The Free Range Rooster and Hen of Greenwich Village, with Update

Many of the sleepy, late-arising citizens of Greenwich Village awoke this morning to the alarming and seemingly unbelievable sounds of "Cockadoodledoo!" Arising early myself, as is my habit, and strolling the non-farmed streets of Bleecker and LaGuardia with the two hounds, I encountered a disheveled black rooster, cockadoodledoo-ing away, at full register, in the midst of the LaGuardia Community Gardens. Greeting passersby on the way to the Morton Williams Supermarket, the rooster seemed happy struttin' its stuff amidst all the well-tended perennials. I chatted with a man peering through the fence who said he was just awakened by this loud "Cockadoodledoo!," and he said his wife told him he was dreaming.

But, wait, there's more! In another little fenced enclosure, at the very SE corner of Bleecker and LaGuardia Place, roamed a little white hen. So, they're a couple! But how did they get there? Last year, we enjoyed the presence of a wild turkey for a few days, one that is well-known and that flies around Gotham from its usual free-range home in Battery Park. But we have not seen such ordinary fowl in these parts.

I was on the scene late this afternoon, reporter notebook in hand, again with the mutts who find the rooster too loud for their sensitive mutt ears, and inquiring of locals as to the mysterious appearance of said rooster and hen. A guy at the supermarket said he heard that someone dropped them in the gardens in the middle of the night. Sad! Could they not take care of their fowl and wished for a better life for them in the midst of gentrified bohemia? But, couldn't they have found a better place for them than next to a grocery store, one with a decent butcher department?

CHICKEN UPDATE April 16, 2008!!! Ladies and gentlemen, the chickens have left the building. Some buzz on the street as to the mysterious overnight disappearance of the rooster and the hen. NYers, listen for a "Cockadoodledoo!" in your neck of the woods.

Images: LaGuardia Community Gardens. Bleecker Street and LaGuardia Place. The Free Republic of Greenwich Village. Walking Off the Big Apple, April 15, 2008.

The Classic New York of Mame Dennis: A Coda, on Bank Street

At the time I set out on the recent Mame walk (see related posts following), I was trying to decide between Mame Dennis and Lily Bart, the heroine of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, for the walk's theme. While exploring the places Auntie Mame worked following the stock market crash of 1929, I realized that both Mame and Lily share one thing in common, a crisis of social status. Mame's story of finding herself ill-equipped to fulfill the basic job requirements in the Depression echoes Bart's similar lack of preparedness at the turn of the century. But with her spirit of adventure, Mame knows how to play roles to survive and get along. Lily Bart, on the other hand, can not see her way out of the constrictions of social class and status. Doors opened for Lily, but she did not enter. Mame, as we know, opened all the new windows and doors.

In the late 1920s Patrick Dennis' aunt, Marion Tanner, the purported role model for the character, bought a handsome house on Bank Street in Greenwich Village and lived there until the 1960s. The "real" Mame did not inhabit Beekman Place, but the Village, an appropriate neighborhood for a woman with her taste in ideas and friends. According to several books and memoirs, among them, Richard Jordan's But Darling, I'm Your Auntie Mame and Eric Myers' Uncle Mame: The Life of Patrick Dennis, Marion Tanner was indeed an eccentric wealthy woman of keen intellect, but not quite the caricature that the nephew created.

Patrick Dennis lived his own colorful life, marrying and becoming a father of two children, all the while grappling with issues of bisexuality, and later launching a career as a butler, including a stint for McDonald's founder, Ray Kroc. According to one story, Patrick was once asked about the inspirational source of Mame, and he pointed to himself. At some point he and his aunt had a falling out, and the politics of the family grew complicated. Stricken with pancreatic cancer, Patrick died in 1976 at the age of 55.

While walking along Bank Street last week, I met a woman who knew Marion Tanner. She said Tanner was one of the most brilliant women she had ever known, but "with a giant screw loose." In the 1960s, Tanner turned her house at 72 Bank Street into several apartments for renters, but in time, she let artists, and later ill people, drug addicts, and other unfortunate souls stay there. She eventually lost the house through non-payment of taxes. "Mame" lived the remainder of her years at a retirement home on Hudson St. She died in 1985 at the age of 94.

The woman I met chastised me a bit for asking questions, saying that this was "an old story." But, sometimes the old stories are never told. In the end, what remains is the moral of the fictional story, and the one worth repeating -

"Live, live, live!"
"Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!"

Image: Bank Street, West Village, New York, New York. April 2008.

