Classic New York: The Algonquin

From Times Square, making my way east along 44th Street, the crowds dispersed as I crossed 6th Avenue. It was a noticeable break between Frantic and Serene. The block along 44th, between 6th and 5th Avenues, regains the polished luster of Classic New York. Of course it does. It's the block, among other things, of the Algonquin Hotel, at 59 W. 44th.

Mame Dennis once worked as a personal shopper at the Algonquin, but, according to Patrick Dennis, the hotel didn't fare well enough in the poor days of 1931 to keep around a woman with expensive taste. He writes, "So she passed most of that spring chatting with old friends in the lounge."

The doorman opened the door for me, and I had to adjust my eyes to the dark surroundings. At around 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon, the lobby was in full swing, with couples and larger groups chatting around cocktails, giving the impression they had been there since breakfast. The first creature I noticed was Matilda, the Algonquin Cat, perched at the reception desk. Now 13, she could care less who walks through the front door. I asked directions to the Blue Bar, and the host escorted me through the lobby to an adjacent room. "Welcome to the Blue Bar," he said, and he said it like he meant it.

I took my place at the far end of the bar. I started up a conversation with the bartender, ordering a "Matilda," a lemony orange vodka concoction finished with a touch of good champagne. The drink is named, of course, for the Cat Who Could Care Less. Finding whatever I said Dorothy Parkerish, the couple next to me struck up a conversation, asked me where I was from ("Greenwich Village, by way of Texas," as part of a lengthier monologue), and said that I just missed a posse of Texans from San Antonio. I'm sorry I missed them, but the bar was clear enough at that point for me to look around at the Al Hirschfeld theater drawings, the subdued blue backlights along the ceiling, and what was on the three television sets.

The presence of TVs in the bar (which would have been impossible in the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis) - tuned yesterday, by the way, to the General Petraeus hearings, the Par 3 round at the Masters, and on the largest, Animal Planet, keep the Algonquin not only a comfortable and friendly place with a rich history but also a living entity in contemporary life. Don't you know there's a war on? How about that Tiger Woods? And, what about that tiger? Sitting at the bar in the Algonquin, I realized that Classic New York is still accessible to the living, not something long gone and in the past, and given political progress since the days of Mame in matters of civil rights and justice, more accessible to more people than at any time before. The matter now, I'm afraid, concerns how many people can afford these kinds of drinks in a contracting economy, an issue Mame faced in 1931.

The hotel and the bar, while beautifully restored, doesn't come across as a set piece, with its best days far behind, but a place where I would like to bring friends to have a drink and to write our own fresh dialogue for 21st-century New York.

Website for The Algonquin Hotel.

Image: by Walking Off the Big Apple. April 9, 2008.

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: 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

WOTBA's Walking News Digest: The Dodos, Donny Osmond's Walking Blog, and Walking Around Baghdad

I have a Google Alert set up for the word "walking" that fetches all sorts of disasters. Many of the walking items in the news deal with terrible things that happen to individuals who are just out for a stroll and minding their own business. Bad things happen to good people walking home, going to work, and also to nice people trying to find meaning in life by sauntering near the railroad tracks. It's a disgrace.

I feel like our civil rights and liberties as walkers are constantly under attack. Maybe, one day, I will take up this issue in a public forum, and eventually, someone will notice my hard-working efforts on behalf of walkers. Maybe this advocacy will set a course toward the governor's office in Texas, my ultimate career goal.

On the other hand, walking news is sometimes full of hope. Thusly,

• The Dodos Walking Song
The Dodos, a duo, recorded a whole set of songs based on walking around. "All of the songs sort of wrap around this coming and going theme," says Meric Long, 1/2 of The Dodos duo. We love them, says I, in the royal "we." NPR story here.

• Donny Osmond's Walking Blog
Don't miss this promised online feature for The Start! Walking program sponsored by the American Heart Association. The very face of hope.

• Walking Facing Oncoming Traffic
I, too, was always taught to walk toward oncoming traffic. A letter writer in Ontario, Canada thinks people are getting too slack in this department. I am in full agreement. I like to stare down anyone who is attempting to run over me so as to not get broadsided by strangers from the rear.

• Six Million Years of Walking Heritage, outlined in the NYT, explains new revelations about the long march of the upright.

• Reporter Walks Nervously Around War-torn City
Daniel Smith, writing for the New Haven Advocate, is braver than most people. Sometimes, you need to go for a stroll in the city just to get out of the house. The fact that the city is Baghdad, Iraq presents some issues. Story here.

