Wednesday, October 24, 2007

 

Doll



 

New NYU Mega-Dorm by Moonlight


P.S. 25 October , 2007 ...The image above was posted yesterday without text .
Today we noticed that Jeremiah at http://www.vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/ was moved after viewing the moon-lit scene above to write ...."ah , romance hasn't died in the East Village." . We expand on this theme .
If one for a moment can imagine in a more extensive manner that this moon-lit view of the monstrous archetectural bastard of a machine-for-turning-a-profit under construction is rather a moon-lit view of a portion of the East Village , not just under construction , but also in the process of being replaced , with many of its buildings raised and many of its inhabitants being and having been displaced and replaced ... an East Village , in part at least , certainly ruined and gone , then perhaps we do have here a romance . A very sad romance . A romance represented above in a manner not un-like a number of popular 19th century romantic paintings , most famously perhaps as a painting of an ancient ruined moon-lit abbey and indeed here , just outside the frame below , there remains the bell tower of a ruined St Ann's ... a romance though in this case not with some distant , mysterious dead and ruined past as the subject but a romance with our daily lives and the well-remembered recent past at the fore .
For a considerable number , if not most residents of the East Village , contrary to the claims of Mayor Mike on the John Gambling Show , this "construction boom" , of which this incomplete structure illuminated by an intense but tortured little disc of moon in a cloud-veiled , glowing , blue night sky is a significant and representative example , is not desireable .
Likely most in the community do not want this monster building and they certainly do not want more monster buildings ... nor do they want more NYU students : of course Mayor Mike and his friends do .
With what we hear daily in the street in mind and with the darker spirit of Halloween and Dia de los Muertos upon us we are inspired to surmize that many in this community would happily see Mayor Mike and his entire Daemonium of Lords and Ladies of Mammon appropriately dispatched to dance the fires of hell and roast .
So ... yes Jeremiah , perhaps romance is alive here , but if so , it is a sad and for many here a hopeless , rather sinister and frightening little romance , peopled with numerous self-obsessed , predatory , petty and greedy little monsters , that daily we must live .

Monday, October 22, 2007

 

Some of the Guys at Ray's : Jay , Sid and Chas ...


Jay ( far left ) just recently returned to avenue A from a nearly 3 year long stay in some free desert lodgings in New Mexico . Sid was trying to find a place to stay ; he is homless right now . Chas was just out for a drink .

 

Another East Village Over-dose...







Twice this day the young man pictured above nearly ended his life : this was the second of the two close to deadly events .
He sat down in front of us near the phone booth at the corner of avenue A and 7th street very early one morning 5 or so years ago and pulled out his works and dope .Out of some sense of deference or whatever we did not intrude with the camera as he proceeded to shoot-up and then get high . But as he became incoherent and started to sink into a limp heap in front of us we called for an ambulance with a cell phone and then began to crank the camera .
His friends were not happy about the phone call because it would bring not just the ambulence but the police too . Despite their concern about the police they did make a sort of pathetic , frantic and fruitless effort to revive their friend as seen above .
The police arrived first , then the ambulance : quickly his friends disappeared into the night .
Palid and limp with bluish tone to his lips and nails he was on his way to the end when the medical technicians injected some heroin blocking agent and took him to the hospital .
This young man had survived this trying night and day but we were told a few months later that he had over-dosed in San Fransisco and died .




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