See related posts:
Classic New York: A Walk, and a Map
Classic New York: 59th and Fifth: A Slideshow
Classic New York: The Algonquin
Classic New York: Times Square
Classic New York: A Visit to Macy's, in April
Classic New York: Henri Bendel
Classic New York: The King Cole Bar at the St. Regis
The Classic New York of Mame Dennis
A Walk in Turtle Bay: Beekman Place, the U.N., Tudor City, and E. 42nd St.
The Liberation Theology of Mame Dennis
Grand Central Theatre, and A New Walk Begins

Coming next: The walk, and a map.

The Classic New York of Mame Dennis

Patrick Dennis, a pseudonym for writer Edward Everett Tanner, gives the straight and narrow an alternative role model with his witty 1955 bestseller, Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade. When young Patrick arrives at Beekman Place, the door opens to his aunt's unconventional bohemian life in the glitzy New York of the Jazz Age, and, by example, to a different way of being. A party is in progress: "They all used funny words, like 'batik' and 'Freud' and 'inferiority complex' and 'abstraction.'"

Patrick soon grows accustomed to his aunt's nocturnal habits (where 9 a.m. is "the middle of the night"), her glamorous theater friends, her preference for Bauhaus decor, and the experimental schools, psychotherapy, and all matter of fads and crazes (all of which Mame tries). Beekman Place is no place to be square.

Busted for placing Patrick in an experimental school (where all children were stripped of their clothes and expected to make their own fun), Mame loses her grip over her nephew when his furious trustee places him in a boarding school. Worse, she loses her wealth in the crash of 1929. Forced to leave her posh apartment for a carriage house in undesirable Murray Hill, she tries to support herself through jobs for which she is intellectually but not practically equipped. She runs through brief "careers" in literary publishing (loses a valuable manuscript), interior decoration (defies the client's orders for French Louis XV and delivers instead "Bolshevik barbarism"), entrepreneurship (her own moderne store on E. 54th is a hit, but she forgets to mail in insurance forms after it burns down), a saleswoman at Henri Bendel (10 west 57th, but since 1990, at 712 Fifth Ave.) a speakeasy operator, a personal shopper at the Algonquin (59 W. 44th St.), and then, in a hilarious ill-fated turn, an actress in one of Vera Charles' plays.

Finally, Mame takes a Christmas retail position in the toy department at Macy's, selling roller skates. Not easily trainable, she remembers only how to write up sales slips as C.O.D.'s. Those who know the story will recall that she's fired when she lets a customer help her make out the necessary cash sales slip. The customer, happily, is her future wealthy Southern husband, one Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside, of Georgia.

Sweeping her off her feet, Burnside moves Mame to ten rooms at the St. Regis Hotel (2 E. 55th St.) and encourages her to resume her old spending ways. On their first anniversary, he buys her "a big old mansion" on Washington Square (for me, a noticeable and impossible slip in an otherwise good make-believe). In the movie version, the two travel to Europe where Burnside dies after falling off a mountain in the Alps. In the original book, though, the day of their housewarming party on Washington Square, Burnside dies after being kicked in the head by a horse in Central Park. Alas. Mame becomes a very wealthy widow.

Mame's New York is the classic New York of Depression-era fantasy – the room service, hatboxes, dressing gowns, perfume, after-theater dinners, gloved doormen and bellhops, glamorous show-biz friends, witty repartee and liquor. The fantasy regenerates in postwar 1950s New York, the time of the book's publication (think, too, of Capote's Holly Golightly).

Visiting the places of Auntie Mame – the classic hotels (Algonquin, St. Regis, the Plaza), the legendary department stores (Macy's, Henri Bendel, etc.), and the nightlife (21 Club at 21 W. 52nd St., etc.) would make a fine walk, don't you think? I think so. Over the next few days I plan to seek out this classic New York fantasy and report back on my findings.

Auntie Mame would never take such a walk herself, by the way. Mame owns a Rolls-Royce.

Image: New York, New York, Macy's department store at Herald Square. September 1942. Marjory Collins, photographer. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, LC-USW3-007681-D DLC (b&w film neg.).