Image: brave souls attempting to stroll the lower sections of Broadway in New York, New York.

The Woolworth Building

Minnesota architect Cass Gilbert (1859-1934) designed several important buildings for 20th century New York. The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House (1902-1907) at 1 Bowling Green, his first big commission, is a lavish Beaux Arts- style masterpiece. The New York Life Building (1926-28) is a massive building that blends neo-Gothic with the geometries of more modern 1920s structures.

He designed the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, where I spent my undergraduate years, and also buildings for the campus of The University of Texas in Austin, including Battle Hall (1911), a Spanish-Mediterranean Revival building that houses the architecture library and is considered one of the best structures in Texas. I only bring this up because I spent many pleasurable hours inside Battle Hall researching my master's thesis on the American skyscraper. I remember how I would sometimes look up from my books and gaze at the windows and ceiling and thinking about wanting to live in such a place.

The Woolworth Building at 233 Broadway, the tallest building in the world when it was built in 1913, annoyed some modernist architects for its neo-Gothic ornamentation and bothered others for just being so tall. It was impressive for its design and engineering, with the steel frame skeleton supported by enormous caissons driven deep into the earth. The elevators were faster and more plentiful than in other buildings at the time, a profitable factor that Frank Woolworth appreciated for his "cathedral of commerce."

This morning I walked south through Soho on Mercer Street until Canal, walked a block east and then continued south on Broadway until I reached the Woolworth Building. I sat in City Hall Park across the way and looked at the building for some time. The neo-Gothicism lends the building the ecclesiastical aura, but there's little doubt of its secular intent as permanent outdoor advertising. What it doesn't look like at all, interestingly, is a Woolworth store.

The Woolworth Building hovers in my field of vision whenever I walk through downtown, and I've started to invest in it spiritual meaning and power. Maybe angels hang out up there, like the ones dressed in trench coats in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire.

Image: The Woolworth Building, 233 Broadway.

See nearby places in Tribeca:
Establishing Shots: The Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca of Duane: Duane Street and Duane Park
Tribeca Living: A Building for Chocolate, and One for the Wool Trade
In Search of the Lower West Side: Before Tribeca
Walking Off Tribeca and Remembering Mostly Lunch
Walking Off Tribeca: The Lay of the Land
Walking Off Tribeca: Starting at Square One

Scenes from a Film Symposium: Orphans 6

The first several slides would suggest that the participants in the Orphan Film Symposium, March 26-29, 2008 at NYU, were more interested in food and drink than films, but most of the images that follow reveal their true passion.

Today is my day for naps, pizza, and college basketball. As a sophisticated flâneuse, I sometimes need a time-out.

T.O., baby! Texas is out.

Walking Off the Big Apple will return to the streets tomorrow.

(see previous posts for more on the Orphan Film Symposium.) Photos in slideshow by Walking Off the Big Apple. March 2008.

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.

Establishing Shots: The Tribeca Film Festival & 2008 Festival Highlights

"Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man."- Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver (1976)

After the attacks of September 11, life in lower Manhattan took a long time to recover. The neighborhood of Tribeca, just north of the WTC site, had already become an attractive destination for artists and families, but after the shocking events of that day potential new residents grew cautious. Area businesses suffered as streets were blocked to traffic, and only residents or those on official business could pass through checkpoints.

Actor Robert De Niro joined with producer Jane Rosenthal and her spouse, the philanthropist and writer Craig Hatkoff, to found the Tribeca Film Festival as a way to help filmmakers in New York and, specifically, to spur the economic recovery of lower Manhattan. Even before the September 11 attacks the three had invested money in the Tribeca neighborhood.

The Tribeca Film Festival, which will take place April 23 -May 4, 2008, continues to grow each year and generate millions of dollars in economic activity for the city.

The festival has just released the lineup for this year's festival, and I've started making a list of features that I would enjoy seeing.

Spotlight Section:

• Lou Reed’s Berlin, directed by Julian Schnabel. (USA) - New York Premiere, Documentary. I failed to get tickets for Reed's 2006 Berlin performance at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, so I'm glad Julian was there.

• My Winnipeg, directed by Guy Maddin, written by George Toles and Maddin. (Canada) - Premiere, Narrative. The imaginative Canadian filmmaker turns his attention to his hometown.

• Man On Wire, directed by James Marsh. (UK) - New York Premiere, Documentary. French daredevil Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the Twin Towers on August 7, 1974.

• The Universe of Keith Haring, directed by Christina Clausen. (Italy, France) - Premiere, Documentary.

