Solid as a Rock

I have written a number of times about the very rough side of New York City - you see this in living conditions, the street, businesses etc. In a city with such a wide range of resources and income with the people and businesses, you will see plenty of appropriation, improvisation and salvage. It often can be surprising or even shocking what can be seen in a place like New York City - see Very Practical and The Dark Ages.

Many New York City neighborhoods are in transition, often with a mix of of old and new. In time, gentrification usually rules the day and a transformation ensues. Occasionally, there are surviving holdouts due to special situations - long leases or building ownership. But even in the case of property ownership, the lure of big money by cashing in on the real estate becomes too great, and owners ultimately sell. A good example is Grand Machinery Exchange, the last of 40 dealers of machinery in the SoHo/Canal Street area. Sale of their buildings brought a small fortune.

In today's photo, the Chess Shop at 230 Thompson Street managed to scavenge discarded chess table tops in concrete with a steel banding from Washington Square Park, still under renovation in Phase 2. See the chess playing area here, prior to demolition. It is surprising how often one can see something quite edgy like this, often juxtaposed with the much more upscale.

Add piles of cinder blocks for bases, and you have some very durable chess tables for a long time to come. I asked the shopkeeper what they do with these after closing, but I had forgotten that there is no closing - the shop is open 24 hours, so there is no need to bring the tables in from the street.

Of course, a chess shop is not the type of business with the income to indulge in lavish furnishings, so this solution to their al fresco chess playing needs makes sense. No worry about damage, vandalism or theft. The tables may not be pretty, but like the Manhattan schist that this city is built on, they're solid as a rock :)

Come Together

When one thinks of Europe or New England, as well as many parts of rural America, churches do come to mind. Traveling through New England, where I grew up, the center of many a small town, as well as its most architecturally significant and prominent structure, is a church.

Churches are not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about or visits New York City - a place which is a national and international locus for so many activities and industries. On January 4, 2010, I wrote We Got Religion, and, of course, we have to have churches too. But a surprise to many is that New York City is home to two of the world's largest cathedrals and churches: Riverside Church, seen in today's photos, at 392 feet, is the tallest church in the United States (26th in the world), and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine is the world's largest cathedral. These are not often seen by the visitor or resident, as they are located quite off the beaten path.

Riverside Church prides itself on its interdenominational, interracial and international congregation with a long history of activism, progressive causes, and political debate. It is affiliated with both the United Church of Christ and the American Baptist Churches. From their website:

The Church commits itself to welcoming all persons, celebrating the diversity found in a Congregation broadly inclusive of persons from different backgrounds of characteristics, including race, economic class, religion, culture, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, family status and physical and mental abilities.

Past speakers at Riverside have included Martin Luther King, Jr. voicing opposition to the Vietnam War, Nelson Mandela after being released from prison, Fidel Castro during one of his rare visits to the U.S. in 1999, and Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The Gothic structure was commissioned by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in 1922 and designed by the architecture firm Allen, Pelton and Collens. The Gothic design is based on the 13th century Chartres Cathedral in France. The huge single bell tower is modeled after one of the towers at Laon Cathedral. The Carillon’s 20-ton Bourdon bell is the largest turned bell in the world. Church construction was begun in 1927 and completed in 1930. Riverside Church received New York City Landmark status in 2000.

The church is located at one of the highest points of New York City in Morningside Heights, west of Harlem, between Riverside Drive and Claremont Avenue, between 120th and 122nd Street, overlooking the Hudson River.

It is nice to see that whereas the dogma of organized religion is often divisive, Riverside Church has an articulated mission of getting people with very different perspectives to come together :)

The Hamptons

Passion for living in New York City is perhaps only bettered by the passion of many residents to get out come summertime. At one time when I was taking music lessons, I was forewarned by my teacher (a Manhattan resident) that she refused to be in the city in the summer - if I really wanted to, I could travel to her summer cottage outside the city. She had stressed that it was not fancy at all, but it was out of the city.

I have heard many extol the benefits of being in New York City in the summer - that it is easier to get tickets to many activities, things are less crowded, and there is an enormous number of summer events throughout the 5 boroughs. This is all true - I have spent most summers here, many without the occasional weekend getaway.

But there comes a time when it is so hot and humid that all this chatter about the benefits of summering in the city seems like cheap talk. I recall one summer night after an opera performance standing on a subway platform. It was so sticky, it made my skin crawl, and clothes just seemed to be an insult to injury. Yes, I had procured great New York City opera tickets easily and inexpensively, but those who were enjoying ocean breezes certainly must have made a better decision.

Getting away for the summer is not unique to the city - our suburban and rural brethren often take to the hills or the beach. And summer homes for the urbanite is a practice going back in time around the world. A good case in point are the Medici villas around Florence, Italy.

In New York City, the Hamptons (along with Montauk and Fire Island) are virtually synonymous with summer getaways. However, having made a decision where to go and the financial means to do so is only part of the solution. Getting there becomes another hurdle. For those who have selected the Hamptons, traveling 100 miles from Manhattan is now the challenge. There are a number of travel options: car, bus, train, plane or helicopter. Few can afford flying, and traffic congestion on the limited number of roadways out can be a nightmare.

In 1974, Hampton Jitney was founded with a single van by James Davidson, a resident of the Hamptons. Train service was and still is available from New York City but has limited frequency, with delays and service complaints. On the other hand, the Hampton Jitney has service as frequently as every half hour, leaving from multiple locations on the Upper East Side. I have never summered on the East End, but if I did, I think the Jitney or train would be the way to the Hamptons :)

Note: The Hamptons are a group of villages at the east end of Long Island. The area is a long time seaside resort known for its affluent residents and celebrities from New York City and around the world. You can read more about them here.

The Duke Lives On

It is hard to believe, but in 1997, when this statue of Duke Ellington was erected, it was the first-ever New York City monument to a black artist and the first memorial in the U.S. to Ellington. The project, originally conceived by American cabaret singer and pianist Bobby Short, took 18 years to come to fruition. Money was not the issue - the $1 million dollars needed was raised rather quickly. It was permission from the various city agencies, commissions and community boards that became a quagmire.

Short was inspired by a visit to Paris. From the New York Times:

The project had its beginning in a stroll Mr. Short took in 1979 through a park in Nice, France, five years after Ellington's death.

''I simply came across this very modest bust of Louis Armstrong and I thought, how strange that here, in France, they have found time and space for a tribute to a black American jazz musician, but in New York I could think of nothing like that,'' Mr. Short said.

His initial idea was to get friends to put up the money for a similar modest bust of Duke Ellington somewhere in the city.

