In a New York Moment

To walk New York, along its grids of streets interrupted by their expansion into public spaces (far too few) is to realize that the city makes up for its vulnerabilities and insecurities with a certain overcompensation. A mass onslaught of density and scale. It is a city of contradictions which reinforce the whole.

Our gaze along the avenues is drawn to the infinite whose unperceived ends are complimented by the streets which end in water. Manhattan, an obvious island, gives the illusion of boundaries, security and defensibility as its tentacles appear to stretch into its metropolitan surroundings. But the island is a form of isolation; there is Manhattan and then there is “other.”

What relief is to be had from these man-made slot canyons? Instead of public squares placed every few blocks like those in Philadelphia, or Savannah, the city provides most of its open space in one large primary conception known as Central Park. The park was designed (by Frederick Law Olmstead) with such scale and dimension, that when viewed from within, the large buildings of the city feel in scale with the green space. In a triumph of partial seclusion, it is possible to stand in Central Park without being able to see the skyscrapers and towers which surround it, the illusion of isolation broken if you stop to listen for the noise. But such a compromise does nothing to lesson the beauty of a glimpse of this modern day Atlantis from Sponge Bob’s (™) Central Park bottom. A Bottom which is more than 50 blocks long (2.5 miles in length) and one half a mile wide, Central Park is a giant hole of intentional space surrounded by an unrelenting grid of stylized monuments. Central Park is another island; an oasis in a city desert, if you will.

The park offers a mental and physical escape from a the city’s buildings which, in contrast, seem to provide enclosure and defense. Central Park offers an island of peace, rest, and relaxation within an island of…constant motion.

Such psychological warfare within its constructs makes New York appear audacious, even aggressive. In such a place, little moments of human activity are heightened in their significance. Human awareness is inevitable. The physical limitations of shared ground by millions of people forces everyone inhabiting it to recognize and be cognizant of the other. A successful coexistence in such confined spaces must entail the ability of someone to vigilantly maintain their own privacy without bringing harm to others. Everyone learns a personal mix of privacy and civility based upon their external circumstances. It can be exhausting and invigorating. Unusual juxtapositions create frozen moments to be negotiated by the observer.

The essential tool required for this NYC survival kit is the ability to divide time into separate moments (for the individual, the family, the community, its services, etc.). In a form of New York irony, one must acknowledge these almost sacred moments of privacy to be a part of this place. Privacy achieved with headphones, tents, hammocks, canopies, a gesture, a secluded plaza, a recessed doorway, planters, barriers, umbrellas, cell phone obsessions and every other invention permissible in a city with an underlying social contract that brings no harm to another’s ability to seek the same; until a moment changes.

Neighborhoods

New York City has its neighborhoods, each with a different perspective on what it means to live in a dense city. At least, that’s what it feels like to a visitor. The Upper East Side is where grit is scraped and removed from building and human, to the most realistic extent such things can be scraped. Residents dress with a certain casual ease, the appearance of “not trying too hard” the hallmark of confidence and privilege which wealth can afford to distance oneself from grit. MOMA, The Guggenheim and the Frick Collection all contribute to this distancing through the lens of refinement which ironically, when placed on a camera, can be revealed as artificial.

The Upper West Side embraces more of the grit, and along with its less sterilized account of its general aging, a certain embrace of something more youthful, something less convenient, something more affordable (did I just write “affordable?”), something shared and less individualistic. It forgoes an East Side peacefulness or more accurately, calmness, to bring more life to its streets. It reveals some of its inner workings for the sake of less friction, and perhaps, a touch more immediacy.

Lincoln Square is where the mix of East and West Sides takes place in midtown. It retains West Side grit until one arrives at Lincoln Center, where it becomes a center piece of sophistication coinciding with a youthful exuberance. Lincoln Center is an artificial construct with its main intent to bring the international world of the Arts to New Yorkers, within a New York style, of course. Its noble purpose, by elevating Art to its capital letter status, is to house patrons under one templed roof (or 3 in this case) to experience their emotions of a shared existence, during a particularly small moment in time.