Special Screenings:

• Empire II, directed by Amos Poe. (USA) - North American Premiere, Documentary. 3-hour film about the magic of NYC.

• Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West), directed by Sergio Leone, written by Sergio Donati and Leone, English dialogue by Mickey Knox. (Italy, USA, 1968) - New York Premiere Restoration. My spouse saw this a few weeks ago at the Miami Film Festival and thought it truly beautiful.

Discovery (emerging filmmakers):

• Paraiso Travel, directed and written by Simon Brand. International Premiere, Narrative. Colombians illegally travel from Medellín to New York and find romantic drama.

• Waiting For Hockney, directed by Julie Checkoway. World Premiere, Documentary. Aspiring artist Billy Pappas spent 10 years painting his masterpiece in his parents' attic and needs to show it to David Hockney.

• The Wild Man of the Navidad (link to Shoe Leather, my blog for Reframe), directed and written by Duane Graves and Justin Meeks. World Premiere, Narrative. An urban legend in Texas about a community frightened by a creature in the woods.

Tribeca Film Festival website

Image above by Walking Off the Big Apple

See related Tribeca posts:
The Woolworth Building
The Tribeca of Duane: Duane Street and Duane Park
Tribeca's Most Tripped-Out Vista
Tribeca Living: A Building for Chocolate, and One for the Wool Trade
In Search of the Lower West Side: Before Tribeca
Walking Off Tribeca and Remembering Mostly Lunch
Walking Off Tribeca: The Lay of the Land
Walking Off Tribeca: Starting at Square One

We're Not All Like Dubya: A NY Map for Texas Independence Day

Not all Texans are like the former governor of Texas who currently serves as President of the United States (324 days left, and counting). I have to explain this difference when I meet some New Yorkers and they find out where I'm from. I, for one, prefer to think that the Texas Man, if we're talking gender, is better represented by Robert Rauschenberg, Freddy Fender, Terry Allen, Luis Jimenez, Tommy Lee Jones, Willie Nelson, Bill Moyers, Buddy Holly, Kinky Friedman, Tommy Tune, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Rip Torn, and Alvin Ailey than by Dubya. Call it Texas pride. I, as Texas Woman, like to think that I follow in the kick-ass traditions of Ann Richards, Barbara Jordan and Molly Ivins, women who made some horse sense of politics.

Today is March 2, Texas Independence Day, the day to commemorate the adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836 in the town of Washington-on-the-Brazos. Here I am in New York City. Three Texas cities are in the top ten U.S. cities by population - Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas. That's an important fact, because it's not like all Texans wake up to look out on a vast plain of nothingness. I have to explain this, too. Many people have that image from watching movies.


View Larger MapAnyway, here's a map of some Texas "points of light" on the island of Manhattan. Most of the places on this map are bbq restaurants I like or ones recommended by friends. I threw in some corny places here, such as places to buy western wear and cowboy boots.

Let me tell you an amusing story. I sometimes dress like Johnny Cash, but so do many New Yorkers. One day, while I was living in South Carolina, I decided that I needed more black shirts of the western sort. I went into a vintage clothing store and found nine black western shirts. When I took them up to the cash register, the owner of the store and a friend of mine looked at me and said, "You do not need nine shirts that all basically look the same." So, she picked out three shirts and made me put the others back.

I don't know if I'll do anything in particular for Texas Independence Day, but I know for a fact that many flag-waving native Texans in the Big Apple will at some point today gravitate to Hill Country.

In the News:
Clinton Irks Texas Democrats by June Kronholz (WSJ)

In the Blogosphere:
I recently came across these hilarious Texas sisters and their videos. I urge all New York actors assigned to imitate a Texas accent to study these videos hard. Here's one I particularly enjoy.

Image: Beaumont, Texas. Women shipyard workers leaving the Pennsylvania shipyards. Vachon, John, 1914-1975, photographer. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USF35-1326]

More Walking Off the Big Apple Maps

Roundup: The Plaza Hotel, Sondheim's Seurat, the Texas Primary, and the Upcoming Gelato Showdown in the Village

As I gather my thoughts about the Chichester Festival Theatre's entertaining production of Macbeth that I saw last night at BAM, I would like to pass on a few updates and news items:

• I've now assembled all the posts from The New York of Raymond Hood, Architect self-guided walk onto new pages and placed them under the list of walks on the site's sidebar. I've added a small slideshow of more images of the buildings.