Mr. Short formed a nonprofit organization, the Duke Ellington Memorial Fund, and went looking for an artist. The search led him to Robert Graham, a California-based sculptor whose work includes the Olympic Gateway constructed for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and the Joe Louis Memorial in Detroit.

It was Mr. Graham who felt that a bust of Ellington was not appropriate. ''He felt it should be something grand and elegant, the way he perceived Duke Ellington to be,'' Mr. Short said.

A number of sites were considered, eventually settling on Frawley Circle at 110th Street and Fifth Avenue, at the Northeast corner of Central Park - a symbolic gateway to Harlem, where Ellington spent most of his life. An 8-foot-tall statue of Duke Ellington and an open grand piano stand atop a disk supported by three pillars - each pillar comprised of three nude caryatid figures representing the muses, nine in all. The entire 25-foot-tall memorial is done in a black patinated bronze.

The intersection, renamed the Duke Ellington Circle, was redesigned as two semicircular plazas and forms an amphitheater for musical performances. Now, in memory, music and bronze, the Duke lives on...

A Place Called Home

When I drove a New York City taxicab in my college years, West End Avenue was just WEA on my trip log. A quiet, safe destination, with easy, traffic free driving along the wide, 4-lane, two way boulevard, and lots of big buildings.

If you read about West End Avenue, you will encounter words and phrases like "quiet", "convenient"," stable", "safe", "community," or "Park Avenue of the West Side." This grand boulevard is an extension of 11th Avenue and runs north-south from 59th to 107th Street on the Upper West Side, parallel to Riverside Drive (and Riverside Park), which lies one block West. Upper Broadway, with its plethora of shops and transportation, lies one block east - hence the "convenient" part of the equation. The tenancy is very stable, with many families living here from generation to generation.

Like its East Side analog, Park Avenue, West End Avenue is strictly residential, with virtually no businesses or commercial traffic except for trucks making local deliveries. There are no attractions here, and located so far west that very few, other than residents, ever find themselves here.

The neighborhood, however, was not always the genteel place it is today. From the New York Times:

For nearly 60 years in the middle of the 20th century, parts of West End Avenue were ''déclassé,'' Mr. Salwen said. S.R.O. hotels, prostitutes and drug addicts became common on some cross streets. But by the 1980's, the street had begun to recover its grandeur.

Like Park Avenue, the street is dominated by large apartment buildings. Most buildings here are prewar and over ten stories tall, dating back to the early 20th century.

From the Wikipedia entry for WEA: "The street is noteworthy for its almost unbroken street wall of handsome apartment buildings punctuated by brief stretches of nineteenth-century townhouses and several handsome churches and synagogues."

I agree, but do find the "almost unbroken street wall" of these large apartment buildings rather imposing. Having spent all of my adult life downtown in Greenwich Village, I find these hulking structures to be somewhat intimidating.

However, prewar apartments are typically larger than average - once inside these solid buildings, the spaces are quite comfortable and make very pleasant, quiet residences. And although the buildings feel so out of scale with humans, a home is more than just a space in a building - it's a personal place created by people. New York City has tremendous variety of residential structures, and whether small or large, short or tall, bright or dark, lavish or lean, in the Village or on WEA, inside every building in every apartment, for someone, there's a place called home :)

Kids

I was invited to be a speaker for career day at a New York City public school - PS 124, the Yung Wing Public School at 40 Division Street in Chinatown. This was both exciting and harrowing - I had never been in a public school in the city, and I also had never spoken before a class. I had written notes and a rough agenda, which were soon abandoned for a more organic approach.

The teacher who invited me was a former employee who, in May 2008, brought her class to my business for a field trip. That visit was filled with screams and squeals of joy. It was mutual adoration day. You can see that story and photo here.

Yesterday was a very different experience. It has been a long time since I have been in any school, and, good students or not, the kind of playfulness I saw on the field trip was reigned in by the school/classroom structure and atmosphere.

I made 3 short presentations to 4th graders - classes were rotated while presenters were stationed in various classrooms. Afterwards, I stayed and observed one of Judy's classes with second graders. Maintaining discipline and focus is a daunting task - constant vigilance is needed. Many of the kids were distracted, and controlling the talking seemed to be an unending battle. I can see why teaching children appears to be the domain of the young. Teacher burnout is a well known phenomenon for many good reasons - poor school resources, low pay, workload, student discipline, and high expectations for test scores and from parents.

A fascinating piece of technology was the SMART Board interactive whiteboard, which uses touch technology to detect user input and a projector to display a computer's video output, including Internet access. Digital pens and erasers replace traditional whiteboard markers and erasers. I used it to display one of my blog postings and also to simultaneously write a few words. Judy used the Smart Board in her class to display a countdown clock from the Internet for their 25 minute quiet reading period. The level of sophistication is very high - when I asked if anyone was familiar with Netflix video streaming, almost all raised their hands.

I was particularly impressed with the children's poetry work and the list of things that could be found in a poem - you can see it here in my complete gallery of photos.

I think I was quite unrealistic about my expectations - I suffered the idealism of a new teacher. As I left, I passed by the lunch room - the din was just incredible. It occurred to me that I had forgotten that these were good kids, just doing what kids do :)

Sleep Paralysis

Have you ever woken up from sleeping but your body felt paralyzed? Your mind was awake but your body still asleep? The ensuing terror and panic in those seconds or minutes that feel like an eternity can easily be understood, as one finally wrests free and fully wakes up.

Welcome to sleep paralysis - an enigmatic condition that has been documented for hundreds of years in a myriad of cultures, steeped in folklore. I have had this condition off and on since childhood, and, like many others, I thought that I was unique and that it was a sign of a serious disorder.

Studies show more and more how common this condition, REM atnonia, actually is and how much folklore has been attributed to it. Some scientists now attribute alien abductions and encounters with ghosts to sleep paralysis. The demon on the body of a sleeping woman in ''The Nightmare,'' by Johann Heinrich Füssli (seen above), is typical of one type of sensation described by people who suffer from sleep paralysis.

Like claustrophobia, sleep paralysis is not the type of condition well suited to a New York City resident. To be stuck in a tunnel can feel a little to close to REM atonia. Today's photo is of the Park Avenue Tunnel - one of only two such underpasses in midtown Manhattan, the other being the First Avenue Tunnel near the United Nations.

I have always relished the opportunity to drive through the Park Avenue Tunnel. Going north, the tunnel starts at 33rd Street and exits at 40th Street, connecting to the Park Avenue viaduct. This elevated roadway goes directly towards Grand Central Terminal, wraps around the Terminal and MetLife buildings, and descends through the Helmsley Building to reconnect to Park Avenue at 46th Street. Read more about the tunnel here.

