Life in New York

by Laura Pedersen

  A popular name for girls in New York is Nevaeh, which is heaven spelled backward. At the after-school program in East Harlem where I taught there was a darling little boy named Messiah. I never tired of asking where he was and if he is coming. Oddly, the name Brooklyn has become one of the most popular in the United States over the past few years, just not for babies actually born in Brooklyn.

  Growing up I attended the Unitarian Universalist church in Amherst, a suburb of Buffalo, where my minister once made national news for handing out condoms in church at the start of the AIDS crisis. The main difference between Unitarian Universalists and other churchgoers is that the latter claim they have all the answers and want to enlighten you, while UUs claim not to have any of the answers but secretly think they do. They approach life with an open mouth. UUs also differ from others in that they never fast. They believe there is no occasion that cannot be improved with a cheese platter, crudités, chicks on sticks, and carafes of wine. While some people get angry because certain synagogues want hundreds of dollars for a ticket to attend services on holy days, or “pay to pray” as it’s known, I like to think that the UUs would initiate a two-drink minimum before charging admission. Otherwise, when it comes to dressing up on Sunday, a few UUs pull on suits and skirts, but many congregants are like me and have their regular jeans and then their church jeans (not to be confused with Jesus jeans, which are holy). The only other way to identify UUs by sight is if a war breaks out – they quickly grab guitars and start singing folk songs in an effort to stop it. A UU friend’s Baptist mother summed things up best when she said, “You’re like the Episcopalians but worse.”

  Despite Unitarian Universalism being a small religion (3 in every 1,000 people in the United States), when I moved to the city I

  had three churches in Manhattan to choose from, in addition to a few more in Brooklyn and Queens. Mostly because it’s the closest to where I live, I landed at All Souls on Lexington Avenue and 80th Street. It’s the largest and probably the most pragmatic of the three Manhattan UU churches. A number of clergy and laypeople have tried to institute a fellowship handshake at the start of each service, but the attitude of this congregation seems to be that they’re already exposed to enough germs on the subway, and if Donald Trump has somehow managed to succeed without shaking the hands of strangers then no one should be obligated to do so. Of equal concern is that we haven’t yet come up with a gender-neutral alternative for fellowship. (Similarly, our bedtime stories feature a “bogeyperson.”)

  I’ve noticed that when we stand to sing hymns a large number of the women keep their purses strapped over their shoulders rather than rest them on the pew or floor, which people would find extremely strange in the church where I grew up. All Souls, or “All Sorts” as we like to call it, also does without the traditional “Joys and Concerns” section of the service where members can stand and share personal news. UUs are inclined to oversharing, and even my small Western New York church had days where Joys and Concerns outstripped the length of the sermon and then some. Instead, this church just lists the number of a therapist in big letters right in the Order of Service. They also tend to say “the historical Jesus” to delineate from the walking-on-water Jesus, unless they spill their coffee, in which case “Jesus” or “Jesus Christ” is still the norm.

  As for other UU churches in Manhattan, Fourth Universalist Society on Central Park West is more home-knitted and therefore perfect if you’re after a Grover’s Corners ambience. They’re likely to serve homemade snickerdoodles while we offer Entenmann’s out of the box. Community Church on East 35th Street is extra-granola hardcore UU. I mean, we’re all on the same page with regard to fighting for social justice, but they’re the ones running the Esperanto Society and hosting the Anti-Racist potluck dinners. During one sermon a minister described having a wisdom tooth pulled without any type of anesthesia so she could be “in touch with the pain.”

