A Step Away from It

I debate: catch up on some work or step outside? So much to catch up on. No need for guilty pleasures. But just that morning, I read an article on our bulletin board on the necessity of exercise, even in the winter months. The author quotes the great flaneur Dickens: "The best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose." I take this as motivation enough : if there is anything I feel like I need in these busy winter months, it's a lengthening of days.

So I decide to, as Frank O'Hara said, "step away from them" for a moment and experience a neighborhood that, despite coming to day after day, I really didn't know very well, especially north of 86th. It's a brisk afternoon -- the more stubborn pieces of ice still clung to curbs and gutters.



I decide to head north on Madison Avenue, pioneering (for myself at least) the upper 80s and 90s. Manhattan is a rather flat island; compared to the rolling hills of San Francisco, this city is just about level with the sea in which it swims.  But still, there is something about that little crest past 84th Street that has always remained, for me, a good reason not to travel north. As if the effort wouldn't be worth the 'view.'

It's rather odd to think that, after almost three years of working in this little neighborhood, I had never before encountered "Armani Junior," on 88th, catering to the high fashion needs of your wee one. Going to Miami? Make sure you pick up little Mason his delicately ripped jeans. In fact, if there is one niche market these four or five blocks contain, it's haute couture children's clothing. I kid you not. Sure, New York has its Diamond District, its garment district, its Soho boutiques. Well, Yorkville must be known as the kids' fashion center of the world. Every third store is children's clothing boutique. I imagine a local mother's disappointment when a three-year-old spills ketchup on a $75 Jacadi blouse. Downtown consignment shops must be raking it in off of these labels.


It's so easy to get mesmerized by these Madison Avenue storefront windows -- what with their shopkeepers fixing a lapel or sharing a laugh with a customer -- that you might forget to look up. Indeed, this seems to be an issue no matter where you are in New York. Too often, we refuse to be impressed by the pomposity of a skyscraper (for tourists, we tell ourselves) or the elegance of a balcony's garden (wouldn't want to live on this block anyway). So I have to remind myself to look up at the ziggurat apartment building, with its neat slices of shadow and its staircase of balconies, brilliant in the stark February sun.

I duck into a coffee shop to grab a cup. Hold the door open for a lady who looked like she must live in the neighborhood. At first, I think she's going to go in without even acknowledging me. I practically prepare my scowl, but then she smiles politely, looks right at me, and says thank you and all is right with the world. The shop is elegant, with marble counters and exhausted looking workers. I ask for a coffee and a man appears out of nowhere asking how I take it. Milk, no sugar.

Hook a left onto 92nd Street. See the flag for Nightingale-Bamford, the girls school. For a second, I imagine my own daughters going through these beautiful blue doors. Imagine them spilling out onto a sun-dappled sidewalk, laughing and looking at friends while I read a folded newspaper. How much I wonder? $30,000? $40?

Heading now straight for the Park. The morning's dusting of snow means it's still a winter scene, and the light veil of flakes has partly covered up all the dirty snow. As I near Fifth, I realize I'm separated by the great stone wall of the park, insurmountable, a reminder of older times. Head south to "Engineer's Gate," where I notice a dedication to a New York mayor I've never heard of before. The bridal path is still dangerously icy, with former runners' footprints frozen now for weeks' on end. Up above me, hardy runners press on around the reservoir, which is now frozen solid.

I want to strap on some skates and score the ice, making the only tracks over the light layer of snow. Look! someone would say. A skater! Who would stop me? Is there an ice-skating police unit?

I notice on my way out a man in a tiny information hut. He's got a checkered scarf on and looks grandfatherly. Business must be slow these days. What does he do in there as winter passes by? I imagine a small radio playing. NPR? 1010 WINS? Perhaps a few newspapers. A sudoku book to keep him company. At one o'clock every day, a friend brings him a cup of hot tea. It steams as he steeps it.

I exit the park; church steeples compete with the glass of apartment buildings. Catholic church? No, Episcopal. Same thing, almost. I notice the sign out front. Indeed, it's an encouragement for this walk. Live fully. I will try.

It's time to head back. The amusement-ride of Guggenheim bounces into view. Looking at it from the north, it actually resembles those architectural sketches or mock-ups you see that look profoundly unreal. Couples strolling. Man checking watch. Cab picking up people. Life imitating art.