See related posts:
Classic New York: A Walk, and a Map
The Classic New York of Mame Dennis: A Coda, on Bank Street
Classic New York: 59th and Fifth: A Slideshow
Classic New York: The Algonquin
Classic New York: Times Square
Classic New York: A Visit to Macy's, in April
Classic New York: Henri Bendel
Classic New York: The King Cole Bar at the St. Regis
A Walk in Turtle Bay: Beekman Place, the U.N., Tudor City, and E. 42nd St.
The Liberation Theology of Mame Dennis
Grand Central Theatre, and A New Walk Begins

Orphan Film Symposium: Moving Orphans, Itinerant Filmmakers, and Pancho Villa

Last night at the Orphan Film Symposium, we gathered for dinner inside the historic Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square South. Making the most of the "on location" feel for the symposium, most of the events take place in and around Washington Square Park.

Ever since it was announced that the symposium was moving to New York, some people worried that the southern grit flair established in South Carolina for so long would be lost in translation. I worried about this myself, but on balance, just after the opening couple of days, I don't think there's anything to worry about now. Wednesday night's tribute to the late Helen Hill, a native of Columbia, South Carolina, and with it, the presence of family and friends from South Carolina, made an effective and moving transition for the symposium's segue to New York. In addition, the friendly humor that developed among earlier participants is still alive and well here, and maybe even funnier. The food is still good, and all the films are remarkable.

Last night I attended Mexican filmmaker Gregorio Rocha's presentation and screening of the restored La Venganza de Pancho Villa (ca. 1930-34) by itinerant filmmakers, Felix and Edmundo Padilla. Rocha's discovery of the famous lost reels of Pancho Villa in the archives at the University of Texas at El Paso was a breaking news story announced at the second symposium in 2001. The Padillas, operating as itinerant filmmakers along the US-Mexican border, put together this thrilling tale, combining fictional recreations with actual footage of the real Villa and his army.

Growing up in Texas and living in Austin, I met several Texans from the border area who had their own stories of Villa's raids on their ancestors' haciendas. They couldn't decide if they loved Pancho Villa or loathed him (their grandparents hated him), and the film that Gregorio showed the audience was equally ambiguous.

I've spent most of the day running errands - buying flowers, beverages, cheese and crackers, all with the aim of hostessing the orphanistas, as we are known, with le know-how, the French translation for je-ne-sais-quoi.

Images: above, gathering for dinner at the Judson Memorial Church, and below, flowers at W. 3rd and Thompson St. I brought home the red carnations.

For more on Gregorio Rocha's Pancho Villa, please see the related post at the Orphan Film Symposium blog.

Orphan Film Symposium: The 1961 Folk Singer Protest in Washington Square Park, and Emile de Antonio's America

At the beginning of each Orphan Film Symposium, I like to scan the schedule and make note of the films I can't miss. The registered participants see all the films together as well as talk over organized lunches and dinners. The screenings start in the morning and continue through the evening, so the collective experience is intense. Though I take care of minor behind-the-scenes tasks, I like to attend most of the screenings.

I put today's early afternoon session at the top of my list – films that documented protests held in Washington Square Park in the 1960s, and a couple of presentations on maverick documentary filmmaker Emile de Antonio.

Dan Drasin was a burgeoning 18-year-old filmmaker when he took his cameras and some black and white film to document a protest by folk singers in Washington Square Park in 1961. Reacting to the passage of an ordinance that prohibited singing in the park (folk singers attract unsavory elements, don't you now?), the active folk music community brought guitars to the park and sang songs of freedom. After the singers dispersed, policemen beat up some of the spectators. Drasin's 17-minute film captures that gritty determination of New Yorkers at the beginning of the 1960s, and many consider Sunday to be the first protest film of the 1960s.

Other films from the session included selections of footage shot in Washington Square Park from 1966 by Bob Parent, an artist known mostly as a still photographer, and an NYU surveillance film from 1968 of students protesting Dow Chemical's role in the Vietnam War. Ross Lipman (UCLA) presented a PowerPoint show on the restoration of Emile de Antonio's Point of Order (1963), focusing much on the usage of the word "spectacle."

Andrew Lampert of the Anthology Film Archives recently found a 1967 interview with de Antonio filmed in Leipzig, Germany. With Point of Order, his edited film of the 1954 Army-McCarthy televised hearings, De Antonio explains that he didn't set out to make a movie about his opposition to Sen. Joe McCarthy but to make a movie about the aspects of America that created the conditions for McCarthyism. De Antonio, by the way, promoted and distributed Drasin's Sunday protest film.

After sitting in the dark film theater and seeing the sights and hearing the sounds of Washington Square Park in the 1960s, walking back through the same park in the rain on my way home was a bittersweet experience. The fountain area is torn up now as part of an extensive multi-year renovation. The sincere voices and strumming that accompanied the well-preserved black-and-white moving images of protest seemed fresh, but the sounds of "This land is your land, This land is my land" grew faint as I looked around the park in it's current state of disruption. I am full of hope, however, that variations on these melodies will return one day back in full force.