• The Plaza Hotel reopens Saturday, March 1, and I look forward to visiting. I've been meaning to comment on the story, "It's Lonely at the Plaza Hotel," by Christine Haughney from the February 17, 2008 edition of The New York Times. Apparently, the new condo owners are lonesome, as not everyone can afford a place in their legendary hotel. The story quotes one woman who told the reporter that she "wouldn’t mind meeting someone other than the decorators, real estate brokers and other service workers fussing over the apartments." I know exactly how she feels. All I can say is that I'm available. I would love to hang out in The Plaza. Anyone living at The Plaza who might be reading this and who would enjoy some company, please write walkbigapple@yahoo.com.

• Mapping Texas for the Primary. As a native Texan, I have many opinions about the upcoming Texas presidential primary. I recommend reading Randy Kennedy's NYT article, "Pieces of Texas Turn Primary Into a Puzzle," that explains the diversity of the vast Texas political landscape. My mother, a proper East Texan who wore skirts, hose, and high heels her entire life, thought I would become uncivilized if I spent any time with West Texans. Of course, I rebelled. No further evidence is necessary beyond looking in my closet and seeing what is not there.

• Art lovers suffering from a Seurat withdrawal after the closing of the exhibit at MoMA should make note that a new production of Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, now playing at Studio 54 (254 West 54th Street), has received good reviews and extended its run through June 15, 2008.

• (Image) Yesterday, I spotted the sign for the new gelato place coming to Bleecker Street later this spring. GROM's first NY location is up on Broadway on the Upper West Side. The Village location, an excellent site on Father Demo Square, will set up a showdown between this Turin-based upstart and L'Arte del Gelato on Seventh Ave. It will be like a spaghetti western but with gelato. As I posted earlier, I am observing a strict gelato diet for Lent. It's not going well.

Schnabel, WOTBA, and Venetian Masks: Most Popular Search Terms

I like to know the means by which new readers come to this website, and perusing the list of most popular search terms from time to time, I begin to ascertain patterns. I am also curious how well I help new readers find the information they need and how I can better meet the needs of the global audience.

Here is the list of the five most popular search terms from the past month that have directed people to Walking Off the Big Apple. I will follow the list with a brief analysis of these findings:

1. "Julian Schnabel"
2. "Julian Schnabel building"
3. "Walking Off the Big Apple"
4. "Venetian masks"
5. "How to make Venetian masks"

Julian Schnabel: recent Academy Award nominee, major contemporary visual artist, friend of Jean-Michel Basquiat, raised in Brownsville, Texas, interior designer for the Gramercy Park Hotel, mover and shaker. I don't know Julian personally. What else do you need?

Oh. His building in the West Village. I wrote about his "Tower of Pink Power" lo, these many months ago, when WOTBA was just a wee thing, but for each new week this particular post continues to rank high on the visitor's list. Indeed, you MUST come walk the neighborhood and see his building with your own eyes. I have come to love it in every way – its whatever pink-rose-red mottled facade, its brazen Italianate trimmings, its soaring height on the western edges of the Village.

Walking Off the Big Apple: I have high confidence that people have come to the right place when they type in this search term. I imagine it's the result of a conversation involving my far-flung friends. Since 1990, the colonel (the title I give my Kentucky-born spouse on this website) and I have lived in Austin, Texas, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Columbia, South Carolina, and now Greenwich Village, USA. In that order. Beat that with a stick! So, I think the conversation goes like this:

"You hear anything from Teri lately?"
"Naw. Living in New York! Heard she had a popular blog." (Note: I tell people I have a "popular" blog as a PR technique.)
"What's it called?"
"I think it's called..."

Venetian masks: Time for the masked ball, or as a South Carolina friend commented when he saw some Venetian masks in a flower shop, "They must be having an Eyes Wide Shut party!" As I explained in one of the Weekend Frivolities, I visited the shop in Venice that made the masks for the Kubrick film. I stumbled upon the place while strolling the small streets near the Guggenheim Venice. From time to time, I make masks based on molds I made of our two dogs and deceased cat. I'm going to make more this year and will try to sell them to you.

In conclusion, Julian, raised on the Texas-Mexican border, and me, raised in Big D, and both in love with Art, sometimes dream in Italian. Prego, y'all. Welcome to the West Village. Welcome to Walking Off the Big Apple.

The 6th most popular search term is "cupcakes."

Image: Julian Schnabel's Palazzo Chupi, W. 11th Street, with cupcake and coffee from the nearby Magnolia Bakery. Photo from the morning of February 26, 2008. Walking Off the Big Apple –"Giving readers what they want since 2007."

