I had an excellent adventure today that I would like to share with y’all. It’s nothing earth-shattering, just another realization…part of a string of many others.
As some of you might know, I live in a primarily multi-racial, working class neighborhood in the Bronx. The Bronx is the last major borough of NYC to resist ongoing gentrification. Old line Brooklyn is pretty well gone now except for a few isolated Italian, Jewish, African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods; Manhattan is almost totally gentrified, and Queens is rapidly following Brooklyn in the gentrification derby. But the Bronx maintains. It’s mostly the real deal, v.2011.
Yesterday I had to get some keys made for a special lock that I have on my apartment door. Only one locksmith in all of NYC makes these keys, and the store is located in the Fordham Manor/Fordham Heights section of the Bronx. Those neighborhoods are so named because of the Jesuit-run school that exists there, Fordham University. Fordham started out as a primarily Irish-dominated school as can be easily seen on this website. The neighborhood is, of course, Irish no more. It’s “da Bronx” now…for real! I had the choice of taking a 30 minute bus ride or a 10 minute drive to that neighborhood, and since I have been meaning to check out the Italian food stores in the Arthur Avenue area of the Bronx that’s close to Fordham, I chose to drive.
Read on for the whole story.
I do not often venture into the deep Bronx…I live on the western side of the borough and most of my work takes me into either Manhattan, Brooklyn or entirely out of NYC proper…plus the subway system doesn’t go east-west very well in the Bronx. I have to take a train all the way into Manhattan and then transfer to another in order to get to the eastern or southern parts of the Bronx. Either that or take a complicated and very slow set of buses. I own a car but prefer to use public transportation as much as possible simply because of the fuel expense, plus…and this is where the whole Third World thing begins to come in…the roads in NYC are without a doubt in the worst shape that I have ever seen them in 40+ years of residence. The recent hard winter coupled with the ongoing recession has left NYC incapable of maintaining its roads. Potholes abound. I lost three tires and damaged two wheels in the 3 months between February and April before I simply stopped driving whenever possible. A hard-earned $1750 lesson.
Anyway…I got in my car and headed east in the Bronx to get the keys.
What a trip!!! Now…I know about driving in Dominican neighborhoods. I live in one. The Dominican population of NYC has a special relationship to road rules. It basically ignores them. Sudden U-turns, double and triple parking, incredibly aggressive driving (especially among the gypsy cab/Lincoln Town Car drivers) and a disregard for pedestrian safety that verges on suicidal are simply part of the culture. Driving down a busy street in a Dominican neighborhood…not Puerto Rican and not any other Hispanic culture…reminds me of nothing more than driving down a country road where deer and other animals cross the road with relative impunity. People just…appear…out of nowhere, often with several children in tow. You either avoid them or you kill them. Your choice. I choose to avoid them.
But this trip took me through any number of decidedly ethnic neighborhoods. Puerto Rican, Dominican, Central American, Asian, Eastern European…the works. First of all…I could not believe the state of the roads. I drive a Volkswagen GTI that is set up for performance driving…fairly hard suspension, low profile tires, etc. On Fordham Road…a busy, four lane/two way avenue that is lined with neighborhood stores for miles…I could drive no faster than about 10 MPH through almost every intersection because the crosswalks were generally so deteriorated that my car threatened to bottom out if I went any faster. Street signs, traffic lights and the like? Fuggedaboudit! Traffic lights hung out in the middle of the road with no rhyme or reason, contradictory road signs, missing stop signs and so on. El Mayor Bloomberg has quite obviously given up on El Bronx. Bet on it. And the driving!!! I am an experienced NYC driver, and I generally give no quarter in the cut and thrust of city traffic. But at 10 AM on a Wednesday morning in the central Bronx? Total defeat. Car after car and delivery truck after delivery truck…often with sound systems pumping out hip-hop, salsa or reggaeton at almost nuclear levels and horns compulsively blowing at the slightest hesitation in traffic movement…cut me off, tailgated me and otherwise treated me and my car like dolphins treat beach balls in those sad tourist aquarium shows. Not since Caracas, Venezuela in the `70s have I ever seen driving like this. Deep.
Then I got to the locksmith’s. A big, prosperous store on a busy street…big enough to have its own parking lot across the street. I parked…the lot itself had potholes into which an entire Smart Car could disappear…and walked into the store. At first glance everyone working in the joint was from “somewhere else”…Caribbean island people, mostly…and there was a certain “Just what I need…you and your keys!” attitude going on. No one looked at anyone with whom they were not directly dealing and so on. OK. I can deal with attitude. I just wait through it. Eventually something happens. So I stood and watched.
Here’s what I saw:
A Central American guy trying to get some sort of lock part for his car from a Jamaican clerk. Language and measurement barriers galore. Finally the clerk says…”It’s either ¼ inch, ½ inch or it’s some kind of Mexican part. We don’ got no Mexican parts. Make up your mind.” He makes up his mind.
A Trinidadian keymaker…I play often with Trinidad musicians and recognize the accent and act…copying maybe 20 keys and doing everything he can not to make eye contact with anybody who might want his services.
