On stitching together the Village
Thoughts on a recent weekend of walking in New York City
Hello, friends. Welcome to my February newsletter, For the Noticers. I’m so glad you’re here. We’re taking a break from our series on Wendell Berry (and from the headlines) for my regular monthly-ish newsletter about what I’m noticing. Read on for some thoughts about walking in Manhattan…
Earlier this month, I spent a weekend in NYC, walking around between bookstores (as always) and checking out the Transit Museum with a friend. (If you haven’t been, I highly recommend it: the exhibits are well-done and fascinating, and the vintage subway cars—from all different eras—are an absolute delight.)
I stayed in a cozy Airbnb in the East Village, with a wee (snow-covered) garden out back. Since my New York heart lives about a mile further west, in the tangle of streets between Washington Square Park and 7th Avenue South, I spent a lot of time walking back and forth, exploring different ways to stitch together the Village.
One of the particular pleasures of New York is the distinct character of every block.
Although many neighborhoods look and feel cohesive, no two streets are exactly the same. I am charmed, always, by the details on every building: crown moldings, finials, Cyrillic engravings, wrought-iron balconies and fire escapes, bronze reliefs and bright painted doors, graceful arched windows and the occasional pane of stained glass.
The buildings don’t look like this where I grew up, in West Texas; what are sprawling ranch houses and prefab concrete compared to the romance of brick and brownstones? (Bonus points if you recognized that – admittedly obscure – Pride and Prejudice reference.) New York wears its history partly in its architecture, and I am always delighted to look up and catch a glimpse.
Though I already love a Manhattan walk, I found it a specific pleasure this time to test the boundaries of my Village knowledge (East, West, Greenwich). Each walk was an experiment: what happens if I walk all the way down East 2nd Street? (Answer: it turns into Bond Street and dead-ends at Broadway, giving me an excellent excuse to turn down Bleecker and pop by Mercer Street Books on my way to Three Lives & Company.) If I exit the subway at West 4th Street and turn a little south, will West 3rd take me all the way back to the East Village? (Yes. Even when it’s sleeting.)
More questions: where can I get dessert on MacDougal Street? (Two answers: the bright yellow Creperie NYC and the moody, dark green Caffe Reggio, where I had a slice of apple pie and a mason-jar glass of mulled wine after an evening performance of Hadestown.) And what happens if I head up the wide diagonal of Bowery on my way to either Astor Place station or the Strand? (Answer: I stumble upon spacious Cooper Square, home to the eponymous Cooper Union and the Village Voice headquarters, and catch a wink of the Chrysler Building, my favorite glittering Manhattan guiding light.)
I am constantly fascinated by NYC, enamored of the way its neighborhoods change and shift, while carrying layers of history in their streets and stones. I love a pocket garden, a sudden openness of park or square, an unexpected corner. I delight in a library branch, an elegant shop, or a charming little restaurant.
I learn more every time I go and walk the city, trying to understand the ways its concrete bones fit together. New York is alive with the beat of a thousand stories, and I want to absorb them all, hold them up like a transparency so I can trace their lines against the arches of the buildings I walk among. I want to take in the history and be a part of its present, understand what I’m seeing and add my own layer to it, know the city’s street map in my bones and blood and navigate it like a local while retaining a tourist’s wide-eyed wonderment.
I’ll never know the sum total of New York City: like an inscrutable lover, there will always be layers I can’t interpret, stories I don’t know or simply can’t understand. But I’ll keep coming back, over and over, drawn to these streets and the life contained within them. And every time, my mental map fills in with a little more color and texture.
Every time, I realize again how New York is utterly, wildly herself – but as I walk her streets and fit her neighborhoods together, she also becomes a little more mine.
New on the blog: what’s saving my life this winter, and a poem against panic.
Reading: the headlines from WBUR, my local news station. Annie B. Jones’ lovely Sunday newsletter. Piles of review books for Shelf Awareness. And Renée Watson’s gorgeous collection of poems on Black girlhood.
Watching: lots of local theater, including a crackling new adaptation of The Odyssey and a whip-smart play about women in space. Sloooowly lengthening days. And Paddington in Peru (a delight).
Loving: cheery daffodils from my florist friend Stephen. My friend Micha’s latest newsletter. Chocolate-ginger shortbread cookies. And every post I see about fighting ugliness and protecting the good.