Many drivers take the opportunity to indulge in a rare moment of being an automobile racer - tires screeching as cars snake around the buildings' roadway are sounds often heard. See the entire journey with my photo gallery here.

It has always been a freeing experience and one of New York City's small thrills to travel this length of road (23 blocks) with only one traffic light. Luckily, I have never been trapped in a traffic jam, and I hope never to get stuck in that tunnel or viaduct. With my vehicle not moving and my mind awake, it's a little to close to the trapped horror of sleep paralysis...

More about Sleep Paralysis: This condition afflicts normal individuals and those with conditions such as narcolepsy and cataplexy. During sleep, the body essential turns off, a form of sleep atonia. In sleep paralysis, the mind awakens before the body. Read a New York Times article about it here.

Frightening twist: Among the Hmong, an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of Vietnam, Laos, Burma and Thailand, sleep paralysis is known as "dab tsog" or "crushing demon." A number of American Hmong have died in the United States from Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome (SUNDS), a term created by the Centers for Disease Control. This condition is now believed to be a genetic disease, known as Brugada Syndrome, not sleep paralysis.

Living With Legends

Virtually every New Yorker has heard of the Hotel Chelsea, more commonly known as the Chelsea Hotel. The hotel is most well known for its roster of well known long-term residents - many living at the hotel for years. The hotel has been a home to writers, artists, actors and film directors.
A short list includes: Mark Twain, O. Henry, Dylan Thomas, Arthur C. Clarke, William S. Burroughs, Arthur Miller, Quentin Crisp, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac (who wrote On the Road there), Simone de Beauvoir, Robert Oppenheimer, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Wolfe. Stanley Kubrick, Ethan Hawke, Dennis Hopper, Uma Thurman, Elliot Gould, Jane Fonda, The Grateful Dead, Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Dee Dee Ramone, Henri Chopin, Edith Piaf, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Sid Vicious, Leonard Cohen, Madonna, Robert Mapplethorpe, Robert Crumb, Jasper Johns, Willem De Kooning and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

From the Hotel Chelsea website:

The hotel has always been a center of artistic and bohemian activity and it houses artwork created by many of the artists who have visited. The hotel was the first building to be listed by New York City as a cultural preservation site and historic building of note. The twelve-story red-brick building that now houses the Hotel Chelsea was built in 1883 as a private apartment cooperative that opened in 1884; it was the tallest building in New York until 1899. At the time Chelsea, and particularly the street on which the hotel was located, was the center of New York's Theater District. However, within a few years the combination of economic worries and the relocation of the theaters bankrupted the Chelsea cooperative. In 1905, the building was purchased and opened as a hotel.

Owing to its long list of famous guests and residents, the hotel has an ornate history, both as a birth place of creative modern art and home of bad behavior. Bob Dylan composed songs while staying at the Chelsea, and poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso chose it as a place for philosophical and intellectual exchange. It is also known as the place where the writer Dylan Thomas died of alcohol poisoning on in 1953, and where Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols may have stabbed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, to death on October 12, 1978.

Hotel Chelsea is also architecturally significant. The Victorian Gothic red-brick structure with its wrought iron balconies, located at 222 West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. One of the main attractions here is the art that graces the lobby and the 12-story stairway. The stairway is off limits to walk-in visitors (there is a monthly tour), however, the lobby is open to all.

I cannot speak to the rooms here - I have never been in one, but the place does has a reputation for shabby chic. People stay here for the history and artistic clientele and ambiance, not for the ultimate in luxury or slick room furnishings. At the current time, there are approximately 250 rooms in the hotel - roughly half are still occupied by permanent residents. Long-term residency is no longer granted to newcomers, and as rooms of long-term tenants are vacated, they are converted to hotel rooms.

The Hotel Chelsea is one of the most unique residences/hotels in New York City, if not the USA. For most of us, its past residents are a who's who of American culture. For those who were fortunate enough to have stayed there in the past, it was living with legends...

Shake Shack

Years ago, on a family vacation in a lakeside cottage rental, I had a hankering for a grilled cheese sandwich, which I rarely eat. A friend on the trip who loved cooking indulged me. It was extraordinary, and soon, my family members, jealous of my ravings, all clamored for their own. The secret? Just using better ingredients than what you typically find in the standard fare. Good bread, decent cheese and tomatoes. Voila. Gourmet American comfort food.

This is the formula for the Shake Shack, located at Madison Square Park. Take American fast food favorites - burgers, fries, shakes, and frozen custard - and let a gourmet restaurant owner take it to the next level. The New York Times describes the burgers as made from "whole-muscle, no-trimmings, fresh-ground, antibiotic-and-hormone-free, source-verified-to-ranch-of-birth, choice-or-higher-grade Black Angus beef."

I don't like waiting in lines in New York City for food, and lines at the Shake Shack can run over one hour. But if I ate burgers, I'd wait. (Shake Shack even has a live Shack Cam on their website to monitor the line.) Everyone I have spoken to that has eaten here raves about the food. At the online review site, Yelp.com, there are currently over 1,000 reviews, with an average of 4 out of 5 stars. See more photos here.

Shake Shack is the brainchild of Danny Meyer, no stranger to the food business. Meyer's company, Union Square Hospitality Group, owns 11 restaurants, including the Union Square Cafe, Blue Smoke, Eleven Madison Park, Gramercy Tavern, Tabla, and The Modern - a fine dining restaurant located in the Museum of Modern Art.

Meyer spent parts of his childhood studying food and hospitality in France and Italy. His first foray into business as a restaurateur was in 1985, at age 27, when he opened the acclaimed Union Square Cafe. This restaurant has repeatedly topped the Zagat Survey as the number one most popular restaurant in New York City.

Starting in 2001, Meyer's group ran a cart in Madison Square Park selling Chicago-style hot dogs. In 2004, the Shake Shack was born as a permanent seasonal kiosk. The distinctive structure, with its English ivy covered shed roof, was designed by the award winning architectural firm SITE (Sculpture in the Environment).

There is outdoor seating at the Shake Shack. On a warm evening, sitting amidst the trees in the beautifully landscaped Madison Park with views of the Flatiron and Empire State buildings is about as good as it gets. I'll get a shake or frozen custard. See you at the Shake Shack :)

Note: Shake Shack now has three locations in New York City, with more planned to come nationwide. They have made an effort to go green - wind energy, on-site composting, low voltage LED lights, and construction of their Upper West Side shop using sustainable materials. See their website here.

Related Posts: Life at Night, 23 Skidoo, Morphic Resonance, Equinox, ESB Straight Up.