Images: above, NYU surveillance film of Dow Chemical protesters; below: de Antonio.

Openings and Overtures: The Orphan Film Symposium

Yesterday's weather of warming temperatures, clear skies, and abundant sunshine in New York provided clear sailing for the arrival of guests at the Orphan Symposium. The twilight that followed provided a stunning glow for the opening reception. Here you see the celebrated film accompanist, Dennis James, providing the sounds. The skyline, even more glamorous than usual, made a too perfect backdrop for a conference devoted to film.

I had a great time at the reception. I saw many friends I haven't seen since Orphans 5, and I introduce several people to one another. In point of fact, I think this is my most important role in the symposium. Making new friends, discovering new potential colleagues, and establishing the groundwork for future relationships is what it's all about. After the reception, the participants strolled across Washington Square Park toward NYU's Cantor Film Center to take their places for opening remarks and the special tribute night for the films of Helen Hill.

The evening screenings at the film center kicked off with imaginative Bill Morrison's special trailer for Orphans 6. Created in his signature style, one that calls attention to the frailties and beauties of the material of film, the trailer incorporated clips from upcoming screenings that showed people arriving at a new place - debarking from airplanes and so forth. While watching the extraordinary short animated films of Helen Hill that followed, I continued to be moved by how her vision was so innovative, loving, avant-garde and full of childlike wonder. No one else I know can be described as a cutting-edge and experiment saint, and so, she is sorely missed.

Image: March 26, 2008. Dennis James at the piano. New York, New York. by Walking Off the Big Apple.

Curious Slideshow from Easter Brunch

This Easter Sunday, we met friends for a casual brunch at a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue. We had a lot of catching up to do. As they're good friends, they didn't seem to mind too much that I started playing with the plastic animals that the restaurant festively floats in many of the drinks. I put my camera directly on the table, cut the flash and pointed in various directions. I thought these images weirdly cool enough to pass along. Watch for one of the friends checking his watch.

The Rain on Bleecker Street

"I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests..."*

A writing assignment, the kind with a deadline, and a steady rain kept me indoors for most of the day. The elements conspired to make me focus on the task at hand, but I started suffering from cabin fever at dusk. Needing to get out, I wandered down Bleecker Street just to stretch my legs. I have come to depend on my desire to move through time and space.

A few people were out and about. I saw one woman with a green umbrella using a pay phone at the corner of Bleecker and Sullivan and another woman with a pink umbrella walking along and chatting with a guy in a hat. At one point several people converged under a canopy of their respective umbrellas. I can't tell too many details in weather like this. Everything becomes a little blurry.

* Bob Dylan wrote "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" in a basement apartment at 158 Bleecker St.

Blurry image from March 19, 2008. Bleecker Street. Walking Off the Big Apple. Greenwich Village. New York, New York.

University Place: Pedestrian, Yes, But in a Good Way (Slideshow)

University Place, a relatively short street in lower Manhattan, links Washington Square Park to the south with Union Square to the north. A thoroughfare frequented by NYU students, neighborhood residents, and office workers, the street enjoys a democratic mix of bars, coffee shops, diners, restaurants, boutiques, laundries, shoe repair shops, florists, and even a bowling alley. A few haunts of old New York can be found along in here - the Knickerbocker Bar & Grill, a favorite of the late Brooke Astor, and Patsy's, one of Frank Sinatra's preferred stops for pizza pie. Residents try to keep straight three similarly-sounding places - Café Spice, Space Market, and Spice.

University Place is pedestrian in both senses - it's an ordinary street, nothing to write home about, but it's also a good place for walking. I frequently walk up University Place to shop at the green market on Union Square, but sometimes I like to just stroll up the street for no good reason at all. Many of the eateries provide seats at the counter facing the street, the perfect place to sit and watch everyone walk by.

A few changes are afoot, as they say. At the intersection of University Place and 8th Street, Joyce Leslie, an inexpensive popular clothing store for women with bodies and tastes unlike like my own, is relocating to Broadway. Across the street, on the east side, the bbq restaurant, where I often enjoyed watching people drink gigantic frozen margaritas in the summertime, has left the building and will now be the home of a bank. No fun. I hope the rest of the street stays its sweet pedestrian self.