  Unitarians often presided over the White House in the old days, a surprising fact considering that they made up such a small percentage of the population. There was John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, William Howard Taft, and many consider Thomas Jefferson to have been Unitarian. Freethinkers are out of style these days so I don’t think we’ll see another UU president in my lifetime. But we did manage to recently get inside the White House on a rug. In 1853, abolitionist and Unitarian minister Theodore Parker said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted Parker on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and in 2010, President Barack Obama had the words woven into a rug for the Oval Office as King’s quote. Another familiar quote on the rug is from Lincoln – “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” the well-known phrase from the close of his Gettysburg Address in 1863. However, in 1850 Parker had written something pretty close to what Honest Abe said: “A democracy – that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people.” While waiting to come back into fashion, maybe UUs can get jobs as political speechwriters.

  It’s been more than thirty years since Jesse Jackson referred to New York as “Hymietown” and almost a century since voters rejected Catholic New Yorker Al Smith as president for fear that he’d be a papal puppet. But these days in New York, identity politics has become muted because of the influx of many nationalities, and so has religious politics. There are still a few blocs of Jewish voters in Brooklyn and northern Manhattan, and a large Catholic constituency in Queens and Staten Island, but people mostly vote the issues depending on their conscience and/or economic situation. If there exists a major dividing line in New York it’s between those with and without air-conditioning. The melting pot has officially melted.

  Am I the only one who finds it ironic that all these bigwigs from Middle Eastern countries who have driven most of the Jews out of their lands come to New York for medical treatment and end up being cared for by no small number of Jewish practitioners? Especially the ones who go to Mt. Sinai Hospital (formerly The Jewish Hospital), with

  its kosher meals and Shabbos elevators? While they’re here someone should tell them about Schleppers movers and Mensch Mill & Lumber.

  One local attraction that can be relished no matter your religion, though it may hold more significance if you’re a Neo-Druid, is the twice-yearly Manhattanhenge (also known as the Manhattan Solstice). This is when the sun perfectly aligns with the east-west streets that follow the grid adopted in 1811, and observers can watch the globe drop between towering buildings, cast a peachy otherworldly glow, and set upon New Jersey like an alien spaceship. Manhattanhenge usually occurs around May 28 and July 12 or 13 and has been described by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson as “a unique urban phenomenon in the world, if not the universe.” The best views are to be had from the East Side on the major cross streets – 14th, 23rd, 42nd, and 57th. Like so many wonderful city happenings it’s free and open to the public and good luck finding a bathroom.

  One thing you won’t find in New York are any Irish Mormons, not because Mormons are teetotalers but because they believe you’re reunited with your family in heaven, and the New York Irish have enough family trouble on earth. Similarly, there isn’t much ancestor worship in the city. More than half the population moved here from other places to get away from their parents, and those who were born in the city are waiting for their parents to move to Florida. New Yorkers also tend not to believe in faith healers. If we did, then we’d get them to come over and fix all of our broken phones, computers, and air-conditioners.

  Finally, most New York spiritual leaders steer clear of End Times prophecy and preaching the Apocalypse. It’s hard to justify needing donations when the world is ending. With regard to the Rapture, New Yorkers would be more concerned about who will take care of the pets that are left behind. Furthermore, religious leaders and politicians in New York have always been careful not to call homosexuality a disease. Otherwise too many people would call in sick for work. Callers woul
d also be quick to point out that the first two letters of the word Bible are Bi.

  Chapter 22

  Graffiti Goes Pro

  It’s hard to believe now, but stage performances were forbidden when this city was a Dutch trading post. Those Protestants had no time for frivolity. The English, on the other hand, were heirs to a rich theatrical tradition that began in New York in 1732 when a troupe of actors arrived to perform a series of repertory plays. By the late 1700s, several theaters were in full-time operation, and after the American Revolution the city’s first world-class performance space, the Park Theatre, opened downtown. It had room for 2,000 spectators to enjoy circuses, operas, dances, dramas, and musicals, sometimes all on the same program. Times Square, it turns out, was not the first entertainment venue to blur the lines between stage and sex. Theater owners used to allow prostitutes to work the balconies while the police took payoffs or looked the other way.