Little in the Middle

More and more, there seems to be less and less of the middle. Certainly a city like New York is a place where people come for the edges and largely leave the middle behind. But now it feels like feast or famine. There are complaints of the loss of the middle class - people seem to be living either in multimillion dollar apartments or on the streets homeless.

Heat is particularly frustrating - your home or office is either freezing or stifling. It is remarkable at how poor the services can be in a place like New York City, even when you are spending good money.

In the 1980s, I was renting commercial space in lower Manhattan in a small five-story commercial building. Inadequate heat was a constant battle with management. I recall one occasion where we were absolutely frigid and the superintendent and his helper came by to investigate.

They arrived wearing insulated winter jackets and, after a few moments, proclaimed that it felt comfortable to them. Of course it is comfortable - you have been active and have winter coats on. Why don't you try taking them off, sit down and type for a few hours?

I am stunned that people would voluntarily sit and dine on the streets in the winter. It is amazing the number of people that to me appear grossly under dressed (or overdressed) for the weather.

The photo on the left was taken after 9 PM, with a temperature in the 50s. People are in T-shirts. This is not strictly a function of alcohol and the St. Patrick's Day celebration - I have seen people in shorts, tees and flip-flops for a couple of weeks now. People in the parks in beach chairs sunning themselves. A quick run across the street to the bank is one thing, but sunbathing in the park or eating al fresco in March?

The photo on the right was taken today, the following morning at 8:45 AM. The temperature is about 50 degrees, and this man is eating his yogurt and reading on a park bench. At least he has a jacket on.

Nothing drives people to extreme behavior like the first warm spell in spring. After a winter's diet of cabin fever, people are just dying to get outside. It would be perhaps more prudent to wait for warmer weather for dining at night al fresco or at least wear warmer clothes, but not in a city where there is little in the middle...

Related Posts: Spring Fever, Spring Madness, Weather Means Whether

Lemonade Maker

This story was going to be called Switchin', but on reflection, I realized that this would do a disservice to our subject. Let me explain.

One day, in the 1980s, I found myself with a California real estate broker in his luxury automobile. He was showing off his hands-free cell phone mounted to the interior of his car - a big deal at the time. He received a call from his office regarding a particularly difficult situation with a client. Not to worry, he said, because he was adept at turning lemons into lemonade.

It was the first time I had heard this old saying, and I loved it. The broker could be perhaps better characterized as someone who could sell refrigerators to Eskimos, but nonetheless, turning lemons to lemonade became a popular code phrase in my office when help was needed in dealing with a particularly difficult customer situation. When these calls were forwarded to me, I liked the challenge of making lemonade.

Subway service disruption is one of the most frustrating things that NYC commuters face on weekends. You can read about the reasons for this here. On Saturday evening, a friend and I decided to travel to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, by subway (rather than drive) to eat at First Oasis Restaurant, which is conveniently located on a subway line. Weekend travel on the train can actually be relaxing. However, no sooner had we started our journey that the service disruption monster raised its head, with a litany of arcane and sometimes unintelligible instructions barked from a poor speaker system over the ambient din.

Our fellow rider seen in the photo (who we learned on parting was Reverend Branch) immediately volunteered a translation and interpretation. He was going our way, and soon we were taken under his wing. He was a warm, avuncular human being and we took to him immediately. He parsed all the subway speak and disruption details and informed us of every train change and switching option. Switching trains (local to express and vice versa, etc.) from one track to another across station platforms is a common strategy used by experienced riders to save travel time.

At one point, the Reverend proposed running across the platform to catch another train that was pulling in, and we happily followed. Soon we were criss-crossing platforms, with the Reverend explaining every possible scenario and station detail. Where many would groan about disruption, the Reverend was turning lemons into lemonade, and we were drinking as fast as we could. This was actually fun.

Never believe what you hear about New Yorkers. Reach out when the opportunity presents itself, and I will guarantee that most often you will find warm humans and, if you are lucky, a Lemonade Maker :)

About Reverend Branch: The Reverend is Community Liaison for the High School of Sports Management Celebrity/Charity Softball Game. See their website here.

Note: I certainly do not want appear insensitive to those commuters who have to put up with subway service disruption on a regular basis. I know that our journey was not fraught with the anxiety of getting to work or another destination in a timely manner.

17 to 1

I had a close friend who really had the nerves and blood of a gambler, truly cut from a different cloth. If we both went to the racetrack with $20, I was inclined to place $2 bets on favored horses over 10 races; my friend was completely comfortable putting his entire stake on a 17 to 1 long shot in one race to win. Not even a place (2nd) or show (3rd) bet, just the whole thing on one horse to win.

It is not that I didn't like the thrill of winning at such long odds. It is that I hate losing, especially my entire stake in one bet. In finance, terms like risk averse, risk tolerance and the risk/reward ratio are frequently used. Brokers of investment products are forever promising above average returns at what is represented to be little risk. Investor's folly.

To some extent, risk/reward applies to entertainment and services. People who can afford it will spend more for a greater likelihood of better entertainment - a $100 ticket at the Metropolitan Opera will usually buy an evening of superb talent.

But often, established theater becomes too risk averse and, in order to not disappoint, becomes more formulaic, relying on standard repertoire or remakes of older successful shows. Enter the world of Off-Off Broadway, experimental theatre, improv and open mikes. Here, however, one must often suffer the slings and arrows of the outrageously bad performance. Nearly every successful performer started somewhere, but not everyone that starts somewhere goes anywhere - a fact one is likely to reflect on while passing time watching painful acts.

However, rules don't always apply, and one of the great things about New York City is that there are plenty of great values and even free lunches. But, as the costs for everything rise, the edgy and offbeat become more difficult to find.

At 94 St. Marks Place in the East Village, you will find a small underground theater, literally and figuratively. UNDER St. Marks is run by Horse Trade, a self-sustaining theater development group that also runs Kraine Theatre, The Red Room, and Frigid New York. It was founded in 1998 by Russell Dobular, Kimo DeSean, and Erez Ziv, three former Central Park horse-drawn carriage drivers. UNDER St. Marks has been an experimental theatre space since the 1970’s.

The theater is home to a variety of performances - Tuesday nights feature Penny's Open Mic where anyone gets a 7-minute shot at stardom. See their website here.

UNDER St. Marks is one of New York City's last stands in independent theater. Take a chance down those steps at 94 ST. Mark's, and for a small $3 wager I am sure you will find the odds of a good time much better than 17 to 1 :)

Note: The term "Broadway theater" refers to a group of 39 theaters defined both by size (minimum of 500 seats) and location in the theater district. Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway theaters are defined by size, not location: Off-Broadway has between 100 and 500 seats and Off-Off-Broadway fewer than 100 seats.

