Millinery Center Synagogue, NYC

 NYC has continued to evolve in a direction that I find disturbing... an extended shopping mall/amusement park/food court...hell disguised as a clown with bright plastic facades and flashing neon lights hawking bland franchise food in contrived predictably faux exotic settings that appeal to the lowest common denominator...families...that have contributed to the dumbing down of NYC and Broadway theatre to nothing but Disnoid live TV spectaculars with songs that has done little more than extend the comfort zone of the suburban mall to 42nd Street.   A city that has left the redefinition of its architectural integrity to the lowest bidder, Donald Turnip, a bland, crass man, devoid of character or any visible redeeming qualities who has been allowed to redefine the NYC skyline in his own featureless image.  Welcome to the new New York.

It is against this backdrop, that I find myself lost, disoriented, and searching the streets for sanctuary.  Places that have maintained an authenticity that link me to the past, and this little architectural gem of a Millinery Center Synagogue on 6th Avenue between 38th and 39th streets is one such place in which I find peace.  Built in the 1940's so garment workers could find a minion during the week, when they worked long hard hours and such things mattered, it had its origin many years before when orthodox Jewish garment workers worked here, producing things (in this case hats) and gathered in lofts to pray in the morning and afternoons until they could raise the money to build this lovely building.  Most of our clothes are made in China now, and the garment district is mostly gone now, as is the raison de etre for the synagogue, which is largely forgotten and easily overlooked.  A footnote and a reminder of a different and forgotten city lovingly cared for by Rabbi Hayim Wahrman (seen below), it has become a refuge for displaced persons such as myself and other easily recognizable wandering lost souls.

Until recently that is...

During the unusually cold winter of 2014, a pipe burst, flooding the place, leaving the floors warped and twisted, the walls stained and sagging, prayer books soaked, and the odor of mold and rot in the air.  When I was just there the place was dark and empty but for one sad soul sleeping on a bench.  Its future is tenuous in this voracious city where only the strong survive and developers see only opportunity in the misfortune of others. 

Monday through Friday you can find Cantor Tuvia Yamnik selling sheets and dry goods in front of the building and talking to anyone and everyone who will listen and who will sing for if you even hint of the need for spiritual uplifting.  A joyous man made for the streets on New York. 

                                                                      Pablo

Back in NYC and glad to be there!!!

There is something about walking along the wall on the side of Central Park East on a mid spring morning that makes me feel like I am in Europe, Paris maybe.  I walked up Park Avenue from Grand Central Station at 42nd street to 92nd street to see how things are there on a Sunday morning, and what a saw a lot of was well scrubbed nattily dressed Presbyterian families going to and leaving Presbyterian churches and looking enviably nice.  It was a relief to reach 92nd St and a short two block walk to the park with a short

There is an ancient stone wall running around the park with benches placed every so often.  People sit on them, and the first people I met up with were Carl and Barbara, a lovely old couple who have always lived in the city and claim to have never tired of it.  They were just finishing up their non-kosher lunch before going into the Jewish museum on 92nd St. since they were careful not to bring treyf into the museum which has a kosher cafe.  My sister and her husband tell me that they often look at old couples and sometimes see people who they think (or hope) they will be like when they're that age.  I liked Carl and Barbara's spirit and continued excitement about life and hope Jackie and I will do as well. 

Wasn't going for a smartphone theme or anything here, but it does seem to be a common thread everywhere anyway, unless you have something more satisfying to do, like smoke a good cigar by yourself.

This was taken just inside the park where I ventured for just a moment or two and found two more people entranced by their hand held device.  What are the odds!!!

                                                                             Pablo

Back in town in search of answers...

Jackie had some travel related business in NYC, and as much as I wanted to stay home, she enticed me with a couple of free nights at the Andaz Hotel East, so how could I say no.  We drove down to Poughkeepsie  and took the Metro North into Grand Central Station.

It still grand and evocative, and as things continue to go down hill in terms of the city turning into a theme park, all condos, clothes, cuisine and cute, it quickly becoming the most authentic thing left.  As luck would have it, we got there for its 100th birthday!!!

As I mentioned, we stayed at the Andaz on the corner of 5th Ave and 42nd Street overlooking the New York Library, with the Met Life Building in the background.  It was kind of rainy, but that is the best time to be in Bryant Park, right behind the library along Fifth Avenue.

Looking at this photo reminds me of a poem from my first book written in the mid 1970's when I was still very much a part of the city. and was actually on the way to the wedding rehearsal of a good friend getting married at the Plaza on a gray and dreary day that somehow felt perfect to me, at least, walking through the city with my tux over my shoulder and anticipation in my heart that obviously inspired poetry.  Feel free to skip it if it bores you...

                                         Determined gray and silver towers

                                         thrusting through thick skies

                                         extending earthward

                                         touching me with its damp presence

                                         reaffirming pledges of youthful fancy

                                         made amidst the clutching hands and

                                         frenzied banners of causes

                                         long ago celebrated.

                                         Alone now on that suddenly desolate street

                                         moving more and more swiftly against

                                         the pulse and swell of nighttime armies

                                         of menacingly yellow taxis... 

                                         I am full of a city

                                         that no longer understands the gentle lover

                                         trapped inside a body

                                         rigidly braced against uncertainty.

                                         More slowly now along

                                         quiet and somber gray rain washed streets

                                         as if all roads lead to the park

                                         whose glazed and solitary benches

                                         recall many a soldiers kiss

                                         as if it were the last...

                                         silent conspirator in dreams stillborn,

                                         we meet once more to recall

                                         our moments of undisciplined passion,

                                         as always, in the silent embrace

                                         of city rain.

                 

Back to the present.  The weather cleared the next day and I took the subway at 23rd Street down to the lower east side to do some shopping, Yonah Shimmel, Russ and Daughters, Gus Pickles,  et al...

and was met by some pretty scary people...

and rode for about 20 blocks standing next to this painfully attractive young woman, one of those chosen few who seem to carry their beauty as a burden they bear in the otherwise gray and mundane world of us mortals, who both feed and offend them by our lustful, furtive glances.  I did not take a picture for obvious reasons, but as always, a haiku was on my lips...

                                                     Such a cross to bear

                                                     carrying that harsh beauty

                                                     all over your face.

But at the end of the day it is always reassuring to know that Tom Cruise is there to save us from the impending oblivion that will consume us, although I fear that it is already too late for me, as I haunt the city like a ghost looking for memories carried in the bits and shards of the city I grew up in.

The sign is there on the lower east side, but no Schapiro's, long gone .

Even the urban wall art has morphed into a new kind of wall art these days, paper cut outs pasted on walls seems to be replacing the spray paint , so as the sign at Bowery and Rivington Streets says, in spite of it all, I'll be back for more.  As you can tell I haven't got much to say anymore about New York.  The forces of evil masquerading as progress have won and I have been reduced to taking pictures of pictures of pictures...

Like Picasso in his later years, who just kept painting the same picture over and over and over again for an adoring and wealthy clientele, I feel like I am falling into the same pattern, but where are the adoring and wealthy patrons when I need them?

                                                                   Pablo