Days of our lives

I’m a very competent shover. Before you gasp, if you don’t shove in NYC, you will get mowed down perky dandelion.  This morning, I did not anticipate the need for shoving, and sadly, I did not make it onto the redbird nostalgia train going to Yankee Stadium on opening day. The redbird is a vintage scarlet subway car that was painted such to discourage graffiti which one must conclude does not look flattering on a cherry background.  I think the only subway design that could actually discourage graffiti is a graffiti car.  I still got good vibes when everyone booed the regular trains passing by.  And the Yankees are doing great despite Boone and his dark magics.

The color red makes you feel hungry and sexy, both important for a subway car

I decided to go instead to Little Island.  It used to be Pier 54 on the Hudson River. That pier was dilapidated and one dark stormy day,  Hurricane Sandy put it out of its misery.  I had wanted to visit since noticing the construction. It’s basically concrete pillars shaped like primitive tulips, but I think they did a nice job beautifying one of the less striking areas of New York City. 

Ever hear of the Concrete Tulip Craze?

It rises high but has not attracted the depressed crowd like The Vessel did (three suicides. Yeah I know. People die in threes. They also die in twos and fours and even seventeens).  They have a rule now you have to go with someone. Haven’t they heard of a suicide pact?

Stairway to heaven

Not making light of suicide. I don’t want anyone jumping off buildings unless they’re in a cartoon.  As a kid I was aware, despite my Looney Tunes saturation, that one could not jump off a building and have stars circle their head, then be totally fine. But I did harbor the misconception that if I ever did this, I would have time to look down, process, and stare into the camera smirking “Oops! Here come the stars around my head!”

I’m not the biggest fan of modern architecture and I’m especially not down with the brutalizing of the Farley Post Office building (Do NOT meld modern and old. I like to know what century I’m in) but NYC should have it all, separately.  On the walk to Penn Station, I saw a sign showing West 10th St. to the left and Meat Market to the right. I had to go left but I could hear my dog screeching about going right. 

What became the Gansevoort meat packing district previously was settled by the Lenapes who harvested oysters from the river back in purer times before the Hudson became an extension of the sewer.  Unfortunately the Dutch booted the Lenapes quite violently. The Native Americans didn’t even get any beads like they did for Manhattan.

On the train ride home I was reading a movie review for the film “The Drama” (I imagine they concocted this name after a long night of deep brainstorming like when a band decided to call itself “The Band.”)

The premise of this flick is that a guy and girl hit it off, get engaged, and at some point engage in a game with friends where they confess their most dastardly deed. For reasons I cannot fathom, Zendaya’s admission of plotting to gun down some classmates in high school but then changing her mind was considered orders of magnitude worse than cyberbullying someone so badly they had to move, locking a mentally disabled neighbor in the closet overnight, and using your female partner to fend off a dog attack. Zendaya, shoot these people!

Admission repetition, and I’m not sorry I never tried to feed anyone to a dog, even if it’s to win a confession game, I may have not waited for commuters to exit their train car before pushing through them.  Also, I did ask my kids to sit in the little police buggy at the train station.

“Mom, we’re too old for this.”

“Let the cop who drives this thing come and tell me that.”