Jasper Johns: On the Cold Gray Stones (A Review)

“Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.” - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"Jasper Johns, the seafaring stranger," I thought. The sea kept sweeping through the galleries during my visit to Jasper Johns: Gray at the Met - images of a drowning poet, symbolized by Periscope (Hart Crane), Tennyson, the Poet Laureate who lived on the Isle of Wight, and the bridges, evoked by the Catenary series, leading voyagers to the edge of the sea. Johns has lived on many islands - Manhattan, the island, Edisto, the haunted sea island off the South Carolina shore, and the island of St. Martin, one of Johns' homes. Even circumstances of Johns' friends bring to mind the sea - Bob Rauschenberg, a child of Port Arthur, Texas, on the Gulf, and Frank O'Hara, the poet who died on Fire Island.

The Met arranges the grays thematically and, more or less, chronologically. After stating the thesis, well-made in the presentation of False Start and Jubilee, two paintings with the same subject, one with color and one with gray, the exhibit walks the visitor through the visual language of the artist - the objects (drawer, coat hanger, etc.), American flags in gray, the maps and targets leached of their colors, and then the splendid numbers and alphabets.

The targets, alphabets, and numbers function as our artist's semaphore - the "words" of his language, the "things the mind already knows." They are Johns' vocabulary, conveyed with all the tools of the trade - paints, graphite, encaustic, charcoal, watercolor, conté pencils, found objects, collage. Drawing is a gray medium. Letters and numbers - H means Hard, B means Black, and the HBs of the middle - 4, 5, 6, render grays.

And then comes Edisto. A drama unfolds. What happened to Johns here? It's the early 1960s, he's turned 30, and he's gone dark, sensitive, bleak, even tragic. Here's the room of Frank O'Hara and Hart Crane and a painting titled Liar and another titled No. Edisto, an old sea home of the Gullah people, is a moody, rocky, beautiful hard place. On those windswept days of gray rain and clouds, especially near the sea, pigmented colors announce themselves loudly, but at the same time a mood is struck. This sea island is the province of uncertainty, a place adrift, a Samuel Beckett play.

Beyond Edisto, the exhibit moves through a sculpture room and then to the hatch mark paintings. These short parallel lines become a new important part of the artist's pattern language. He's said that he saw the pattern on the side of a van. While crosshatching is a known technique in drawing, employed to render shading, Johns' hatch marks don't really cross. They're held in tension, graphic and flat, but full of motion in two dimensions.

Then comes the 80's room, shocking in its representations, the collage aesthetic, the busy bits of art history and the autobiographical archive. Winter, by the way, with the foregrounded snowflakes, its little snowman, and its looming outlined human figure, reeks of a midlife crisis. It's a moment where Johns looks like he's been swept up in a larger self-referential art history breakout and not really in his own element. He's included his own paintings in his paintings. They're all so social and conversational, even if it's mostly with the art history textbook. It feels like a phase.

He came out of it. Upon reaching the tenth room of the Gray exhibit, I sat on a bench and stayed long enough among the large gray Catenary paintings to watch the slight swaying of the ropes. Peace and quiet. With Near the Lagoon, 2002-3, a vertical canvas, the catenary becomes a drawing device and also a cosmic curtain. These gray surfaces are richer, bluer and creamier than the earlier paintings. Here's the Milky Way and the hints of the harlequin trickster. The jig is up. Johns has moved from his winter into night. I can smell the salt air in the astronomical twilight, the creaking of the pier underneath.

Upon leaving the exhibit, the gray flagstone pathway of Within, with its hints of many-colored lava underneath, carries the artist-as-Prospero, perhaps accompanied by a dog or two, to a new place on the island.

Jasper Johns: Gray continues at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through May 4, 2008.

See also the review of the drawings at Matthew Marks.

"Mrs. Clinton, of New York"

The august New York Times, keeping to its long tradition of referring to news subjects by the titles "Mr." and "Mrs.," refers to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as "Mrs. Clinton, of New York." As I was reading this morning's NYT front page account of Senator Barack Obama's impressive margin of victory over Senator Clinton in yesterday's Wisconsin primary and Hawaii caucuses, I thought, "Wow. "Mrs. Clinton, of New York. - That's her problem right there."

The Times keeps the style of Mrs. consistent, as far as I know, throughout the paper. Scanning other political stories of the day, I can read, for example, the account of Mrs. McCain's smackdown of Mrs. Obama. I'm still a little shocked, however, when I read the title Mrs., especially before the name of a woman who, though married, exercises a fair measure of independent political power.