A smallish Asian man in his 50s (Maybe Korean? S.E. Asian?) who is obviously a hard working dude…you can tell by his hands and his clothing…trying to talk to someone who appears to be the boss (White ethnic. Jewish or Italian, I think. Also in his 50s.) about an order. He knows what he wants, doesn’t have much English but he’s giving it a good, honest try. After about 30 seconds the boss guy angrily says “What? You can’t speak English!!!???”, turns and walks away. The Asian fella has been quite clear about what he wants…he has pointed to a piece on the counter, shown with his hands how long he needs it to be and even drawn a good diagram on a piece of paper. Eventually some of the non-Asian (but also non-American) help…they’ve been watching the boss’s act with ill-concealed contempt…spend a couple of minutes with the Asian guy and figure out what he needs. Meanwhile the Trindadian has decided that I’m OK because I’ve been patient and also because the Asian and I met eyes and traded knowing bows, so he says “Come on over here, mon” and makes my special keys. As I go to another counter to pay for the keys the boss’s son…that’s my guess, anyway…is hustling some Hispanic guy who has apparently brought them a large order. He says “So…do you wanna see the Yankees kick Boston’s ass tonight?” (We’re about 10 minutes away from Yankee Stadium. Rabid Yankee fans in the Bronx almost all suck, I’ve noticed.) The Hispanic guy makes the right decision, says “Oh, yes!” and is rewarded with a couple of free tickets. (The Yankees later lose. I watch a little of the game on TV. They have no macho compared to the Boston team. Boys against men, it looks like to me. Not this year…) I jokingly ask the son what would have happened if the guy had said “no.” He answers “He’d have to buy his own fucking tickets!”
Oh.
So I go back to my car and head for the Arthur Ave. Italian “neighborhood.” I haven’t gone there for years because it’s not so much a neighborhood as it is a several square block fortress of old-school Italian mafia attitude surrounded by acres and acres of South, Central and Caribbean American immigrants, and I have always found that immersing myself in such a scene is generally a very distasteful experience…especially since I look like all the Irish cops, FBI guys, politicians and DAs who have been running heir own game on this culture for well over 100 years. I am only going there because my son told me that there were a couple of great Italian provisioners in the area that I should check out.
It’s getting to be about 11AM by now on what promises to be the first really hot day of the summer. Temperatures are already climbing into the 90s. I park at a meter and slowly walk up and down the several streets where most of the Italian stores and restaurants are situated.
Nothing’s changed. I go into store after store and bump up against a particularly urban Italian-American hostility to anything and anyone not obviously from “the neighborhood” or easily identifiable as either a middle class white mark of some kind or cheap laborer-of-color come to work there at coolie wages. In only one store…Randazzo’s Fish Market, for those who might give a damn…am I greeted with any kind of human warmth or enthusiasm, and that store (besides being the cleanest and best stocked one that I enter) seems to be entirely staffed by Central Americans. Everywhere else? Squinty eyes and grunts. Old style watchers sitting in lawn chairs keeping an eye on the street. The old “Mean Streets” routine modernized into a caricature of real Italian-American culture.
Yuck.
Outta there. I hate that shit.
A couple of weeks ago I had to go to the main Bronx courthouse to postpone a jury duty summons. Once again I chose to drive, for the same reasons as I mentioned above. My route this time took me onto the dreaded Major Deegan Expressway. (I shoulda known better.) At night it is dominated by kids in hopped-up Japanese and Korean hatchbacks racing each other at truly dangerous speeds. During the day it is often more of a parking lot than a highway. It was a parking lot this day. Almost an hour to go less than 5 miles. Once on it I couldn’t get off. So it goes.
I had been dreading this experience, putting it off for weeks. Phone and web-based attempts had been totally fruitless. Dealing personally with Manhattan city government is usually an all-day trip and I expected the same in the Bronx.
But NOOOOOoooo!!!
The Bronx has apparently given up.
There is no justice in the Bronx. I almost believe that Bronx cops either shoot their prey or let them go, because the gigantic Bronx Courthouse was nearly totally empty in the middle of a Wednesday. No lawyers, no criminals, no nuthin’ except some bored cops manning an airport-style X-ray machine. I passed through the machine and asked one of the officers where I should go to change my jury duty assignment. Without looking up from his execrable, Rupert Murdoch-owned NY Post he said “Take the elevator. Room 15.” I did. Room 15 is a big room full of secretaries. Maybe 20 of them. All women of color. Nobody else. And me. The receptionist said “Whaddaya want?” I said “I want to change my jury duty assignment.” She waved her hand at a piece of paper on the counter and said “Take any date.” There were hundreds. I did. I told her what date I had chosen, gave her my summons, and stood there waiting for a receipt or something. She looked up at me and said “That’s it.” And that was it. I had found a parking spot only a block away…there were lots of them…and I drove home.
There are nearly 1.5 million people living in the Bronx if you believe the census. I’d peg it closer to 2 million or even more given the rightful suspicion of many semi-undocumented immigrants that answering questions from government people can be dangerous to your general health and wellbeing. Philadelphia’s population is nearly identical in size. Can you imagine Philadelphia’s main courthouse being essentially abandoned on a midweek day?
I can’t.
I have always found that the essential difference between third world countries and non-third world countries is that in the third world no one believes anything the government says or does. “Government” is regarded as a dangerous but unavoidable nuisance by most of the population, something that is to be avoided if at all possible and bought off if all else fails. This is actually quite a rational approach to the problem of government on all levels of human experience…I call myself a “panarchist/nonarchist” when pressed for a definition of my political position…but it is rare to find people in so-called “successful” countries who view government in this way. The hypno-hype has been too successful.
We’re getting there, though.
Any day now.
Aaaaany day now.
The Bronx is in the forefront of this movement, apparently.
The United States of the Bronx.
Could happen.
What if they held a war and no one showed up?
What if they held an election and no one voted?
What if they put on a bunch of news shows and no one tuned in?
What if…???
Hmmmmmmm….
Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union. Why do they not dissolve it themselves–the union between themselves and the State?-Henry David Thoreau
Yup.
NEWSTRIKE!!!
MEDIASTRIKE!!!
CULTURESTRIKE!!!
VAYA!!!
Yup.
What if?
Could happen.