  In the 1840s P. T. Barnum opened his American Museum featuring a wax museum, flea circus, zoo, lectures, variety shows, musical farces, and of course his oddities, which included a bearded girl, little people, the Feejee Mermaid (a mummified monkey’s torso with a fish’s tail), and the Siamese Twins known as Chang and Eng. Barnum’s museum burned to the ground in 1865, but plenty of equally popular, noteworthy, and spellbinding attractions arose to take its place. Going forward, entertainment continued to proliferate with the breakneck expansion of the city itself. How is a century-old Broadway theater different from your local multiplex, you may wonder:

  1. There are fewer restrooms. These edifices were built before everyone carried around a personal water supply or 7-Eleven was selling quart-size Slurpees and Starbucks was serving up passion tea lemonade in plastic buckets.

  2. There wasn’t an NBA in the early twentieth century, and thus people were much shorter and so there’s minimal legroom. If you’re on the tall side, book an aisle seat. On more than one occasion I’ve left my orchestra seat and hiked up to the balcony in search of legroom only to find that the six-foot-five-inch Ministry of Silly Walks civil servant, John Cleese, is already there.

  3. There aren’t any cup holders. Ushers discourage drinking in the theater unless it’s one of the $5 bottles of water you bought in the lobby.

  My dad’s all-time favorite entertainment experience was the 1939 New York World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens. He fondly remembered riding back and forth in what were perhaps the first graffitied subway cars, which had been painted the official blue and orange colors of the exposition. Dad especially liked the futurist automobiles, television sets, and the Billy Rose Aquacade, which offered a preview of Hollywood musical extravaganzas to come. He wasn’t nearly as impressed by Smell-O-Vision (movies with odors).

  Generally speaking, it isn’t until things truly come undone that the work of putting them back together again can get under way. During the 1970s economic doldrums, artists were flourishing in New York’s abandoned factories and dilapidated neighborhoods. Music, theater, dance, film, literature, and the visual arts prospered as a result of cheap real estate, a community of avant-garde types, and an atmosphere of artistic freedom. With Off Broadway theaters, galleries, studios, and nightclubs springing up in cut-rate dark corners, the city became a culture engine. It was base camp for abstract expressionism, contemporary art, pop art, plop art (monolithic public sculptures

  in corporate plazas), minimalists, photo-realistic painters, the vibrant new visual language of graffiti art, underground filmmaking, auteur cinema, Blaxploitation movies, experimental theater, method acting, book publishing, New Journalism, cultural criticism, pioneering TV, observational standup comedy, innovative dance choreography, punk rock, first-generation rappers, figurative sculpture, appropriation art, performance art, and installation art. A couple of high-minded producers decided the addictive nature of television could be harnessed to educate our nation’s youth and created Sesame Street. A group of irreverent young writers and performers started a variety show that would eventually be called Saturday Night Live and not only redefine television comedy, but launch dozens of catchphrases and careers, including that of U.S. senator Al Franken (creator of the “Roman Vomitorium” sketch), all while becoming a New York institution.

  Add to that almost everything being done by almost everyone staying at the creatively charged Chelsea Hotel. When these groundbreaking forms of expression were presented to the public they often created “happenings” – the more raw, spontaneous, inventive, and emotional, the better. Much of the art involved nudity. Nude sculpture, nude photos, nude paintings, nude actors on stage, and nude-ins, where you just showed up naked. Perhaps it was the populace’s way of saying that there was nothing left to steal, and yet they still had possession of their souls in this city, a modern-day marriage of heaven and hell.

  New York may be famous for its theaters, museums, and concert halls, but the performance art everyone talked about in the 1980s were the commercials for the Crazy Eddie tri-state chain of electronics stores. These paeans to poor taste featured an announcer in front of stacks of TVs and stereos screaming, “Crazy Eddie, his prices are INS-A-A-A-A-ANE.” In August, the announcer would wear a Santa suit and have stagehands pelt him with fake snowballs for the Christmas in August sale. This led to direct competition from Mashugana Dave and also Mashugana Ike. Mashugana is derived from the Yiddish word for crazy. Because New Yorkers view it as a plus to be crazy, for a long time the stores did well. However, Crazy

  Eddie eventually went out of business and the founder went to jail for fraud, but the iconic commercials survive on YouTube and in the 1984 movie Splash.

