Lost New York [Prime Burgers]

Hola Everybody,
A few years ago, I started a series of posts on New York City called “Real New York” which I abandoned. Unfortunately, much of what made The City unique has been lost. I think this series would be better called Lost New York.

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Prime Burgers

When you leave New York, you ain't goin' nowhere.

 [Note: Since writing this the other day, I discovered another New York institution, the Carnegie Deli, will be closing.]

It’s unfortunate, but many people who reside here, live here wishing they lived somewhere else. What’s even more tragic is that most of those people actually never leave, they die here… 

I. Love. New. York.

I live here by choice. No, I don’t give a fuck that the rents and homes are cheaper where you live, they’re cheaper where you live because, let’s face it: who the fuck wants to live there? 

And let’s be sure: I live in the real New York. What is the real New York? Let's start this off by noting that when I refer to “New York” I mean most of the four boroughs (sorry, Staten Island -- or as New Yorkers refer to it: Stranded Island -- doesn’t count. Secede, motherfuckers, please). My sister, for example, lives in the nether regions of the Bronx, practically in New Rochelle. That too is not real New York.

Where was I… oh yeah… it’s all real, actually (with the exceptions listed above). But the crucial question here is: where does one get the genuine stink of authenticity, where does one sense the essentialness of The City. Of course, the answer depends on who you are. I remember as a young boy buying a Yankee bleacher seat for about 50 cents and then spilling out into the outfield after the last out was recorded and being chased down by irate ushers. That was real for me.

But just as real would be the former New York state women’s prison, Bayview Correctional Facility, on Manhattan's west side that sat right across from the decidedly unreal attempt at suburbia known as the Chelsea Piers. That building has now been transformed into The Women’s Building, offering services to women, some of whom may have been incarcerated there. That’s a good change. 

Or maybe it’s the Union Square bird lady I wrote about once. Perhaps the real New York is the attractive alcoholic woman, obviously going downhill fast, who stands by the entrance to my subway stop some mornings asking for spare change -- and who flirts with me, “Damn, you look hawt today, papi!” whenever I give her a dollar. Sometimes weeks roll by and she’s nowhere to be seen and I wonder. Then one morning, she’s there again, asking for change, that undeniable intelligence in her eyes, her fading beauty still there, a tattered paperback peering out of her plastic bag that serves as her purse.

There’s a lot of reality here in New York and I love it -- the unimaginably ugly superimposed over the sublime. It’s, literally, The Center of the Known Universe.

Sometimes the real New York is a restaurant. You can become a food snob in New York very easily. And I’m not talking about the overpriced, must-be-seen-in-wait-hours-for-a-table-trendsetter flavor of the month you read about in Time Out. No real New Yorker really would be caught waiting that long for a meal, I assure you. In New York, there are literally thousands of unknown eateries that serve some of the most authentic, delicious food on the planet. Some of these places serve what are practically home cooked meals at cut-rate prices. These are the mom-and-pop places that are (unfortunately) becoming harder to find. There are no long lines at these establishments and the yokel at your office doesn’t know about them.

Then there are the places that are smack dab in the middle of the city but still maintain “best-kept secret” status. There’s such a place called Primeburgers right across the street from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Not a high-class joint, but not a dive either. Rather it’s a real old-time Manhattan luncheonette. The waiters are older guys who wear neckties and white jackets with their names embroidered in script. Hamburgers have been served here since 1938. It was last remodeled in 1965. 

You enter to a long counter on the left, single seats with what was apparently considered futuristic swing-trays on the left, a few crowded tables in the back. BLT (bacon, lettuce, and tomato) and tuna fish sandwiches, layer cake a la mode, egg cream (a New York original that has neither eggs nor cream in it). The menu isn’t expensive. The basic burgers there, genuine, not the frozen pre-fab variety, are about five dollars. You heard right: $5.00 in midtown Manhattan. 

I used to go there to eat a tuna fish on toasted rye and egg cream, but mostly to indulge one of my favorite real New York pastimes: eaves dropping. Very few people do this, I think, but you hear some of the most fascinating snatches of conversation here in The Center of the Known Universe. Once, many years ago, I overheard someone in the Village talking about how the American public was ripe for a play about impoverished people struggling to survive. I can’t say for sure, but shortly after, the popular musical, Rent, made its debut Off Broadway. I swear! LOL

Primeburgers is favored by gray-haired businessmen, some who likely fared well and the world forgot twenty-thirty years ago. These are men of habit, not only do they eat at the same time each day but generally eat the same thing, and thereby the reason why, when seeing them, the waiters grunt intimately at them, mouthing again the order that never changes, “Ham chee, Swiss’n’rye, Co-no-ice.”

