116th Street in Rockaway at about quarter to five when I noticed this tremendous shaft of gold on the horizon. I was mysitified for a second, but I realized it was the Empire State Building, illuminated by the setting sun. The ESB can be seen from the ground from as far east as Port Washington; I don't know how far away it can be glimpsed from the north, south or west. It puts in surprising appearances from wherever in the city you happen to be: you're looking off absently-minded toward the distance, and there it is. Try it sometime on a clear day.

2/4/03: DEATH FROM THE SKY

Probably the most haunting thing I've heard from the space shuttle disaster is that Laurel Clark's 8-year old kid was begging her not to go. He was asking his grandparents if one of them could go instead. His mother probably told him, I'll be back before you know it.

We had a mistake at work last week, something got missed and the wrong date ad was put in the paper. Who knows what happened with the Columbia. Maybe somebody forgot to check something. Sometimes that's all it takes. The devil is in the details.

While clicking the clicker recently, though, I stumbled on Duets With Deni on Channel 34, presided over by multi-instrumentalist and vivacious redhead Deni Bonet. The show is taped in her living room and features just what the title suggests, Deni and a guest playing five or six songs in a half hour. This gives Deni and her guest a chance to plug their latest activities, like a new CD or concert appearance. Deni is a violinist by trade, but is also an accordionist, keyboardist, guitarist and singer. Recent shows have featured, on separate occasions, Robyn Hitchcock and Kimberley Rew of The Soft Boys as guests. Anything that gets them on TV is OK by me.

1/9/03: THANK YOU VERY MUCH

There's a moment in the latest Austin Powers movie where a character named Mr. Roboto is introduced. Of course, I immediately thought, so when's he going to deliver the line? I didn't have to wait long. There's a few moments of buildup and then Mike Myers says it:
Domo origato, Mr. Roboto!
There's a similar moment in Blazing Saddles, but it takes a little longer. Mongo is onscreen for a few minutes before the inevitable reaction...
Mongo? Santamaria!
I never denied being a pop music junkie.

1/1/03: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEAUTY

I'm a big fan of Survivor, the TV show where they take 16 people and make them fend for themselves in some godawful remote location, lying and cheating to win a million. But the main reason I'm a fan of the show is, where else on television are you going to find a group of middle aged, out of shape people? People like me? Showbiz has always been about letting people escape reality by presenting impossibly good-looking people who are treated like royalty and who, eventually, believe themselves to actually be superior to those who watch them perform.

It hasn't always been that way. For over 15 years, Bill Jorgensen read the news on Channel 5 at 10PM. Bill looked like a frog, and I'm being kind. Things have changed. You cannot be an anchorman or woman these days without looking like Clooney, or J.Lo®, or any of these showbiz people I'm supposed to care about.

So far, Survivor is different; creator Mark Burnett seems committed to presenting a cross section of society. Of course, a couple of Adonises and Marilyn Monroes turn up in every new set of Survivors--ratings count--but Survivor seems to be the only place I can find people who look like Richard, Tina or Clay. People like me.

12/29/02: KING WHO?

One of the more famous Christmas carols is..."Good King Wenceslas looked out/on the feast of Stephen/When the snow lay round about/Deep and crisp and even..."

But Christmas isn't even mentioned in the song, and who was this Wenceslas dude?

Well, the feast of Stephen is December 26th; Saint Stephen was, according to the Biblical Acts of the Apostles, the fiirst martyr. And this year, on the 26th the snow was indeed lying about, deep and crisp and even. Wenceslas was the King of Bohemia.

One of my radio favorites, Dandy Dan Daniel, will be retiring from everyday duty on WCBS-FM next week.

12/24/02: BUT INSTEAD IT JUST KEPT ON RAINING

Those weathermen have taken away the snowstorm for Christmas, making it rain as usual with just the chance of some snow at the end of things. But I'm not depressed. Here are my 6 favorite Christmas songs, in no particular order.

Run, Rudolph, Run by Chuck Berry. Dave Edmunds doesn't do a bad job on it either.

Blue Christmas by Elvis. This is Elvis at his 1950s peak.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. The best Christmas songs are happy, but a little sad too, because things can always be a little better. Judy Garland sang it first, but check out Chrissie Hynde's version.

I Believe in Father Christmas by Greg Lake (of Emerson, Lake and Palmer). Based on a Prokofiev theme, this is a little sad too, but tremendously evocative.

Parade of the Wooden Soldiers by The Crystals. Phil Spector at the peak of his productive power in glorious mono.

Father Christmas by the Kinks. After a parade of pretentious concept albums, Ray Davies started writing punchy 3-minute pop songs again in the late 70s and this song proves he should never have gotten away from that.

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12/23/02: DELIBERATE INCONVENIENCE

The IRT subway at Penn Station has been my home platform for a decade now, ever since I decamped to Flushing from Bay Ridge to work for a well known direct marketer in Nassau County (which is not worthy of a mention because they laid me off along with 400 others when things got pinched a few years ago). To date, I haven't left Flushing and have enjoyed the swiftness and convenience of the Long Island Railroad. Most of my subway connections are made from either end of the Long Island Railroad concourse at Penn Station; the east end is at 7th Avenue, the #1, 2 and 3 IRT 7th Avenue line, and at the west, the A, C or E IND 8th Avenue line.

Both subway platforms at Penn are, however, among the more maddeningly constructed platforms in the subway system, for they were designed to be inconvenient. In general, a subway express train is accessed by strolling across the platform from the local, or vice versa. (As a rule, this act will result in the doors of the train closing in your face, since subway personnel are by no means under any obligation to see to it that subway 'customers' are able to make a successful transfer; they are obligated to meet their schedules.) To make a transfer from an express to a local at Penn Station/34th Street, you must first descend a staircase to a concourse, walk across, and then ascend another staircase to the platform. By the time you've done all this ascending and descending, the train you have been trying to transfer to has left the station. By the same arrangement, an express train passenger de-training at Penn/34th has to ascend three flights of stairs to reach the street. As comic Kevin Meaney's mother might say, "that's not right."

The arrangement has been in place, in the case of the 7th Avenue IRT, since the Penn/34th Street station opened, on July 1st, 1918. David Pirrmann's excellent nycsubway.org states that, "Due to the proximity of Times Square and anticipated passenger traffic, the transfer between express and local was discouraged by the layout."

So, you have a situation where the planners anticipated a heavily trafficked station and yet decided to make things as inconvenient as possible for the expected hordes! In a station when, in 1918, Penn Station, Macy's and dozens of other emporia were already going strong. It has to be one of the Interboro Rapid Transit's worst blunders.

It was a blunder that was repeated in September 1932 when, at the other end of Penn Station, on Eighth Avenue, the IND subway platform opened...repeating the IRT's 3-platform arrangement with its difficult local-express transfer! Who knows what they couild have been thinking.

©2002, 2003 Midnight Fish

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