April 28, 2008
People Watching In New York
One of my favorite things to do here in Manhattan is to take some time out to relax over a cup of coffee at a vantage point sufficient to watching the city pass by, person by person. The way people dress (this town seems to sport a hundred different fashions at once, there is no apparent finite number of trends), the paces they keep, their expressions and actions and so forth, probably the best way to reaclimate myself to my home town.
It can also be pretty amusing.
Today has been a rainy one, pretty steady, slowing only occasionally to a drizzle — and I have always loved rainy days in N.Y., so I’ve been spending a lot of time out in it. I made a pit stop at a longish, narrow Mexican greasy spoon kind of joint on Kenmare Street (I couldn’t figure out the name of the place, I’ll have to get it next time) ***Got it — The Corner (esquina in red neon) Deli, believe it or not, probably the name of a former tenant of the property, seeing as it’s not a deli, and the current business didn’t bother changing the sign or the name *** — between Lafayette Street and Cleveland Place, a line of stools ranged along a counter facing windows. The eatery is pretty popular, they were doing steady business at the cashier’s station fronting the open kitchen — you pay for your order, take it and find an empty stool.
Okay, so directly across Kenmare is LIEUTENANT JOSEPH PETROSINO SQUARE. It’s actually a triangular square (no kiddin’) bordered by Cleveland Place, Kenmare and Lafayette. On the corner opposite the square on Cleveland Place is Eileen’s Special Cheesecake, a must-go to for anyone visiting New York.
Anyway, back to the story, so typical New York these days.
The intersection of Cleveland and Kenmare is almost always jammed up on weekdays, the product of idiots running yellow lights on both streets and blocking the intersection two different ways when the light turns red on them. So this stretch limo (you know, those foolish looking long-as-a-bus ones) gets stuck halfway across the intersection, heading west on Kenmare, and then an SUV gets stuck right behind it — this happened because another driver, responding to his own green light, cut in front of the limo and got stuck behind another guy who’d done the same thing) and abruptly there’s this mess…
…A traffic cop in his emergency orange rain gear comes out of nowhere, gets in the middle of the intersection and starts shouting orders, whistling and waving his arms (there was also a lot of finger wiggling there, I couldn’t decide whether that was supposed to be more signals to the drivers, but it made him look like he was having a seizure of some kind). He also had a West Indies accent, and the thought did cross my mind that perhaps this was a traffic directing sequel to Cool Runnings.
It was a lot of fun to watch.
The traffic cop did get control of the traffic, though it was a frantic, seat-of-the-pants kind of thing. I heard him yell at one driver, “And you’re going where, exactly!?”
Finally, after about ten minutes, he threw up his hands in frustration and stormed away, and the intersection immediately returned to the mess it had been on his arrival, with him stomping off in the background.
I have yet to figure out whether he was dispatched to the intersection or was simply some sort of roving director of traffic, but he sure put on a fun show.
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April 28th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Is people watching a sport? If so my cat Britney is a pro.
April 28th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
You Big Apple folk have all the fun and amusement. We had a cinnamin bear across the street last week, with the ususal keystone kops fish & game pursuit. He outwitted them, of course and is lurking somewhere. Bears are notorious scavangers, so I am guarding my cache of MooseDrool.
April 28th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Jeff –
Britney would probably go crazy in N.Y., or at the very least sneak out and go get a nose ring.
Did you ever see Monty Pythons’ “Confuse-a-cat” skit? The maniacy in N.Y. makes that look tame.
BB –
The cinnamon bear would have had an easier time disappearing in New York — there are many such critters walking about here, a pair of dark glasses, a nice necklace providing all the camo they need.
I was going to advocate being kind to the fugitive bear, until I realized that his at-largeness causes a requirement to guard ones’ best ale.
Now, “shoot to kill” seems like a decently delivered sentiment!
April 29th, 2008 at 10:02 am
It’s amazing the type of things one can see when you have the opportunity to just sit back and watch people. We sure can be a funny and strange lot at the same time!
Is NYC your final destination or just a temporary stop over ?
April 29th, 2008 at 10:57 am
One of our locals, a friend, went back to NYC a few years back to see a series with his favorite team,
the Yankees. He and his young daughter ran into this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Cowboy. He forgot all about the Yanks and concentrated his travel tales on the guy wearing only a guitar, so impressed was he by the ‘elite east’. Us yokels had to admit the uniqueness of the place…and ponder whether the local trail hands would tolerate such tsk,tsk behavior
out here in the sage brush.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Someday I have to go to New York and check out all the excitement there.
The only excitement we have had lately in Oklahoma is a cow blocking all four lanes of an intersection.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Never seen any Monty Python! I do want to say I am impressed with your use of the s’. So many people just use ’s! When I was in NYC I was working at Columbia University and was shocked every single day at the palce. The people are even different. I was there to pack up chemicals for disposial. I put them in durms and placed the skull and crossbones label on them. The next day an English teacher was having a fit that such stuff was in his hallway. I informed him that it was all setting on a shelf beside his office the past 30 yrs and the little sticker did not make it any worse for him. I dont think it helped him feel any better.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Ken –
In N.Y., unusual things seem to happen in more frequency because the people doing them are less self conscious about it — strange individualism is part & parcel of this town.
I do have a bit of travelling yet to do, but I am thinking that N.Y. will be my “final resting place”, so to speak. Every day I’m here, I wonder more and more why I ever left.
BB –
While I have heard about the Naked Cowboy, I have no desire to see him, but I might find the time to seek out his non-associated cowgirl counterpart one of these days.
Sounds like your friend’s tales of “adventure in the big city” had the Bitteroots in an uproar.
Marie –
LOL!!!!
