Neighborhoods and I have strange relationships. Generally, as soon as I leave a ‘hood, everything I wished had been there while living there seems to soon arrive. I moved to New York and lived in the East Village (on E. 3rd St. between 1st & 2nd Aves.) during the height of EV gentrification, before south of Houston LES became desirable. All I ever wanted was a good cafe to sit and read and write. They started appearing about a year after I moved west. Now there are two within about 50 yards of my old building. My next apartment on Christopher St. a block from the river was nice, but the neighborhood at the time was still slightly rough, the Meat Packing district was still a couple years away of hitting its beyond trendy stride, and Hudson River Park was still in the planning stages. The Christopher Street Pier, now a mecca upon which I could see myself sitting staring at the sunset over New Jersey often, was still a place to shoot-up or get blown, more reminiscent of the world of Cruising than grass malls and rollerblades.
When I moved to 83rd Street, nothing excited me more than the fact that there was a cafe next door to the east and a movie theater around the corner to the west. Who could have guessed that I would find both so annoying — Cafe Lalo is too crowded and too touristy, and the Loews 84th has too many audience members who think of movies as an interactive experience — that I would rarely go to either.
Two weeks ago, though, I received a particularly warm welcome to my new neighborhood in Brooklyn, one that instantly made me wonder if every move to a new city (if not a new neighborhood) would provide me with a unique encounter. (Oh sure, Brooklyn is New York City, but it’s its own city too. In fact, as someone who grew-up in San Francisco, one of the few places in this country — I believe — that is both its own city and county with no other towns/cities within its county limits, I’ve often wondered exactly how NYC could be made up of five counties whereas normally a county is made up of multiple towns. But, as usual, I digress …)
As I’ve mentioned before, my move to New York in 1996 took a long time to happen very quickly. I had looked for a job for a year, but it wasn’t really until I stopped looking and came here on an unrelated visit that I found something. Suddenly, a month later I had moved. I
It took the movers about two-to-three weeks before they showed up with my stuff from LA — no boxes, just furniture. I don’t remember how I chose my movers, and I don’t even remember who they were. I do know I probably wouldn’t use them again. After not showing up for two days in a row, they suddenly called on a Wednesday and told me they’d be there by 8 PM. Suddenly, it was about 11:30 PM, and they show-up in a gigantic truck that blocked all of 3rd street. My building was just far enough off 1st Avenue that until you turned onto the block, you wouldn’t be able to tell that a big moving truck was blocking all traffic flow.
If you know the East Village, you might know that E. 3rd between 1st and 2nd is the home of the New York chapter of the Hell’s Angels. This never bothered me in the slightest. In fact, as a California boy living in New York for the first time without any real support system, I actually loved it. I figured my block was the safest in New York, not because the police precinct was two blocks north on E. 5th, but because who the hell would fuck with the Hell’s Angels? So when I saw this one Hell’s Angels guy eyeing my movers, I asked him if it was OK and he wanted me to have them move. He said not worry about it, and I stood in my building vestibule, holding both doors open while the movers ran in and out, up and down the stairs with my 25 to 30-odd boxes. Unfortunately, some drunk guy and his two friends coming down the street decided they did have a problem with my movers, and the drunk guy started heckling them because they had the street blocked and a small line of cars was starting to accumulate. I just stood there watching as the Hell’s Angels guy told them to take off, at which point drunk guy decided to turn his attention to the really tough looking biker in the leather vest. That was, uhm … a bad idea. Especially once he took a swing at the Hell’s Angels guy. It was then that a second Hell’s Angels guy appeared out of nowhere, locked drunk guy’s arms behind his back and held him in place as the first Hell’s Angels guy beat the shit out of him. Drunk guy’s two friends stood there open mouth, probably doing everything in their power not to piss themselves. I didn’t move, and continued holding the two building doors open so my movers could hopefully finish really, really quickly.
When drunk guy couldn’t really stand anymore, the two Hell’s Angels let him go and told his friends to get him out of there. Which they did. My movers finished. The Hell’s Angels went back into their clubhouse. I went upstairs. I felt I had been somehow inducted. I was a New Yorker.
The cool thing about where I moved to in Brooklyn is that for the first time since moving to New York, I’ve moved to a neighborhood with friends nearby. My friend Sean T lives about eight blocks away in slightly more desirable Ft. Greene. Then there’s Janelle who lives several blocks in the other direction, giving me an occasional diner and late-night drinking buddy. Of course, the most important thing to find in any new NYC neighborhood is all the available delivery options. In Clinton Hill, the possibilities are much more limited than what I’ve been used to on the Upper West Side, although Myrtle and DeKalb Aves/ have a bunch of options. Although Janelle has lived in the ‘hood for several months, she hadn’t really done the whole menu scavenger hunt thing, so two weekend’s ago, we took a walk and basically picked-up every menu from every take-out and delivery option we could find on Myrtle, DeKalb and Fulton. Then I wanted to go to a bike shop because I’ve been thinking about buying a cheap, used bike to ride around instead of taking the subway, especially to other parts of Brooklyn like Park Slope and Carroll Gardens.
So Janelle and I are walking down Clinton Ave when we get to Atlantic. The bike shop is a few blocks away on Vanderbilt. So we’re crossing Atlantic Ave, we’ve got the light on our side and traffic is stopped. Suddenly I see this guy run off the sidewalk from this big drive-thru McDonald’s and coming straight at us in between the rows of cars. He looks like he’s running away from something or someone, but I don’t really see anybody chasing him. I remember thinking, “Hmm, it looks like he’s about to hit me.” And what do you know? While he easily could avoided us, the guy lowered his shoulder and slammed into me, giving me a body blow like we were in a WWE match. He knocked me off my feet, into Janelle who didn’t see any of it coming. She fell backwards and actually hit her head on the asphalt (although thankfully she was OK). She thought we’d been hit by somebody on a bike, so she was a bit confused when there was no bike and no bike rider. I had watched the guy continue down Atlantic Ave, run to the other side of the street so he was heading against traffic, jump onto and over the hood of a car, and keep going for another block or so. Meanwhile, some guy came out from the McDonald’s but he wasn’t chasing the guy who hit us. He just asked what happened.
And for some reason, all I could think to myself was: “Welcome to Brooklyn.”
I’m not sure — should it feel like home now?
Out of Focus 