Le Petit Chambord

You are not going to see many sites like this in America. Every borough and many neighborhoods abound with interesting buildings and homes - architecture is of the best things that New York City has to offer.

There are many magnificent architectural structures in this city - Grand Central Station, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, the Chrysler Building, St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. John the Divine, the Dakota, the San Remo, the Beresford, Sherry Netherland Hotel, Waldorf Astoria, and countless others that I have photographed and written about for this website.

Keeping a lower profile, neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, Harlem, Chelsea, Fort Greene, et. al., have thousands of homes from 100 to nearly 200 years old. I am writing this from a period townhouse dating 1837.

The vista in today's photo was pointed out to me by friend and photographer Bill Shatto as we were strolling down Avenue of the Americas in Greenwich Village. This is a familiar site to both of us, but the time of day, clouds, lighting, and vantage point all conspired in a dramatic tour de force. The Jefferson Market Library was backed by the prewar building at One Christopher Street and framed by period rowhouses along 6th Avenue. Extending upwards is a clock tower atop the library building (cropped out in this photo) - to see the entire structure, click here.

One often misunderstood area in photography is the nature of outdoor lighting conditions. Although intuition would suggest that a bright sunny day would be ideal shooting conditions, in fact, it typically provides some of the worst conditions, producing photos with harsh shadows and overexposed highlights. Although there are many techniques to deal with these problems, in many cases, professional photographers and film makers avoid this time of day completely. A cloudy day, on the other hand, can provide some of the richest colors and most beautiful soft lighting conditions.

The medley of rooftops reminded me of the Château de Chambord in France. If you are not familiar with this extraordinary French chateau, see here.

Chambord was an indulgence, built by Francois I as a hunting lodge over a period of 20 years. It was never completed. The Jefferson Market Library building seems like it is in a perpetual state of repair - scaffolding has been around the base for seven years. Only another 13 years of renovation and we can rename it Le Petit Chambord :)

About Chambord: Building was begun by Francis I in 1519 and completed in 1547 (with one hiatus). 1,800 men worked on its construction. It contains 440 rooms, 365 fireplaces, 84 staircases, and stables to accommodate 1,200 horses. The chateau stands in a 13,000 acre wooded park surrounded by a wall 20 miles in circumference.

No Red Faces

When I first heard about homosexuals as a young boy, I wanted to know what they looked like. How could you tell if someone was gay, and where could you find them? And most importantly, how could they possibly identify one another in order to be together?

These things were cloaked in mystery. One of the few things I was told was that they had secret signals, such as wearing an article of clothing in a particular color, like a red necktie.* I never saw any men with red neckties, nor did I encounter any men who were openly gay. For that, I would have to wait until I moved to New York City.

Of course, at that time, things were very muddled and misinformation ruled. Homosexuals, pedophiles and perverts were all lumped together in a convenient basket of societal miscreants, a mess that took me years to untangle and sort out.

One of my high school math teachers was a very accomplished artistic figure roller skater. He was married. One day a comment was made aloud, directed towards him, implying something of an effeminate or gay quality. Our teacher turned bright red. Nothing else was said. Was he a married gay in the closet or just embarrassed by a false accusation? I will never know.

After my first visit to New York City in the 1960s, it was immediately clear that this was the locus for all things offbeat, unconventional, and counter-cultural - a place where those who were different could be themselves and accepted. This was the place I had been looking for, and New York City, particularly Greenwich Village, called out to me like a siren. It never occurred to me before moving here that the tolerance this neighborhood was known for would include gays.

When I was a freshman at New York University (located in the heart of the Village), we were told there was a bar nearby where gay men openly congregated - Julius' at Waverly and 10th Streets. This we had to see. A number of us went, nervously observing the patrons coming and going and even peering through the window, not knowing what to expect. However, they all just looked like everyone else. And I saw no red ties and no red faces...

Note about the bar: Julius' is the oldest continuously operating gay bar in New York City. The building dates to 1824, and it has operated as a bar since 1840. It has been frequented by many members of the gay community since the 1950s, including many well known such as Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Rudolf Nureyev (see NY Times article here). Although not technically illegal, gays were not served alcohol prior to 1966. The State Liquor Authority had a regulation against serving homosexuals in bars, by considering them "disorderly." In 1966, the Mattachine Society staged a Sip-In at Julius', challenging the SLA and getting the courts to rule that gays had the right to assemble and be served. This paved the way for the Stonewall Riots.

*Colored triangles were used to identify gays (as well as others) in the Nazi concentration camps during WWII. See a chart here and article here.

Shows Me Here

Although saddled with a less than stellar reputation, storefront psychics, like most other fields of endeavor, span a range of expertise (or perhaps more accurately, familiarity) with the arts of fortune telling.

In the 1970s, the niece of a friend was rather determined to get a psychic reading, so we obliged. After all, what was the harm of few dollars spent for her satisfaction and our amusement? And, to be honest, I had always been curious myself. So, off we went to find a Gypsy/Roma fortuneteller. This was a simple task - several hundred psychic shops dot the boroughs of New York City, and we knew of one just around the corner.

What we hoped would at least be an entertaining small indulgence turned out to be a disappointment. Our companion chose palm reading as the road map to her future. The psychic held her hand, palm up, and began to go through a list of questions. Each question/answer/prediction was embarrassingly simplistic and formulaic. "Do you want to be married?" Our companion answered, "Yes." The psychic pointed to a very general area in the center of her palm and said, "Shows me here you are going to be married."

"Do you want to have children?" "Yes." "Shows me here you are going to have children." Every one of the psychic's predictions was prefaced with "shows me here" while pointing to the same vague area in the center of our subject's hand. No effort at all was made to even remotely use the elements of palmistry. No life, head, heart, sun, mercury or fate lines.

Clearly we had not found our way to the top of the profession, but, like many disappointing experiences, a sense of humor can turn these incidents into comic material for years to come. "Shows me here" became a private catchphrase, and when popped unexpectedly at an opportune place in a conversation, it never failed to elicit laughs from our coterie of insiders.

I was always puzzled as to how psychics working alone could possibly even afford storefront rents, much less make a living. I was surprised to learn that, according to a 1999 New York Times article, fortune tellers at the time made an average of $200,000 per year. How? By reigning in clients, telling them that their problems require special treatment to remove curses or other negative influences. That costs money. Some victims have paid as much as several hundred thousand dollars over a period of time.
Actually, this activity, practiced this way, is illegal, and the police department has stepped up enforcement. From the Times article:

Fortunetelling is legal for entertainment -- like hiring someone to read tarot cards at a party. But the penal code calls it a misdemeanor when a person ''holds himself out as being able, by claimed or pretended use of occult powers, to answer questions or give advice on personal matters or to exorcise, influence or affect evil spirits or curses.'' Those who extract large sums are often charged with larceny, a more serious crime.