Photos by Walking Off the Big Apple. March 5, 2008

Scenes From the Snowstorm: Washington Square Park, February 22, 2008 (A Slideshow)

Quick, before it melts! Washington Square Park turned into a temporary sculpture park today. The most brilliant artistic turn was the appearance of a chubby snowman on one of the park's benches.

FOCUS on POTUS: The Two Washingtons of the Washington Square Arch

Officially, it's still called Washington's Birthday, though President's Day has become the accepted name, mostly as a way to include President Lincoln.

The day's meaning usually signifies a break from work or school or the arrival of a sale. In the United States Senate, however, there's at least one formality. One senator is selected to read Washington's Farewell Address. The practice began in 1862 as a way to cope with the dark days of the Civil War.

This morning I visited the statues of the two Washingtons - the military George and the civilian man of peace that grace the north side of the Washington Square Arch in Washington Square Park. Sadly, in the ever increasing disruption caused by the renovation of the park, the arch itself is now inaccessible behind a metal fence.

The arch served to commemorate the Centennial of Washington's Inauguration, an event that took place downtown. The pier statues were added later -"Washington at War" on the left of the arch by Herman MacNeil in 1916 and "Washington at Peace" on the right by Alexander Stirling Calder in 1918. Yes, Calder was the father of the famous mobile artist, Alexander Calder.

While it's not surprising that two different sculptors should interpret Washington differently, especially given the separate tasks, I'm struck how the civilian Washington, the one by Calder, presents the tougher image. While MacNeil's warrior George seems to retreat behind all those formal clothes and hat, Calder's peacetime George is bold and struttin' his stuff. Casually resting his left hand on the pedestal, his massive strong right hand shows off serious knuckles. This POTUS has got some legs, and I'd be afraid of that extra muscle he's got behind him.

Images of "Washington at War" by Herman MacNeil (1916) and "Washington at Peace" by Alexander Stirling Calder (1918) by Walking Off the Big Apple, February 18, 2008, Washington's Birthday.

The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: The Radiator Building

After architect Raymond Hood finished the renovation of Mori's restaurant in Greenwich Village in 1920, he found success designing radiator covers for the American Radiator Company. The income allowed him to move with his bride and growing family to an apartment on Washington Square. In 1922 John Mead Howells invited Hood to join him on a design competition for the Chicago Tribune Building, and when they won the $50,000 award, Hood finally emerged out of debt.

Winning the prestigious Tribune competition allowed Hood to secure his first important New York commission - the new building to house the American Radiator Company at 40 West 40th Street. In designing a tower that would symbolize the company, Hood designed several unusual features, including the use of black brick. He didn't want anyone to work after dark in the building, thinking that the illumination would disrupt the overall impression of mass and solidity. He couldn't control the workforce, of course, and George O'Keeffe (see related post) made the building famous by painting it at night.

After the building was completed in 1924 Hood moved his offices into the building's fourteenth floor. He partnered with J. André Fouilhoux, a French engineer, and Frederick A. Godley. The firm also designed the National Radiator Building in London, also a structure of black brick.

Increasingly successful in a time that coalesced with the national building boom of the 1920s, Hood enjoyed a long four-hour lunch every Friday at Mori's with Viennese designer Joseph Urban, his best friend and architect of the Ziegfeld Theater, and architects Ely Jacques Kahn and Ralph Walker. Among them they built a significant part of the famous New York skyline.

For Hood, after the Radiator Building, he would soon leave his Gothic designs in favor of sleeker and less ornamental work. The Daily News building provided reasons to move on to something more modern.

Image: The American Radiator Building, 1924. The carousel in Bryant Park is in the foreground. photo by WOTBA. 2008.

See also:
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect
Raymond Hood Designed My Duane Reade, Well, Sort Of
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: The News Building
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: The McGraw-Hill Building
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: Rockefeller Center
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: Final Thoughts
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: The Walk

Raymond Hood Designed My Duane Reade, Well, Sort Of

Born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on March 21, 1881, Raymond Hood attended Brown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Hood returned to the United States and established an architectural practice in New York in 1914. He didn't have much work, but he got a lucky break in 1920 when his landlord, Placido Mori, commissioned him to redesign his popular Greenwich Village restaurant on Bleecker Street. According to biographer and architect Walter H. Kilham, Jr.'s account, Mori gave Hood the assignment because, as Mori said, "He must be a genius–he eats so much!"*

As part of her epic journey documenting a vanishing New York, photographer Berenice Abbott took a photo of the restaurant in 1935 (see Museum of the City of New York website), and comparing her image with the image here it's easy to notice that some of the details of Mori's remain today. Hood added the top apartments, the Federal lintels above the windows, and the Doric columns.