When I was an aspiring ambitious youngin' in the great state of Texas, older uncle types would ask me about my college plans. "Are you planning on getting a MRS degree?," they'd ask, chuckling, referring of course to the useless academic time girls spend as co-eds. "Naw, man, I can't wait until I'm Governor of Texas, and you're in jail," I would think to myself, and then I'd go home to read MS. magazine.

"Mrs. Clinton" - now, that's the woman I think who stays home and bakes cookies. Adding "of New York" adds a double whammy. In the first place, in this election season you can see how well New York resonates with national voters. New York is still that suspicious foreign big crowded cold place where people get knifed in the face for no reason. For even me, "Mrs. Clinton, of New York" reads Upper East Side, a Botox-injected socialite who wouldn't in fact bake cookies but have her assistant go buy them over on Madison. It's a wonder Mrs. Clinton, of New York gets any votes outside of 10021 and 10022. On the other hand, "Mr. Obama, of Illinois" - now that's Lincoln-esque!

The New York Post doesn't use titles, so the candidates are simply Clinton and Obama, for example. Ditto for The New York Post. Other newspapers begin their reports referring to "Senator Hillary Clinton" and "Senator Barack Obama" but then drop the Senator title and the first names after these identifications. I prefer that style over the Mr. and Mrs. traditions of The New York Times. When I'm reading the Times I feel like I'm at a formal tea party. In 1954.

The way things are going, though, the title, "Mrs Clinton, of New York," sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Girl With The Purple Umbrella

After a forecast yesterday that called for rain or snow in the morning, followed by a chance of flurries or some rain later in the morning, and then some rain around noon, nothing really materialized until the early afternoon. Then, a wild but brief sideways snowstorm blew in fast and furious. It was not like fluffy snow or freezing precipitation but more like being caught inside a shaken snow globe.

I chanced to look out the window at the blowing wintry precipitation - the kind that the weather service might characterize as "unknown," when I spotted a young woman with a purple umbrella standing in the middle of the intersection. I didn't think she was in too much danger, Sunday afternoon at that hour is fairly quiet in the Village, but I did worry that she was fairly vulnerable to a speeding taxi. As we say in Texas, usually about politics, "Only thing in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos."

I watched her for several minutes, though she was hard to see in the blowing snow, and I wondered why, of course, she was immovable in the middle of the intersection. I liked her purple umbrella. Then I realized she was talking on her cell phone. That must be a pretty important call, I thought, the kind that's so important that you have to stand still. Casual phone calls usually can be conducted while walking, but serious or surprising news will stop you dead in your tracks. So, here's this girl with a purple umbrella that's about to blow out of one hand, and it's snowing sideways at about fifty miles an hour, and she's on the phone and not moving. I would not do that.

I surmised that even though I saw her standing at this particular intersection in the middle of a winter storm, she herself imagined being elsewhere, a somewhere that was not in the middle of the street.

WOTBA's Walking News Digest: Walking Felon Preachers, Maryland's Issues With Walking, and No One Walks in Arlington

Florida Man Shoots Himself While Walking His Dog
Florida Today.com. When I'm walking my dogs, I try not to carry too much in my pocket. I don't advise packing heat.

Walking Preacher Is Really a Felon
Natchez Democrat. This guy was walking around the country, he explained, because God told him to. Turns out he was walking away from some hard time.

No One Walks in Arlington, Texas
Fort Worth Star Telegram. Arlington, Texas was built as a car-friendly suburb, with the residential areas far away from places of employment. Ergo, Arlington comes in last place in the number of people walking to work, according to a study conducted by hr.blr.com, a human resources web site. NYC comes in a fourth place behind Boston, Washington, and San Francisco.

Walking in Snowy Fond du Lac, Wisconsin is No Fun
Fond du Lac Reporter. Recent snow storms have left snow piling up on the sidewalks, and some folks in the land of the Frozen Tundra are mad they have to walk in the streets.
Same for Idaho Local 8 News (Idaho Falls, etc.)

Maryland's Experiment in Making Walking the State Exercise
(AP) Some people in Maryland don't think walking is Maryland-specific enough to warrant adoption as the state exercise.

Image: The globe inside the Daily News building on 42nd St. Walking Off the Big Apple is fixin' to put together a themed self-guided midtown walking tour of the buildings designed by architect Raymond Hood. See also The Building That Would Glow at Night.

Election Day

After watching endless hours of CNN and MSNBC (I'm partial to the latter) over the past month and being one of the many enthusiastic followers of the political horse race that began in Iowa, it felt almost surreal to finally cast my own ballot today.