We all like the comfort of any easy repair of life's problems. However, I am sad to report that it "shows me here" that the local fortuneteller is probably not going to be the fix :)

Other Related Postings: Comin Up, Fit-ty Fi.

Sieve of Darwin

Have you ever seen a film about New York City that really plays up the artistic world of old? Where it seems that everyone is a writer, dancer, musician or painter? Perhaps the sound of typewriter comes wafting out onto the street as an actor strolls down some charming Village lane. Or frenetic singers bump into each other in a hallway somewhere in the theater district on the way to an audition. And someone is banging on their ceiling with a broom because a neighbor is hammering away at their piano at some god awful hour.

Romantic folly and Hollywood nonsense? Not completely. Because as I was reading for this story last night after 10 PM, I could actually hear Colin Huggins in my apartment through my open window (see here and here), playing his piano in Washington Square Park.

I can't imagine anywhere else where I could enjoy this privilege - my hair stood on end. Some days the city really feels like the promised land - everything I had hoped for when I moved here. A place where I could find a man like Colin Huggins, dragging one of his many pianos onto the street using dollies.

Colin is a classically trained pianist, has worked as a dance accompanist, and is music director for the Joffrey Ballet. He keeps his pianos at various storage facilities in Manhattan near his performance spots. I have seen him in Washington Square Park and Father Demo Square. He also can be found in the subway system. Huggins believes he is the only person to bring a piano to the subterranean depths - no small accomplishment (he uses a subway elevator - there are a handful of them in the city). In 2007, feeling he was getting a bit too much into a work grind, Huggins tried bringing a real piano into Washington Square Park. From Colin's website:

I've been a dance accompanist for five years in New York now. And even though I enjoy it, it started to make me feel like the old man behind the piano. When I began to lose sleep every night and found myself irritable everyday, I knew without a doubt, it was time to figure out how to feel like a rock star instead.

So last summer (2007), for fun, I tried bringing a real piano into Washington Square Park, and honestly, I'd never felt so good about an activity in my entire life. I made money, played songs that I really enjoyed, and made a lot of other people happy too. No matter what age or cultural background the listeners were, I could figure out something to play that would make them smile. It's a challenge I'm really excited about. So although it may seem like I'm going down on the totem pole of career choices and stability, I feel so much better about myself and so much more connected to the community here and the arts in general.

When I asked Huggins for his contact information, he handed me his card, which said:

Colin Huggins / Pianist Rock Star / World's Happiest Man / www.thecrazypianoguy.com

You will still find thousands of working artists in New York City. Although I do fear for their survival, as many are squeezed into the most inhospitable neighborhoods in the outer boroughs, I am hopeful that those with resourcefulness and tenacity (and perhaps day jobs) will survive the sieve of Darwin :)

An inspiring note: As I write this, I am listening to the Chopin Nocturnes and Waltzes played by Artur Rubinstein, considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. I am absolutely astonished reading about Rubenstein. A prodigy at age 4, Artur was fluent in 8 languages, had perfect pitch and a photographic memory, keeping most of his repertoire in his head. From Time Magazine:

In 1903 he caused a sensation in Warsaw by performing Paderewski's Sonata in E Flat Minor the day after it was published; he learned Cesar Franck's complex Symphonic Variations on the train en route to a concert hall in Madrid. He can commit a sonata to memory in one hour, and he can play as many as 250 lieder. His friends used to play a kind of "Stump Artur" game in which they would call out titles—excerpts from symphonies, operas, Cole Porter scores—to see if he could play them. "Stumped Friends" would have been a better name for it. "Rubinstein," says Conductor Edouard van Remoortel, "is the only pianist you could wake up at midnight and ask to play any of the 38 major piano concertos."

"When I play, I turn the pages in my mind," he explains, "and I know that in the bottom right-hand corner of this page is a little coffee stain, and on that page I have written molto vivace."

But Rubenstein was not just a brilliant technician. He was the consummate artist:

On stage, I will take a chance. There has to be an element of daring in great music-making. These younger ones, they are too cautious. They take the music out of their pockets instead of their hearts.

Respect

If you have never been to a New York City comedy club, you owe it to yourself. The city abounds in comedy clubs in many neighborhoods. New and established talent can be seen on a nightly basis. Cable TV and the Internet have made available an enormous amount of comedy - live and recorded. However, there is nothing like the infectious effect of live comedy on an audience.

I have frequented a number of New York City's comedy clubs over the years. Comics will often used the word "killed" to describe a successful show - e.g. he really "killed." This is nearly literal - I have been to many shows where people look like they are going to die with uncontrollable laughter, tears running down their faces and where smiles sometimes even turn to grimaces of pain. I have woken up after a previous night's comedy show with actual muscle aches from laughing. But it is very therapeutic.

New York city has been a birthplace, mecca and an incubator for comedic talent - standup comedians, comic film actors and writers. Particularly the Jewish American comedian - take a look at this short list:

Larry David, Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld, Jackie Mason, Zero Mostel, Joan Rivers, Groucho Marx and family (UES/Carnegie Hill), Mel Brooks, Andy Kaufman, Alan King, Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon. Milton Berle, George Burns and the newer crop like Todd Barry, Whoopi Goldberg, Al Franken, Jon Stewart and Bill Maher.

Rodney Dangerfield, (born Jacob Cohen, just outside New York City in Babylon, Long Island) was an influential comedian well known for his standup work and film. His signature catchphrases, "I don't get no respect" and "I get no respect" are legendary, as are his comedy routines built on his unique style of self-deprecating humor.

Dangerfield shot to stardom after an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.* On September 29, 1969, Rodney opened Dangerfield's, the longest running comedy club in the world. It is located at 1118 First Avenue at 61st Street in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Dangerfield's club was a broadcast venue for a comedy showcase series with HBO.

It has often been asked: "Why so many brilliant Jewish comics?" Suffering and persecution are common themes in the answers:

"Look at Jewish history. Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So, for every ten Jews beating their breasts, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast beaters. By the time I was five I knew I was that one." - Mel Brooks

"The truth of the matter is, persecuted people have two things they can do to win their point." "They can punch back, or they can defuse it with laughter." - Carl Reiner

Rodney Dangerfield, like all the other great New York City Jewish comedic talent, easily gets my respect...