One cow, 4 lanes! There is where the traffic cop I described above needed to be. He was a pretty assertive kind of guy, he might have had some influence on the critter.
About 27 years or so ago, when I lived on the east coast of Puerto Rico, we used to run into cow-in-the-road problems from the local farms and ranches. I actually found that inching the car up against the cow reaaalllll slowly and being assertive about it worked. It irritataed the durn thing enough that it finally, grudgingly got out of the way, without so much as a mooooo.
Jeff –
…it was all setting on a shelf beside his office the past 30 yrs and the little sticker did not make it any worse for him. I dont think it helped him feel any better.
ROTFLMAO!!!!
He sounds like one of the lispy guys you see hanging out in their Armani at some of the bar & grill lunch places in SoHo. The ones who say things like, “Oh, I’d never be seen on the lower east side, it’s soooo gauche!”
April 30th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Marie –
LOL!!!!
One cow, 4 lanes! There is where the traffic cop I described above needed to be. He was a pretty assertive kind of guy, he might have had some influence on the critter.
About 27 years or so ago, when I lived on the east coast of Puerto Rico, we used to run into cow-in-the-road problems from the local farms and ranches. I actually found that inching the car up against the cow reaaalllll slowly and being assertive about it worked. It irritataed the durn thing enough that it finally, grudgingly got out of the way, without so much as a mooooo.
I dont know Seth, this was a pretty aggressive cow.
They even broke into my TV program with that nonsense.
Naturally the Police did finally show up as well as the Fire Dept and the Animal (Killers) oops I mean Control, the News as I mentioned. And irritated the cow to get the heck out of the way.
I mean was this that big of a deal?
It almost makes you wish for Tornado season to start just for some excitement.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:30 am
Marie –
I’ll take the cow over a tornado any day.
I think a tornado’s about the only natural disaster I haven’t experienced first-hand, but from a destructiveness point of view, Oy Vey!!!!
Besides, if the cow refuses to move for long enough, you can always eat it.
Yum, cow!
May 1st, 2008 at 5:34 am
Working in the Wal-Mart in Largo, FL I see more strange people than anywhere else. We call it Larghetto, by the way. We serve a large retiree community, a “Latino” community, a “black” community, and various other poorer communities around here. Trust me, we see it all!
We also have one of those fun intersections just down the road: Ulmerton & West Bay Dr. On two sides of the intersection are RR crossings next to Bus Stops. It’s so much fun to watch the idiots make a turn when they know the car ahead is only going a few feet because traffic has stopped behind a bus, or the crossing gate is lowering. Idjits! But, whaddya gonna do, huh?
LOL
May 1st, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Benning –
I saw something similar right outside my new favorite N.Y. watering hole, which is at the intersection of W. Broadway & Broome Streets in SoHo.
Rush hour traffic clogs that intersection big time, and there was a traffic cop directing the pandemonium there the other afternoon. A couple of drivers actually cussed out the traffic cop for delaying them in crossing W. B’way so they could sit at the back of a non-moving pile up for 5+ minutes, going noplace anyway, while blocking the intersection.
I could never see the point in even owning a private vehicle in Manhattan — parking alone can run you 6 thou a year, and all the time you spend sitting in traffic burns up an awful lot of gas — and these are probably all people who complain about paying $3.50 per gallon.
The ones that actually kvetch about not being able to advance a few feet so they can sit immobile in clogged traffic anyway get no sympathy from me, considering that they are the only reason for the congestion to begin with, not in the city that’s got the best and fastest (subways) public transportation system in the country and more than 16,000 yellow cabs, to boot.
Friends of mine who live here prefer the much cheaper and logistically more practical measure of simply renting a car if they want to go on an out-of-town trip.
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Yea Seth I would have to have a helicopter if I lived there. I think they let you park them free at the med centers.
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:24 am
Jeff –
I think your chopper has to be a Med-Evac to qualify for the free parking.
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Hi Seth!
I understand the fascination for people watching. I can’t do much of it out here in the country, but whenever I’m in Temple I indulge myself. Walt does most of the shopping because I hate to shop, so if it’s not to hot I’ll stay in the car and people watch. There are truly some really strange characters out there!
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Gayle –
If you think they’re strange in your neck of the woods, you’ve got to come to N.Y. for a few days, LOL.
Here, there’s so much diversity among the strange that none of those “individuals” has even a clue that no matter how far out he or she is, there’s anything unusual about his or her “repertoire”.
Bizarreness and outright strangeness are so commonplace that it usually doesn’t draw a second look, in fact there’s very little that doesn’t fit right into the local landscape.
I love this place, it may be many things, but it’s never boring!
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Seth, just think…I’m old enough to clearly remember the rents in (the currently named) SoHo back before the current yuppies sent them out of sight. 35 Howard Street (the entire floor) was rented (up through the 1960s) for the princely sum of US $85.00 per month.
As far as the “uniqueness”…NYC is just one of those special places where people mind their own business and don’t have to know what’s cooking in their neighbor’s pot…must be a form of courtesy that dates back to communal living when only stones and animal hides divided living spaces…(today walls do the job)…
Love the coaster!!!! If you do a bit of peple watching down in the Village, don’t miss the mime or the VW mouse mobile…fun stuff.
May 4th, 2008 at 4:28 am
NH M.W. –
A 1 bedroom apartment in the West Village apparently has no problem going for $4,000.00 a month these days. I shudder to think what they’re asking for an entire floor on Howard Street, though anything that big would no doubt be for sale rather than for rent and probably cost an easy $5 million.
Part of the reason for the increased rents/condo prices is the sheer number of people who want to live in Manhattan. The other part is that like Willie Brown when he was mayor of San Francisco, Mayor Bloomberg’s never met a billionaire developer he doesn’t like.