  Meantime, an indoor Museum of Sex has sprung up to replace the old Times Square outdoor one. And this being New York, its nickname is MoSex. Despite restrictions placed on adult entertainment venues, the authorities have allowed the museum to be within 500 feet of a school, adding a new meaning to “sex education,” and within 500 feet of a church, because it’s always good to know exactly whom you’re praying for. Unlike many of the exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History (and the old Times Square), those at the Museum of Sex are not interactive – a sign warns that in addition to not touching anything, you shouldn’t “mount” anything. It’s pleasant to have lunch or a snack at the aphrodisiac-themed café, but as you can well imagine, it’s hard to get people out of the gift shop, which serves as both entrance and exit.

  New York City has almost 100 museums, and it’s worth digging into a few off the beaten path to the dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History. You need to make an appointment to visit the Lower East Side Troll Museum since it’s located inside the apartment of one Jennifer Miller, a performance artist known as Reverend Jen, and the occupant is also the curator. Many of the exhibits were damaged in a 2010 steam pipe explosion, but the good thing about trolls is that abnormalities just enhance their charm. For canal fans there’s the Hall of Gowanus, a mini-museum and gallery devoted to the Gowanus Canal. And for Kurds, Kurd lovers, and closet Kurds, a four-story brick house in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, holds the Kurdish Library and Museum, the only one of its kind in the country.

  A student of architecture could spend a year in New York City and still not see every beautiful, breathtaking, brilliant, startling, ugly, neoclassical, Biedermeier, Queen Anne, Richardsonian Romanesque, futuristic, modern, Beaux-Arts, Art Deco, Bauhaus, Usonian, postmodern, sustainable, or What-Were-They-Thinking edifice. The World Trade Center, which opened in 1973, was very much of the

  last school, though some kindly deemed it “plain.” Most said the best thing about it was the panoramic view of New York City from the top, and that from there you didn’t have to see the World Trade Center.

  At the time of their completion, the original One World Trade Center (the North Tower) and Two World Trade Center (the South Tower), known collectively as the “Twin Towers,” were the tallest buildings in the world, and a symbol of American capitalism. On the stunningly perfect morning of September 11,
2001, the quarter mile–high towers collapsed in less than two hours after terrorists drove a hijacked plane into each one. From my window it looked as if Lower Manhattan had gotten its two front teeth knocked out.

  A memorial and a museum are now on the former site of the Twin Towers to commemorate the almost 3,000 people killed. From having worked on Wall Street as a trader and a journalist, I knew a dozen people who lost their lives that dreadful day. At least I thought it was a dozen. Upon visiting the memorial, I found the name of another acquaintance I was not aware had died. What’s more, the stonemasons inscribed “and her unborn child” after her name, as they did with the names of all those women who were pregnant. This was especially moving; until then I hadn’t realized to what extent so many victims had been awaiting new life.

  In addition to the memorial and the museum, a new complex of five skyscrapers is under construction to replace the former seven buildings and is, after much debate, also being called the World Trade Center. The new One World Trade Center officially became the tallest building in the United States on November 12, 2013, with a symbolically significant height of 1,776 feet.

  In the numbingly sad days and weeks and months that followed 9/11, New Yorkers briefly relinquished any pretenses of exceptionalism, sarcasm, indifference, or toughness and showed that they aren’t really different from the rest of the world after all. At heart they’re good, decent human beings who were raised to help their neighbors in an emergency, even if they didn’t know their neighbors. In addition to the enormous sacrifices made by firefighters and police, there were