Check out this short video:

PRIME from thismustbetheplace on Vimeo.

This is the lost New York.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization...

The Bird Lady of Union Square Park

Hola mi Gente,

A consequence of my mediation practice has been a tendency to move away from “autopilot” living. In other words, I pay attention in ways I never did before I started my daily sitting meditation practice. In some ways, this attentional shift brings gifts in ways I never imagined. The following is an example.

* * *

The Offering/ La Ofrenda

What you think you are is a belief to be undone.

What is the real New York? It’s all real, actually. But the core question here is: where does one get the genuine stink of authenticity, where does one find the essential essence of The City? Of course, the answer depends on who you are. Perhaps the real New York is the attractive alcoholic woman, obviously going downhill fast, who stands by the entrance to my subway stop some mornings asking for spare change -- and who flirts with me (“Damn, you look hawt today, papi!”) whether or not I give her a dollar. Sometimes weeks roll by and she’s nowhere to be seen and I wonder. Then one morning, she’s there again, asking for change, that undeniable intelligence in her eyes, her fading beauty still there, a tattered paperback peering out of the plastic Chanel bag that serves as her purse.

Or perhaps it's the bird lady of Union Square Park... 

One day, a couple of years ago, I played hookie from work. It was one of those early spring days and though it started with rain, a recalcitrant sun eventually vied with obstinate clouds for control of the day. It was lunchtime in one of my favorite reading spots in The City in Union Square Park. There’s a life-sized statue of Gandhi there and people sometimes put fresh cut flowers in its hands.

I have done this many times. I have several “power spots” throughout the city where I go read, observe, and contemplate, alone yet surrounded -- I like the feeling of stillness surrounded by frantic activity. On that day, no sooner than I had settled on a bench, a woman with long white, wiry, wild hair came shuffling toward me. I was hoping she wouldn’t sit next to me; I didn’t want to smell yet another homeless person (such is the way people become invisible). Perhaps reading me, she sat down rigidly across from me. I wanted to get back to my reading. But she stared at me intensely. Then slowly, reflectively, as if following some unknown anointment ritual, she emptied a bag of birdseed on her shoulders. It was a strange sight even for La Gran Manzana -- the capital of weirdness. I noticed how the seeds clung to her hair and clothes, pooled onto her lap, into the folds of her worn clothes, and scattered over her soiled sneakers. Then she leaned back and, after fixing me once more with that intense gaze, she stretched her arms and closed her eyes.

A brief moment passed and first one pigeon flew to her and then several more, and then a dozen or more. They congregated on her arms, pecking at the seeds and one another as they fed greedily. Soon the edges of her body were blurred in a flutter of wings. I sat there transfixed thinking this was an act of madness -- clearly this woman was crazy; it seemed as if the birds were devouring her. But paradoxically, the act took on an aura of magic. All the while she was disappearing into this chaotic mass of feathers, she was whispering an incantation in a language I couldn’t make out. I sat there hypnotized, my open book now forgotten.

I noticed that others were staring also. People glanced up from their paper bag lunches or from reading their tabloid newspapers and gasped. Young mothers pushing strollers stopped and gawked. It was a gesture of such tremendous force that it took us out of our little protective shells, the cocoons of fearful lives, and we forgot ourselves for that brief moment. We were her audience -- witnesses to what was clearly her offering -- and we came together for that brief moment and we were connected somehow. It was as if her act served to break down the walls between us.

In a few minutes, the birds had their fill and one by one, flew away, and the woman calmly grabbed her bag and shuffled away.

Such was the power of her act that for hours afterward I felt as if in a dream and the streets of The City seemed to me new again. 

And such is life in The City -- if we stay here long enough, we become immune and lose our sense of awe and forget even that we once possessed it. Then something happens to shatter the routine: a blizzard, or a blackout, even a terrorist act and for a few miraculous hours, we come together as our lives are upended and we notice each other’s presence and come into the awareness of the possibilities of human connection. Strangers reach out to one another; aid is offered without condition, hearts are opened. In a sense, this awareness, this presence, is, at least for me, a form of meditation-in-action.

I guess part of the reason I live here because the challenge of The City is to figure if this experience of openness can be cultivated and made to last.

My Name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...