It's time to get back. PM advisement. I see the Neue Gallerine, where I have been meaning to go to for three years for a healthy dose of Viennese coffee and culture.  Maybe tomorrow. Maybe on another walk.

The Painter of Modern Life

Flâneur is a French word meaning saunterer and stroller, with a rather unfair suggestion of idleness. While the word has long been in existence, it was the French poet Baudelaire who transformed the word into a concept for modern urban experience. According to Baudelaire, the ideal flâneur is “a man of the world.” In an essay entitled “The Painter of Modern Life,” Baudelaire defines the flâneur as an essentially modern figure of the city:

The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement…To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world….He marvels at the eternal beauty and the amazing harmony of life in the capital cities….He gazes upon the landscapes of the great city – landscapes of stone, caressed by the mist or buffeted by the sun. He delights in fine carriages and proud horses, the dazzling smartness of the grooms, the expertness of the fottmen, the sinuous gait of the women, the beauty of the children, happy to be alive and nicely dress – in a word, he delights in universal life.

The flâneur has no fixed destination or objective to his travels; instead, he has only one purpose: experience. Like a sponge, he openly soaks up all he sees and hears and smells and touches. He eavesdrops on conversation; he looks up at buildings; he notices light and shadow; he makes up stories about the people around him. In the words of philosopher Alain de Bottom, “flâneurs are standing in deliberate opposition to capitalist society, with its two great imperatives, to be in a hurry, and to buy things…. it's the goal of flâneurs to recover a sense of community”

Because he is not in a hurry, he is not distracted by his own ego. Because he is not fixed on what’s coming next, the flâneur pays attention. While we live in an age where the technology has most certainly endangered the flâneur as a species (how often do you see people in the street not paying attention to anything but their smartphones?), we are also blessed with new ways of paying attention. Our phones allow us to capture and share a flower budding through snow, a baby’s first smile, a curious treasure on the street. The modern flâneur, as I see him, gazes at the landscapes of the great city – just as Baudelaire said. And then he snaps a quick shot of it with his phone or camera.

So our goal is to practice becoming modern flâneurs. Your blog post will be a record of a flâneur -like walk. You will have to pick a place where you can “set up house in the heart of the multitude” and record your experience, with as many appeals to the senses as possible.

How long should you walk or experience? I would say at least a half hour, at most two hours. As you walk, look out for fashions, faces, colors, buildings, natural intrusions [i.e. trees, parks, grasses, etc.], fragments of conversation, ambient noises, light, shadow, motion, and smells.

Here are some good places in Manhattan to be a flâneur:

-       Central Park

-       Times Square (though maybe too intense?)

-       Brooklyn Bridge

-       Tiny streets in the West Village

-       Broadway in the Upper West Side

-       Battery Park (on a nice day)

-       Chinatown

-       Lower East Side

-       The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Your blog entry will be a record of your experience, almost a film recording in words. In it, you will share with us what you saw, what you thought, what you heard, what you were remembered of, what you wondered, what you smelled, what you felt, and what you imagined. It should be a mélange of both image and text, for we are, as I mentioned, digital flâneurs.

For some general guidelines, you should write somewhere between 300 - 400 words (which is about one page) and have at least four photos and no more than eight. Your prose should adopt the breezy style of the flâneur in your writing. Be observant and aware but never settle too long on a particular thing. You should balance both the objective and subjective. As you relate to the reader your external stimuli, don’t forget to register the internal reaction as well. Keep “motion” throughout. The flâneur may pause but will rarely stop and nor should your prose. Use paragraphs to shift your focus, to change the scene, to introduce a new impression. Oh, and no selfies. 

So to summarize, here are the rules:

1)    Consider not having a particular destination in mind. Go with the wind. Be passive in your journey. Get lost.

2)    Don’t use your phone for anything other than taking photographs or jotting a note or recording a voice memo.

3)    Look up; so much to see in the buildings around you.

4)    Record your experiences in 300-400 words on the blog shortly after. You will remember more. Include 4-8 photos, interspersed throughout site, ideally next to relevant text.

5)    Your blog entry should be posted by 8:00 AM the day it is due.

6)    Your blog entry should have a title.

7)    Again, no selfies.