RARA-AVIS: New York stories (was Sweet Ned)
Peter Walker (pw@pw.cablenet.co.uk)
Sun, 27 Sep 1998 17:57:40 +0000
Re:
>Sweetpea is a product of my soiled
imagination.
Soiled?
>Call it: a
too-much-beer-anoche-and-I-feel-like-hammered-dogshit-today
>type message.
I will.
>Say, if you haven't come to Noo Yawk yet, I have a
couple of other
suggestions for your visit. the "Five Points" section of
Noo
Yawk<
I was planning a sort of tour of old Noo Yawk inspired by Luc
Sante's
"Lowlife" and Five Points gets a big mention as do other places
on
the Lower East Side such as 'murder bend' and The Bowery. Do
you know
the book? It might well appeal to your inate sense of history.
Sante
puts Five Points at the intersection of Orange (now Baxter),
Cross
(now Park) and Anthony (now Worth) Streets. The area flourished
until
1868 when the then version of zero tolerence put paid to it.
(Incidently, history being a funny thing, there is a quote from
a
book of the time - quoted pg 28-29 - which places black people
at the
hart of social decay - drinking, indiscriminate sex, run down
tenements, unemployment etc. Presumably they didn't have the
benefit
of State help in those days. Either your posting on Gar Haywood
was
a centuary behind the times or that writer was way a head of
his.
If you get the chance check it out.)
Being a knowledgeable guy - and a knowledgeable list - here's a
question for you. In researching NY I came across Stanford
White, the
murdered architect who was shot in 1906 by one Harry K Thaw on
the
roof of Madison Square Garden (bit of a carry on with Harry's
missus
apparently). Now, a 'Harry K Thaw' was also a dime store film
star
who rose to prominence in 1896 in "Harry K Thaws fight for
freedom".
These early films were the start of the film industry and in a
way
helped establish the market for "dime" entertianment including
pulp
books and their 'sensational' nature. In a way old Harry had a
big
part in the origans of crime writing as a populist genre (oops,
that
word again). But is it the same Harry as the one who popped old
Stanford in the head?
OK, Another question. I was interested in NY architecture
partly
because of a reference in Jerome Charyn's Issac books. In
"Little
Angel Street" Charyn talks about an architect called Emeric
Grey who
made palaces for the people "..with terra cotta pieces that
were like
musical scales on a brick wall". Charyn places one of these
buildings
on Horatio St (a 1927 classic) and another - a 'matchbox'
tenement -
at the intersection of 56th and 3rd. The romantic in me
couldn't
resist such a character who died alone and forgeotten like that
other
master Gaudi when he was 86). But who is he - a real person or
a fictional
reference to a real architect?
I had a lot of fun checking it out and have got no nearer to
the
answer but, if you are interested, my research led me to an
amazing
book called "The Architect of Desire" by Suzannah Lezzard, the
great
grand daughter of Stanford White.
And finally...
>Also, take a tour of Central Park.. There's a lady that
lives there you might like
to meet. Her name is Maggie, and she thinks she's the wife of
the Roman God
Jupiter and the daughter of actor Robert Ryan.<
Sounds too much like my mother-in-law. If I meet her I'll pass
on
your regards....
>I haven't seen the movie about her, but it sounds
intriguing, in a
hardboiled way: Jupiter's Wife: A Haunting Real Life Mystery.
New Video
Group (NVG-9415). 78 Minutes.<
..and this sounds like an elaborate ruse on your behalf which,
if it
is, suggests hidden depths otherwise not seen. I'm almost, but
not
quite, tempted to look it up....
All the best and I look forward to any answers...
Peter
---------------------------------------
"Cos it's strange, isn't it. You stand in the
middle of a library and go 'Aaaaaaagghhhh' and
everyone just stares at you. But you do the
same thing on an aeroplane, and everyone joins in."
Tommy Cooper
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