I went to the polls in the late morning, before any rush, and I found the line short and the temperaments of the poll workers cheerful. The subdued atmosphere of voting struck me as a complete contrast to the fevered high-energy commentary of the televised political coverage. The business of news coverage demands cranking up the volume and pumping up the drama to drive ratings, but the business at the polls is necessarily the boring attention to order, procedure, and checking off names.

The pace of the process, in its slow way, helped me with the peculiarities of the New York party primary ballot - the list of named delegates supporting the candidates, people I'm supposed to vote for but do not know. I have been familiar with this New York process for a long time, but still it's odd. I heard a guy in line whispering the mystery of the delegates to another voter, but she didn't get it either.

Given the hoopla of media coverage about Super Tuesday, I wasn't too surprised to read that today in Bexar County, Texas - that would be San Antonio and pronounced like "Bear," over a thousand voters called the election commission to ask where to vote. Primary day in Texas is March 4, not today. Reading this news of the Bexar County confusion, I recalled my long-ago awakening as a young idealistic activist. During my college years my activism took me to San Antonio to participate in the state-wide convention, and I remember thinking that politics was the greatest, most glamorous, and most important aspect of my life.

That sense of myself as the young person who would change the world belongs to a different era. In the intervening years, political professionals took over the grass roots politics I loved, and I feel guilty that I let them. But this morning, in the gray light of an overcast day, a small distant voice came back to me and wanted to re-engage with the world. It made me happy.

I don't think I need to tell you who I voted for.

Epilogue: Fifth Avenue and The High Road to Taos

When Mabel Dodge first saw the Taos Pueblo, she felt an intense surge of longing. In Edge of Taos Desert she writes:

"It was as though the Pueblo had an invisible wall around it, separating the Indians from the world we knew–a wall that kept their life safe within it, like a fire that cannot spread. "How self-contained it seems! I thought, and how contented it feels!" I mused to myself. "I wish I belonged in there!"

For many years after my father died, my mother and I traveled almost every summer from our home in Dallas to Santa Fe, staying at the old La Fonda Hotel. Sometimes we drove there, a seemingly endless and boring drive through the Texas Panhandle but an increasingly fascinating journey toward the end. It took us a few days to adjust to the altitude difference, so we would spend the first days keeping close to the main plaza.

On one trip we joined a group traveling to Taos, via the High Road. Toward the end of the day we stopped outside the Taos Pueblo. We got out and walked around for an hour, keeping a respectful distance between our tourist selves and the residents of the pueblo.

When it was time to board the van for the return trip, we could not find my mother anywhere. We waited thirty minutes. Finally, I spotted her walking out of a door in the Pueblo. I remember that she was wearing her typical smart Dallas fashion designer suit, with hose, high heels, and all the appropriate accessories, and I thought how comical she looked in that context.

When she sat down next to me in the van, I asked what she was doing in there. She said that she had struck up a conversation with a nice couple about their children and that they invited her to sit down. She had a great time. When the van pulled away from the Taos Pueblo, she told me she didn't feel like leaving. "I want to go back there," she said. "It's where I belong."

I love New York City, and I plan to stay for a long time. I feel, though, that there's a part of me I'm saving for later, the one that trades in urban canyons for longer memories and a much bigger sky.

See additional related posts for Fifth Avenue and The High Road to Taos: Mabel Dodge, Georgia O'Keeffe, and New York City.

Images: New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, House on Canyon Road, Santa Fe, and Lexington Avenue near 49th., NY, NY, 2008. You get the picture. Photos by Walking Off the Big Green Chili Pepper.

Fifth Avenue and The High Road to Taos: The Art Pilgrimage to the West

See related posts for Fifth Avenue and The High Road to Taos: Mabel Dodge, Georgia O'Keeffe and New York City.

Readers of this site who also regularly peruse The New York Times may have picked up today's NYT (January 25, 2008) art section to see yet another article on art in New Mexico. In this case, Roberta Smith reviews Richard Diebenkorn in New Mexico, a new exhibit at the Grey Art Gallery (NYU) that features a selection of paintings that the Ab-Exer Diebenkorn made while living in Albuquerque in the early 1950s. Smith gives the exhibit a glowing review - you can't miss it, a large reproduction covers the front page of the art section, and I plan to write something about the exhibit myself here over the next few days.

O'Keeffe's visit to New Mexico was certainly just one among many. John Sloan, who I've written a lot about here, visited Santa Fe in 1919, the same year as Mabel Dodge made her move, and he bought a house there in 1920. He spent four months of every year in Santa Fe from 1920 to 1950. Sloan learned of the place from his pioneering mentor, Robert Henri, who had visited in 1916 an 1917. It was a craze really, one that also attracted Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Stuart Davis. American modernism, with its taste for the exotic, couldn't do without the New Mexican landscape and its people.

Throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, New Mexico continued to attract more artists, many from New York. Some stayed permanently, and others divided their time between the two places. Marfa, Texas has a similar appeal, one made even more enticing by its easy lack of access.

Another group of artists began to make their way to New Mexican outposts in the 1970s and 1980s. Feminist artists like Judy Chicago, whose flower paintings were directly inspired by O'Keeffe's core imagery, found the region congenial. Lucy Lippard, one of feminist art's important theorists, makes her home there as well.

The reasons New Mexico continues to lure new residents remain the same as a century ago. After the busy syncopated rhythms of a large metropolis and where skyscrapers block the setting sun, the uninterrupted desert vista, with its warm daytime sun and cool nights, forces a steadier and slower pace. The land and its people seem to belong to the long cycles of human history as opposed to the short ones of the city and the fashionable whims of manufactured fads and consent.

It made sense that galleries and the art business would follow the artistic pilgrimage out west. Santa Fe is the third largest art market in the United States after New York and Los Angeles. Canyon Road, where many of the galleries are located, is always a pleasure to walk.

Images: Landscape panorama by Walking off the Big Green Chili Pepper, and Robert Henri. Gregorita with the Santa Clara Bowl, 1917, oil on canvas, Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University.

Fifth Avenue & The High Road to Taos: Mabel Dodge Sees Art By "A Schoolteacher Out West"

A continuation of the walk, Fifth Avenue & The High Road to Taos: Mabel Dodge Luhan, Georgia O'Keeffe, and New York City. See related posts.

Flashback: In the Fall of 1915 Georgia O'Keeffe was teaching at Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina where she started working on a series of charcoal drawings. She tried out new techniques she had learned from her NY teacher Arthur Wesley Dow, especially a new way to treat light and dark, and the resulting work was like nothing she had done before. She sent some of these drawings to her close art school friend, Anita Pollitzer, who in turn showed them to Alfred Stieglitz at his 291 Gallery on January 1, 1916.

Every artist could use an Anita Pollitzer. The daughter of a wealthy Charleston, South Carolina family, Pollitzer could turn on the Southern charm. A burgeoning artist in her youth, she later made a name for herself as a suffragette and activist for the National Women's Party. Showing charcoal drawings of an unknown artist friend to someone as established as Stieglitz takes a great deal of panache.

Stieglitz loved the drawings and exhibited them without O'Keeffe's knowledge. She was angered that he did not ask her consent, but after talking it over with him, she agreed to let him exhibit her work. In August of 1916 she moved to Canyon, Texas to teach at West Texas State Normal College.

Mabel Dodge didn't often leave her place at 23 Fifth Avenue, but the 291 Gallery, a mile or so up the avenue, was "one of the few places where I went." One day in 1916 she met painter Marsden Hartley at the gallery, and Stieglitz "showed us some curious black and white drawings by a schoolteacher out west. Presently he hung them on the walls...This was the first work we saw of Georgia O'Keeffe." (Movers and Shakers)

The moral of this story, for all artists in the audience, is to find a nice flirtatious Southern friend who will brazenly show your work to dealers.

Image: Georgia O'Keeffe, Drawing No. 13, 1915. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Alfred Stieglitz Collection.

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.

Holiday Books: Tony Duquette, Andy Goldsworthy, Eric Clapton, Edith Wharton

Image: One of the windows at Bergdorf Goodman (754 Fifth Ave) inspired by the fantastical work of the California-born designer Tony Duquette (1914-1999). The lavish book, Tony Duquette, by Wendy Goodman and Hutton Wilkinson is published by Abrams.

Readers who like Walking Off the Big Apple may also enjoy the following books published in 2007.

Books of art:

Enclosure by Andy Goldsworthy
On Ugliness by Umberto Eco, Alastair McEwen (translator)
A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932 by John Richardson
A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book by Frank Warren
The Writer's Brush: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture by Writers by Donald Friedman

Also:

Two books about cultural ideas - Modernism: The Lure of Heresy by Peter Gay and Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture At Midcentury by Elizabeth Armstrong

Two autobiographies - Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin and Clapton: The Autobiography by Eric Clapton

Two biographies - Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee and Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse: The Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954 by Hilary Spurling

And finally the novels and novellas I most want to read: Tree of Smoke: A Novel by Denis Johnson, Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo, Suite Francaise (two novellas, one fictional, the other factual) by Irene Nemirovsky , and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

Read the earlier post about classic New York and Texas novels here.