Sequins and Snakes. (part one)

We drove in on Palisades, the highway running down the New Jersey shoreline parallel to the Hudson. Windows rolled down, rock music on the radio, shades present and correct. We were speeding into Manhattan in a second-hand Oldsmobile, heading for a gallery opening in Soho near the village. I had met James an hour before, he was an artist finishing at the gallery and hoping to make more contacts on the opening night: a showing of photographs of Transvestites in the city.

Looking through the windows, through the trees at the side of the road, you caught sight of buildings glinting in the setting sun. I could make out distant golden towers. The South Bronx. You never go in there, James explained… ever. But the whole landscape seemed so serene, almost benign. From this distance it felt like Manhattan was putting on a show, it’s outlines dissolving into ochre and sandstone blocks that shimmered and melted into each other. It looked, I don’t know.. enchanted. It was the first time I had seen the city since arriving almost a week ago.

A week ago. Once I had collected the bags and Billy and Rennie had found the car, I had watched from the back window as we swung away on the New Jersey Turnpike, the city growing smaller and smaller in the gloom. I had silently hoped I would be treated to a drive through the city before starting the long trudge back upstate to Valley Cottage, a good two hours drive out of Manhattan. No such luck. With a shrug of his shoulders Billy said that it was a bad place and he’d had enough of it as a cop. Why go back there, especially for a drive through. Which, when you think of it, is fair enough. I had a vision of clean canyons of steel and glass and straight roads, no problem to somehow dive into the city, drive up Fifth Avenue and then out again, like some detour through a picturesque village. Mmmm.. ok, maybe not.

James swung the car left and we joined the rest of the nigh-time traffic over the George Washington Bridge into Riverside along the shore. Uptown. Everyone seemed to be driving faster now. Picking up pace to match the pace of the city. James explained that communities changed every block or so, which means that you can go from rich to poor in about 300 yards. The north part of Riverside which is on the west-side of Manhattan is pretty poor, Harlem is two blocks away. We descended down a flyover, cruising past burnt out cars hidden in the trees, dodging potholes the size of elephants. And yet, despite the rundown, decrepit feel of it all, it seemed like street party time. Balloons hanging from lamp-posts, couples out strolling and little groups of toddlers playing under the watchful eyes of their parents in roped off sections of pavement.

I turned to James and said I presumed it wasn’t a good idea to stare. He said you never looked at somebody unless you meant it. I wasn’t so sure but what do I know?

As we pulled up to a stop light a little girl on a tricycle called out and waived. I waived back.

‘Do you know what my Daddy says?”
I said “No what does he say?
‘For Gods sake drive”.

It was friendly enough, she was five or six. I smiled. I had a vision of her dad’s panic in the passenger seat as his wife stalls their station wagon in a hostile looking neighbourhood.

James drove us down the Henry Hudson Parkway, opposite the New Jersey shoreline, Hoboken’s twinkling lights in the distance. The city really is falling apart. Roads are littered with huge potholes, crash-barriers have massive chunks taken out of them, and many street signs are just plain missing, which means getting around isn’t as straight forward as it should be.

The area used to be full of ship terminals, now there are rusted “Cunard’ signs fronting dark and ominous looking garages and bus stations. We watched as a young kid with a walkman and a real swagger disappeared into the blackness, away from the streetlights. Everything felt abandoned. Left to rot. How do you keep going in a place like this?

There’s no point in having a car in New York because there’s nowhere to park and it’s going to get stolen anyway right? Billy told me the story of the cops running the numbers of stolen cars a few years back. Most were traced to a prolific gang who were shipping them home. Amongst others, the President of a certain South American state was driving around in a Manhattan Jewish doctors Cadillac. He didn’t give it back.
We struck lucky and parked in the Avenue of the America’s and wandered through Greenwich Village. The village used to be very violent, which meant the rents were cheap so large spaces were easy to come by, hence the galleries and the artists studios. Now, it’s changing James said, like everywhere else in New York, nothing stands still for long.

So Greenwich Village is getting too expensive to support anything other than tacky clothes boutiques and smart bistro’s. Again it is rich and poor slap bang next to each other. All the neigborhoods change, people move on. Just as the Irish and Jewish communities moved to the North Bronx from the South because of the influx of black and Hispanic groups, now there are the Koreans and the Asians who are entering the city and changing it’s character yet again, causing the black and Hispanic communities to move on. It’s a very tribal place. And the tribes barely tolerate each other.

Tonight everyone is out on the street. So many of them you can’t just wander aimlessly you have to be going somewhere, have a purpose. The pace is quick, you have to surrender to it. Cramped small European style café’s are spilling customers onto the sidewalks, every few hundred yards there is a traffic intersection full of cars and taxis and white stretch limo’s, presumably they are all looking for somewhere to park. And if they don’t’ find anywhere, well hey, lets just stop in the middle of the road and let the chauffer sort it out. To say the limo’s are doing a roaring business is an understatement. They’re like taxis here. Every second or third car on the street on a Saturday is either a black or white limo. The longer the better. No doubt full of college kids blowing their parents money.

James and I picked our way through the smart bistro’s the tacky clothes boutiques and the pizza parlours. Endless pizza parlours! We eventually found The Gallery and walked up the stairs.

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