Image: 144 Bleecker Street, February 12, 2008. WOTBA. Originally two Federalist era townhouses at 144 and 146, the facade of the building was resigned for Mori's Italian restaurant by Raymond Hood in 1920. The restaurant went out of business in 1938. The building hosted a variety of tenants until 1962. In that year the Bleecker Street Cinema, an indie art house, beloved in its era, opened in the building. After the cinema closed, a series of music venues occupied the building including the Elbow Room and Nocturne, as well as Kim's Underground Video. Most all of these businesses departed the location due to rising rents. It's an eternal New York story.

For a curious story about some lost murals from 144 Bleecker's wartime years and the history of the building, see this November 4, 1990 article from The New York Times archives.

* Raymond Hood, Architect: Form Through Function in the American Skyscraper by Walter H. Kilham, Jr. NY: Architectural Book Publishing Co., 1973.

Part of a series of posts relating to the New York buildings of architect Raymond Hood (1881-1934).

Lesson: If you want to design some place like Rockefeller Center, you gotta start somewhere.

See also:
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: The Radiator Building
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: The News Building
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: The McGraw-Hill Building
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: Rockefeller Center
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: Final Thoughts
The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect: The Walk

Lost in the West Village? So Eat

View Larger Map

Last week I walked down E. 4th Street and noticed that the color red dominated the visual landscape. Walking on W. 4th the palette veers to the blues, greens, and teals. The cool colors dominate on the west, while the hot colors splash on the eastern blocks of 4th Street. I attribute this visual duality in large part to the cultural history of the two areas - the West Village is more Western European while the East Village blends southern European with Latin American cultural heritage.

The West Village is often confusing and disorienting, because the streets run off grid. I spend a lot of time helping lost souls regain their bearing, and sometimes I'm lost myself. Last week a woman approached me near the intersection of Bleecker and Thompson and asked me how to get to Washington and Perry. She actually looked lost, with that glassy-eyed averted glance of trying to understand the mysteries of space and time. I had to go into a trance to be able to help her.

I attribute the success of the West Village restaurant scene to the trap that the denizens set for the lost souls wandering in the neighborhood. My own personal compass is informed by the knowledge that Bleecker Street and the parallel W. 4th take tricky turns toward the north beginning at 6th Avenue. That's really all I need to know. Walking north on Bleecker after 6th Avenue, for example, I know that turning left will take me further west.

I've started to compile a list of restaurants and cafes in the West Village for anyone who is interested in veering into such a trickster neighborhood and has some patience with getting lost.

Another way I orient myself in the West Village is to take my big dog with me. She loves the Hudson River pier so much that she will drag me there.

Weekend Frivolities: Spring, Says Chuck, the Staten Island Groundhog, and More Signs of an Early Spring

We have some exciting days ahead in the big city. Today, the New York Giants play the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. On Tuesday, another Super day, New York voters will go to the polls and pick their party favorites. And today's weather forecast calls for clear skies, calm west winds and temps in the low 50s.

"Well, he's a New York boy so he's going to be hardcore and real, and he seemed happy and that definitely means spring," said his handler Doug Schwartz.- from NY1 Top Stories, February 2, 2008.

Chuck may be right. Spring is near. That's not to say that New York won't see a serious snow storm around Lincoln's birthday. Many of the largest snowfalls in New York history have arrived in February, especially in the February 11-14 period, so I wouldn't be surprised to see several inches of snow again here in a couple of weeks.

Still...Chuck, the groundhog in Staten Island (if he lived in Manhattan, he'd be named Charles, in Brooklyn, Charlie, in the Bronx, Carlos, or in Queens, Charlene), has been accurate 23 out of 27 times. Phil in Pennsylvania has an estimated accuracy of 40%, so it's best to go with the opposite of his forecast. Yesterday, for example, Phil predicted six more weeks of winter, so I think it's safe to side with Chuck.

Other signs - This morning, chirping birds woke me up too early, and I detected some spring voices in their cackle (mostly starlings, not grackles). A pair of cardinals alighted on a nearby tree and stared at me through the window.

The forsythia is in bloom in Washington Square Park, or it was when I saw it a week ago. I may not find it again, thanks to the killjoys who've insisted that the fountain and surrounding area be torn up and moved. Do NOT go to Washington Square Park right now and expect to be uplifted in joy. And while I'm bringing us all down now, I'd be more overjoyed about an early Spring if I didn't think so much about global warming - mosquitoes, drought, floods, and the End Times on this paradise island.