*Ed Sullivan (1901-1974) hosted one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S. television history, from 1948 to 1971. Sullivan was also born in New York City. Broadcast from CBS Studio 50, it was renamed The Ed Sullivan Theater in 1967 and is currently the home of The Late Show with David Letterman.

When Your Name is Mud

As much as I dislike chasing the latest trends or frequenting the latest scenes, I also don't want to be the last on the block to know about a place that is genuinely a great find. All of my friends had recently discussed the coffee and ambiance of Mud, and on a recent visit to Doma, I overheard someone tell his companion that Mud in the East Village was also a cool place, inhabited by writers. So it was on the must visit list.

And so I was quite pleased that on a friend's birthday celebration on Saturday night, a decision was made at dinner to go somewhere else for dessert. This is a common phenomenon in New York City, because a specialist in desserts and (and coffee) is usually just around a corner or a short stroll away, particularly in downtown Manhattan. This dessert somewhere else, akin to bar hopping or a pub crawl, is motivated by any number of reasons - change of scenery, better desserts or better value.

At Mud, the desserts are quite pricey, so I would not encourage value shoppers to seek this place out. However, being in the cafe business is tough these days. It is not only competitive, but with the rain (or reign of laptops), these places have become second living rooms. Some customers may buy one drink and spend the afternoon. At this point in time, in small cafés like this, pricing reflects more a space rental fee than the value of food or beverage.

But the ambiance is tres cool, there is a garden in the back (glass topped in winter), the desserts are excellent, and the coffee - well, Mud gets raves, but I leave you to decide. I am not a coffee drinker, and even at that, coffee must be up at the top of the list of most contentious topics in New York City, along with pizza and Japanese restaurants.

Mud was launched as Mudtruck in 2001 by husband and wife Nina Kay Berott and Greg Northrop. Mudtruck was immediately compared to the green giant of coffee - Starbucks. The pricing from the Mudtruck was significantly less than the Starbucks surrounding it. Add a quality brew, and the place quickly became a regular stop for many.

The orange vehicle, a converted Con Ed truck, can be found at Astor Place (and now a second location on Greenwich Avenue). At the Café, they sell their own custom blend of coffee beans, along with mugs and Mud branded apparel. There's a mini industry here with the Mudspot, Mudtruck, Mudshop, Mudmusic. It gives a new meaning to your name is Mud :)

Photo Note: Orange is a dominant color theme at Mud. Appropriately, our birthday boy also loves orange - that's his T-shirt in the upper right corner of the lower photo :)

For Whom the Knell Tolled

Please listen to the audio while you read this ...


I recall being in a tiny village one morning in France and seeing the most extraordinary thing - an old man hanging a huge basket of flowers in the town center. Nothing about the deliberate act seemed practical at all. It looked like a lot of work, the kind of beautification effort rarely seen in New York City.

In other medieval villages, there were old men playing boule and chatting. There were markets. And if I was lucky, there were church bells. There is nothing more evocative than being in a small town and hearing the peal of church bells. I am happy that I am not a devout atheist - it would be much more difficult to appreciate the great churches and temples of the world.

I met author Terry Miller once, at a signing for the release of his book Greenwich Village And How It Got That Way. In speaking to him, I made a remark regarding the over-commercialization of many areas of Greenwich Village. He was quite quick to retort, "Where else are you going to live - Europe?"

I have reflected on this for years. I don't dislike the United States - as I have met people from other countries over the years, I have gotten to appreciate this country more. But I do love Europe. And I do believe Greenwich Village has the closest thing in the United States to the ambiance of the older neighborhoods of cities and towns of Europe - the food, arts, culture, street life and architecture, with its hundreds of 19th century row houses.

As I walked through the South Village along Thompson Street recently, I heard the ringing of church bells coming from St. Anthony's Church (officially the Church of St. Anthony of Padua), which runs from Sullivan to Thompson Street along Houston Street. I ran hurriedly to record it, expecting only to get a few final rings for the 11th hour. The ringing, however, continued for quite some time. I discovered that there was a funeral being held, explaining the long ringing. I can not tell you for whom the death knell tolled, but it called to me and I went...

Photo Note: The tall slim tower in the left photo is the bell tower.

Viva ViVa

There are barometers for New York City. Things that can tell you about a neighborhood, that it is on the move and has a new identity. Perhaps a catchy acronym that real estate brokers and their customers can wield as a balm to soothe any fears of investment or as a location to actually live in.

A Fairway market is also a good barometer. This store is well loved in the city. It is a large operation, and it is doubtful that they are going to make an investment in a neighborhood with no promise of growth and development for residential use. And I would go as far to say that they are a contributing factor in the livability of an area - particularly a neighborhood transitioning from commercial/industrial use to residential, such as Red Hook in Brooklyn - places that are somewhat remote and have a dearth of services.

Manhattanville, an area of West Harlem stretching from 125th to 135th Streets was an independent village in the 1800s. The area furthest west against the Hudson River along 12th Avenue is called ViVa, for Viaduct Valley. The tiny neighborhood sits under the Riverside Drive viaduct, built in 1901. The area includes West Harlem Piers Waterfront park (from 125th to 132nd Streets), which was opened in 2008 and includes a fishing pier, a kayak launch and water taxi landings.

ViVa, at one time a meat packing district and more recently a manufacturing and warehouse district, has taken some time to gain momentum - Fairway has been in the neighborhood since 1995. Restaurants have led the renaissance, and 12th Avenue has become a restaurant row - see article here.

Columbia University is the big player here, with a major expansion planned. Property has been acquired for their new 18-acre campus - see map here.

Of course, not everyone has the assets of real estate developers, new residents or Columbia University. Depending on who or where you are, I imagine many, but not all, are cheering, Viva ViVa...

Note: The Cotton Club shown in the photo has no historical connection to the original club, which was located in Harlem.

With All Due Respect

On my last visit to Harlem on a Sunday, I witnessed huge numbers of people in fancy clothes getting in and out of vehicles. There were traffic jams in front of churches as vans and cars unloaded church congregation members.

On January 4th, 2010, I wrote We Got Religion, but in Harlem, they really got religion. For years I have been threatening to see a gospel performance in a Harlem club. But gospel does not have its roots in night clubs. It is Christian-based music sung to express a spiritual belief and finds its home in churches. And in New York City, we find the most well known in Harlem.

There is a tourist industry built around visiting the various churches, with buses and groups visiting on Sunday mornings. Harlem is one of the top tourist destinations in New York City. Few New York City residents, however, venture there. Distance from Midtown, downtown and other boroughs is somewhat a factor - for most residents, Harlem is a destination.