Hells Kitchen has been playing a gentrified catchup to its Northerly West Side neighbor. It stubbornly tries to retain its affordability (in very relative terms, as it is still very expensive to live there) and bohemian roots as one of the historical locations for those landing in New York and seeking success in the performing arts. Hell’s Kitchen, from my lens, seems to be a stopping point for many coming to Manhattan, but rarely its final destination unless in one of the larger luxury building along the Hudson River. Its feeling of transience never seems to leave me. It has its charms, it has its neighborhood businesses. It has its long time loyal residents. But that feeling never leaves.

Times Square is chaos. It is phones streaming social media 24/7…it is the land of tourists and the associated traps hocked to them at 10 second intervals. It is a crossroads dreaded to be traversed by anyone living or working in the City. Double decker sight seeing busses, costumed street performers, protesters of every world conflict, every inhumane policy, every country’s plight carve space for themselves on a random corner; it is a place to see every advertising campaign, an urban graveyard for every missed meeting or missed opportunity, a symbol for dreams of new arrivals to the United States and a giant traffic and mental snarl in the center of the mid-town Manhattan.

Perhaps I am succumbing to the stereotypical NYmetro area suburban dweller. One desperate to associate himself with knowledge of the City without living in its environs, without obtaining a living from its economy or relying on its job market or its daily and weekly services/programs. A person that treats the subway as an “experience” rather than a daily mode of transportation, praying it will be at best, uneventful. Someone who sees building exteriors and wonders what lies within, rather than the person that has entered these buildings with their different styles, spaces and neighborhoods, each having hosted through their passing years the countless relationships, parties, events, visits and outings that would temper such thoughts by residents; making my speculation seem pointless, superfluous, maybe even dangerous. In the city I am but a novice, a caricature, and the buildings of which I speculate, are but small islands providing temporary escape for residents.

Many years ago, myself along with my cousin and brother, went to someone’s apartment somewhere in the Village, (memory not sharp on this one) to find someone at a party and bring them with us to a bar. It was a 4 story walk-up and the apartment was on the ground or second floor. As we approached the place, the door further down the hall opened and out popped John Stewart, of Comedy Central fame (though he was known for the John Stewart Show at the time). I acted as if this was a daily occurrence, but the irony of spending so little time in NYC and almost running into the guy was not forgotten. He even had to excuse us to pass us in the narrow, dimly lit hallway with is peeling papered walls, flaking lead paint and chipped tile floors. What this brief encounter did was remind me that I was a visitor to the city, not a resident. My attempt at nonchalance was to fit into the NYC resident mold I defined above. To play by the rules New York disengagement. It’s small moments such as these that are but minuscule contributions to the collective memories shared by many city dwellers, and for those 3 short seconds, I tried to pretend same.

If this all sounds like a contrite explanation or excuse for one’s personal insecurities, that may very well be true. I grew up thinking of the City as a mythical place, one that defines where greatness can be achieved. The source of these myths were in song, film, finance and the local suburban economies which carried a certain reverence and deference to the wealth trickling over the bridges to the City’s neighbors. Every other city was third rate, incomparable to the harsh realities and dog eat dog world of the granite city with its ruthless determiners of style and success. Success measured by influence, control, power and money. A place where artists create visions, philosophers create beliefs, fashion houses create lifestyles, doctors perform death defying surgeries with miracle cures, newspapers create notoriety and architects create everlasting monuments. Oh yes, these were the visions of a suburban (white) teenager, and they were and still are…naive.

Where is photography in all of this if not for a series of moments, a split second of time in which the complex relationships between the photographer and his environment are defined. The purpose of this write up is to remind us that each photo permits a change, a new interpretation of the world, a new set of juxtapositions, compositions and relationships. And all of this is accomplished by capturing one moment in the eternal flow of infinite ones. It is an act which can allow the photographer to overcome personal shortcomings, document others, or blend different worlds together. In some sense, photography is like the city itself, which is why I think so many of us are drawn to it.

NYC has lost much of its everyday filth, grit and its once unique, unscrubbed, exposed utilitarian aesthetic. It is more simply, polished. One can search for signs of the old New York (In Search of Grit would be an appropriate title I think), but the current generation of younger residents needs it cleaned up for social media posts, for comparison to other cities, each losing some of its uniqueness to an anesthetizing effect of globalization.

Oh the naive ramblings of a wannabe sociologist and city dweller.

All images:

Sigma Bf, Sigma 35mm F2 DG Contemporary Lens