My own spring awakening, which usually begins in early March, is often accompanied by a daily dose of Loratadine. Not this year. I'm already on Day 5.

I wish I could predict the Super Bowl and the outcome of the Super Tuesday races, but I'm feeling bullish about Spring.

Coming up on Walking Off the Big Apple: Further evidence of spring awakenings, NY party food, election coverage, more Raymond Hood buildings, Jasper Johns' favorite color, checking in on Chelsea, a NY Valentines Day chocolate breakdown, and more.

Image: Loratadine, one of my favorite things.

Fifth Avenue & The High Road to Taos: Mabel Dodge Luhan, Georgia O'Keeffe, and New York City (A Walk)

See the complete walk on a new page.
Introduction

Years ago, in the plaza of Taos, New Mexico, my mother and I struck up a conversation with a guy who ran a sandwich stand. He told us he was a New Yorker, a former business executive who decided on a whim one day to move out west. While stuck in traffic for hours on the Long Island Expressway, he decided to go home, collect the wife and children, and leave New York for good. He said he never regretted the decision, and he was happy selling sandwiches on the Taos plaza.

Mabel Dodge (1879-1962), the wealthy heiress at 23 Fifth Avenue, and Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986), the famous artist whose first exhibit was held at 291 Fifth Avenue, could have lived out the rest of their lives in New York. In 1917 Dodge married painter Maurice Sterne and had her eye on a new apartment at 23 Washington Square North. In April of 1917 Alfred Stieglitz exhibited a series of O'Keeffe's watercolors at his 291 gallery, and soon the two would be living together. They married in 1924.

After a series of nervous ailments, Dodge decided her future was in the west. In December 1917 she moved to Taos, New Mexico with her husband and their friend, Elsie Clews Parsons. Twelve years later, in the summer of 1929, O'Keeffe traveled to New Mexico with her friend, Beck Strand. The two stayed at Mabel's ranch. Mabel had divorced Sterne and married Tony Luhan, a Native American. For O'Keeffe, the visit presented a new palette, not just for her art but for her life. Upon returning to New York her art career blossomed (so to speak), but in 1932 and 1933 she also suffered from bouts of psychoneurosis. In 1934, still recuperating, she returned to New Mexico and found her ranch.

New York can be beautiful, but not in the way that New Mexico can be beautiful. I think New Mexico will continue to hypnotize those of us who live back east. When I get sick of the city, I sit on my terrace and look west. I imagine the Sangre de Christo Mountains in the setting red-orange sun and cow's skulls with white calico roses descending over the azure sky. I think then, "How much longer can I take this? What Ghost Ranch waits for me?"

A walk up Fifth Avenue continues with Ladies of the Canyon

(top) Mabel Dodge Luhan. Photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1934, and (bottom) Georgia O'Keeffe. Photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1950.

Dining Near Washington Square Park

View Larger Map

Visitors to Greenwich Village may enjoy some of these food options around Washington Square Park. The list of places is particularly suited for visiting NYU. In 2008 the park underwent major renovations, and so dining near the park may be more enjoyable than staring at a construction site. I still cherish small eastern sections of the park that are set aside for later renovation.

As someone who lives near Washington Square Park, I've enjoyed many of the nearby cafés, tiny eateries, bakeries and restaurants. This map points to places that range from very expensive to everyday fare. While finances don't allow me to frequent the high end places like Blue Hill, Il Mulino, Cru, or Babbo, they come highly recommended. I'm trying to keep this list confined to a few blocks from the park. Still, I am tempted to add a couple of places just a block or two farther away - Jane's on Houston and Bellavitae on Minetta, for example, my two reliable favorites for special dining.

I regularly visit Marumi for excellent sushi, La Lanterna for pizza and desserts, Think Coffee and Joe for coffee, Leela Lounge for Indian, and Sam's Falafel. For brunch, I always enjoy North Star, the restaurant associated with the Washington Square Hotel. Order the "sampler," with eggs, chicken apple sausages, potatoes and pancakes. Their bread basket is beautiful. Try to make reservations for jazz brunch.

A Nice Afternoon in New York, Never Mind the Park

The historic Washington Square Park in currently undergoing a major renovation, and access to the fountain and other sections of the park is restricted. For many of us who live near the park, we'll still go there on a nice afternoon and sit on any available park bench, no matter what.

Images: Washington Square Park, January 8, 2008.