As pointed out in a New York Times article, this whole phenomenon is controversial:

A hint of annoyance is sometimes evident as church members complain that they are on display. One Harlem minister admitted to mixed feelings about visitors who tend to behave like members of an audience rather than as worshipers. Few bow their heads in prayer. Fewer still join in as the congregations sing from their hymnals. But, he conceded, language may be a barrier to participation.

Others point to the reality of contributions from tour companies and individuals that help finance church-based community programs. And there's some expression of begrudging respect for people who appreciate good music and are willing to venture uptown to find it.

We have the classic dual edged sword of tourism - welcomed income and unwelcomed impact that crowds of tourists have on a visited place.

On my recent excursion to Harlem, I photographed the very striking Mount Neboh Baptist Church. Unbeknownst to me, this is one of the premier church venues in Harlem for gospel music. Others include Abyssinian Baptist Church, Canaan Baptist Church and the Greater Refuge Temple. See article here.

My understanding is that the church services are extraordinarily spirited and electrifying. I plan on going, with all due respect...

Miracles In Our Midst, Part 2

See Part 1 of this story here.

At one time, Greenwich Village and SoHo had a large number of independent natural food stores, virtually all of which have closed. Whole Foods (no relation to the existing national chain Whole Foods Market), at 117 Prince Street, stood for 3 decades, from 1970 to 2000. This and a second Upper West Side location were owned by Charles Rosenblum. The Prince Street location was the largest natural foods store in New York City in dollar sales and became a mini mecca of sorts. My own business was located only a few short blocks away and my walk to work took me by the shop daily, so I frequented it often over many years.

It was here in the early 1990s that I met David Miller, a man who worked the vitamin department. He was extraordinarily and curiously knowledgeable - the reason became immediately apparent once I learned that his intention was to enter medical school. At a later point, while in medical school, the demand for his expertise became even greater for David in vitamins at Whole Foods.

David appeared to have a West Indian accent, so I inquired as to his background. I was stunned when he told me he was from Dominica. If you have read Part 1 of this story, you know of someone rather obsessed with this island nation. The tiny population of the island made it unlikely that I would ever meet a native by chance in New York City, so this discovery was a major event. Of course, I told him of my romance with the island, but words are cheap, and it is easy to imagine I might be perhaps trying to ingratiate myself with him.

How was I to demonstrate the sincerity of my special interest in Dominica? Quite simple - exhibit A from Part 1 of this story should do rather nicely, so I announced to David that I would return the following day with something special that I assured him he would never see in New York City.

The next day, I strolled buoyantly down Prince Street with my 24" x 41" British Ordnance Survey map of Dominica and showed it to David. He was astounded and said he had not seen a map like that outside the classroom when growing up on the island. That day cemented our unique connection.

Recently, after 10 years of losing contact, I ran across David in a white lab coat with his stethoscope at Lifethyme, a natural foods shop in the Village. I was pleased to learn he is now Dr. David I F Miller MD, a graduate of Ross School of Medicine in Dominica, and is currently looking for a residency. David works at the shop several days per week, helping hundreds of individuals who query him on every imaginable ailment.

In the time I was in the shop to take photos of him, I spoke with a long time devotee who championed David as no less than a miracle worker, having helped him through ailments. He detailed to me his medical treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and the improvements he saw with David's recommendations. He knew of many others who had similar experiences.

In an amazing twist, David told me of a recent discovery in Dominica. There are 22 centenarians out of the island's almost 70,000 population - three times the average incidence in developed countries. The reasons for this phenomenon are the subject of current research at the Ross University School of Medicine.

Perhaps this was the island Eden I was searching for. But with a doctor from Dominica dispensing free advice, why look so far from home when we have miracles in our midst? :)

Note about David: Dr. David I F Miller, MD was born in Roseau, Dominica in 1966. After the devastating Hurricane David of 1979, David lived for a time in Montserrat, West Indies. He moved to the US in 1987 and returned to Dominica, where he attended Ross School of Medicine from 2004-2008. He currently is married and living in Brooklyn, New York.

Miracles In Our Midst, Part 1

Part 2 of the story is here.

In the 1970s, New York City was not particularly hospitable to the vegetarian or natural foods devotee. Granted, it was better than the suburbs, where anyone with such a dietary regime was regularly cross examined as to the reasons why. Vegetarianism did not have the cache it does today, where Hollywood stars adopt it as the latest fashion, like a pair of Birkenstocks or Buddhism.

Natural food stores and a handful of vegetarian restaurants existed, but outside of these outposts, natural foods did not permeate the fabric of the American culture the way is does today. Soy milk, tofu, brown rice, whole grain cereals, bottled smoothies - these items are common today in virtually every grocery shop, deli in New York City, but at that time, they were hard to come by and had to be ferreted out, tantamount to panning for gold.

There were books such as Survival Into the 21st Century (over 1 million copies sold) by Viktoras Kulvinskas and Man's Higher Consciousness by Hilton Hotema, which became nearly biblical with the vegetarian community and members of the health food movement. The authors espoused various dietary philosophies such as fruitarianism, mucusless diets, liquidarianism, sproutarianism, raw foodism, veganism and even breatharianism. On occasion, one of these gurus might visit the city for a presentation of sorts. There were health expos at the convention centers.

This environment, along with the idealism of youth and a desire for an idyllic Eden, led to my long obsession with tropical islands, where I dreamed a person might live on the fruits of nature. Stories of dietary extremists like Johnny Lovewisdom and his attempt at recreating a paradisaical life in the Andes of South America were the inspiration for many.

Cold, dreary New York City winters seemed antithetical to visions of tropical paradise, and soon I needed to claim my own Eden, even if for only 10 days at a time. However, my flavor of Eden included hot showers, air conditioning (or at least fans), and flush toilets. So, I opted for tropics close to home with some modcons - the West Indies. I visited many of these islands over several years, but none had the impact of Dominica (not to be confused with the Dominican Republic). This lush island was home to rain forests, rare birds, waterfalls, daily rainbows and mountains - Morne Diablotins rises to 4,747 feet - quite dramatic for an island of only 291 square miles.

It was the botanic garden I had been searching for, and I made three visits. I had the island virtually to myself - the scarcity of beaches is one of the primary reasons that the island is little known and the least visited of the Caribbean islands (around nearly the entire island, green covered mountains plunge to the sea). You can read more about this remarkable little island gem here.

Is there a stronger connection between Dominica and New York City than my ruminations and obsession? Yes, there certainly is, but for that, you have to meet David Miller. We will do that tomorrow in Part 2 :)

Photo Note: This is a British Ordinance survey map of the island dated 1982. I purchased this large map (24 in. x 41 in.) on one of my visits to the island and, on my return, had it mounted on foam core.