Two-Mile Walks, Mostly in Manhattan

• THE HARBOR: I often walk south on Broadway to Battery Park, passing by City Hall Park, the Woolworth Building, Trinity Church, and the Customs House (Museum of the American Indian). Sometimes I'll stop for a minute in the small Bowling Green Park. From the intersection of Broadway and Bleecker, Battery Park is about two miles away, and the walk takes thirty-forty minutes, depending on traffic. I catch the subway back.

• THE BRIDGE: One inter-boro walk I recommend: From City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan, walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to Cadman Plaza, visit Brooklyn's World War II memorial and then walk over to Henry St. Wander around Brooklyn Heights for the second mile. Or start in Brooklyn Heights and walk over to Manhattan. The walk feels like it has a solid beginning, middle, and end, and the views are spectacular. Henry Street has several nice small cafés, but if I've got some weight loss goals on my mind, I try to avoid cafés as a destination.

• THE VILLAGE: From the Arch in Washington Square Park, walk north along Fifth Avenue and turn west on 11th St., cross Sixth and Seventh Avenues, keep on W. 11 to the Hudson River. Return to the park via Barrow Street (a few blocks south) and Washington Place. A couple of things along W. 11th St. worth contemplating - the townhouse at 18 W. 11th St. that the Weather Underground blew up (there's a reference to the "bomb factory" in Across the Universe, Julie Taymor's transatlantic Beatles movie) and Julian S.'s pink palace at the far west end (more an electric rose color that I've come to love and cherish. JS can't help it. He was raised in Brownsville, Texas. He makes good movies. We should leave him alone).

• THE CATHEDRAL: Begin at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Riverside Park and walk north through the park. Turn at 116th St. and walk east through Columbia University and back south on Amsterdam to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

• THE MUSEUM: On hot days, cold days, or any other day, walking through the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a thrilling experience. One of the high points of 2007 was the opening of the new Roman and Greek galleries.

• THE PARK: From the American Museum of Natural History walk east through Central Park to Belvedere Castle. Walk through the Ramble and south along the western paths of the park until Strawberry Fields. Then walk east to the Bethesda Terrace. Walk south along the Mall to 59th Street and then back west to Columbus Circle. Walking along the Mall in Central Park is one of the great urban experiences. It's not at all like walking other malls.

• THE LIBRARY: My most straight-forward walk. From the Arch at Washington Square Park, walk north on Fifth Avenue past the Flatiron (@23rd St.), the Empire State Building (@34th St.) and then to Bryant Park and the New York Public Library. Walk around Bryant Park and find some place to sit.

When I hear someone say, "New York is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there," I'm tempted to reply, "Tell me about your parks, museums, libraries, cathedrals, neighborhoods, harbor, rivers and bridges."

Image: A little woozy sketch of Raymond Hood's Radiator Building from Bryant Park.

The Hot Tamales of Avenue A

Having grown up in Texas, I am accustomed to the tradition of Mexican tamales at Christmas time. So I decided to walk out the front door of my building in Nueva York and search for some. Labor-intensive in their making, these pockets of masa, lard and meat (pork, chicken, beef, etc.), hidden in corn husks, are best served steaming hot and accompanied by red and green salsa. I could have traveled to many far-flung neighborhoods of the city in search of the great hot tamale, but I don't like tamales well enough for them to require multiple forms of transportation.

After some internet research, I headed out to the upper reaches of the East Village to Zaragosa, a Mexican deli (215 Avenue A, between E. 13th and E. 14th St.), and hoped they had some tamales. I didn't even call first. I needed the walk anyway, as I had veered out of dietary guidelines with respect to daily gingerbread consumption. And, yes, they had some tamales that day, but just of the chicken variety. After I sat down and tried one, I brought home ten more hot chicken tamales for the colonel and company. The home-made tamales at Zaragosa are large and caliente, especially with their home-made green and red sauces. The owners are from the large city of Puebla, the birthplace of mole poblano.

The round-trip walk from Washington Square Park (not pretty right now with all the construction) to Zaragosa is about 2.5 miles. Winding my way through the streets I thought that parts of the East Village were funky enough to stand in for my memory of South Austin.

Image: Frida and tamales from Zaragosa in the East Village, now at home in Greenwich Village. By the way, I recommend the cookbook, Frida's Fiestas: Recipes and Reminiscences of Life with Frida Kahlo by Marie Pierre Colle and Guadalupe Rivera (Clarkson Potter, 1994), if only for the photos of Frida and Diego's kitchen.