I took a dear friend out to lunch today: Katy, who I've known for 30 years in many guises and disguises.
She used to come to all the QUEST Halloween parties in the most fabulous costumes and spectacular masks. We went to a tiny place on Jay Street, "Maximum occupancy : 30 persons" the sign said. Katy wanted to go there because she believes in shopping and eating locally and had read that the chef makes two different soups daily.
Well, I too am a soup eater, so off we went: Katy, my good friend, Nancy and I. After a quiet warm lunch we walked around Jay Street and peered in shop windows especially taken by the European handbags in one small shop. On the way back to the car, I was taken aback by an art deco archway leading to a parking lot outlined in blue neon and decorated in a Moroccan motif. I was a little perturbed to see the whole walkway from Jay Street to the parking lot on Clinton was lined with these archways, not one on each end but all the way down the whole alley walkway.
I was even more upset when I looked to my left and saw another alley leading to another parking lot lined with identical arches all glowing eerily on a sunny spring afternoon. I've been to Istanbul and you might have entered the spice markets in this fashion, but Jay Street in Schenectady to a parking lot? Isn't this a little pretentious? "Whoa!" I said, not realizing I was speaking out loud. "I wonder how much this cost?" A young man who was making his way down one of these garlanded paths turned around and said to me, "A lot. Too, too much." And he's right.
I spend a lot of time in the poorer neighborhoods of this city. There are no supermarkets, no real parks, no movie theaters, not even benches to sit on or public trash cans. Sidewalks are cracked and broken, the roads, well let's just say they're always full of ditches, holes that are cavernous and blinking lights warning drivers to beware.
The area is full of bars, churches that spring up in abandoned storefronts and small food stores with very large prices. Places where you can buy a loosie (a single cigarette), beer (coming complete with a brown paper sack), beef patties sitting in display cases which display as many flies as patties, tons of candy, cheap chips and Kool-Aid in small plastic containers luring kids with their neon colors. No fruit in nature was ever the color of the drinks you see displayed here and yet all the kids and their parents call them "juice."
We don't bring that stuff into QUEST, but the kids spend every nickel, dime and penny they come up with on these gastronomical delights.
Their teeth are full of cavities and at an early age, 4 or 5 years old. Many are already sporting metal teeth because of the serious rot in their mouths.
It seems we are always putting up interesting little trinkets for a certain class of people to enjoy, yet I do not see how this improves the city. Jay Street is still a quiet, little-used enclave with many empty buildings, and on this lovely, sunny Monday many stores had signs reading "Closed" on their doors.
Our green market is in Proctor's Arcade. Fine and dandy, but there should be an extension on Albany Street where vendors could also sell local ethnic food and wares. The Hill is called The Hill because of its structure, and there are some serious hill climbs that could be utilized for bicycle runs and relays. The hill going up Hamilton Street being a major hill climb. Most of the efforts sponsored by the city and local agencies are packaged to show the upscale parts of the city. Not all races in all cities do this and again there are some amazing inclines that could offer a special cache to serious athletes, finishing with ethnic foods and fetes.
It's easy to take the easy way and that's what it seems to be. Pretty, simple and just a little dull. Where is our rap fest, our poetry slams, our outdoor slam dunk contests? One hill would be perfect for a soapbox derby. Where are the skateboard parks? All the inexpensive options that would showcase Schenectady's uniqueness and not our aspirations to mediocrity. All over the major cities of the world, wherever I travel, even close to home, in Saratoga, Troy and Albany, there are murals drawn by youth. Exciting pieces of building art. What are we so afraid of?
How did we fall so far behind the curve? Is there a spot in this city where everyone is welcome and costs absolutely nothing, besides Central Park, that is? Tell me, I'd like to use it. I'd like to bring my kids to use it. When I was young, six or seven, I lived on Bridge Street. There was no major road in our backyard, just a long hill down into a gully and a lot of sandy soil. Popcorn vendors piled the street and between Bridge Street and Crane Street was a huge, vast sandy acreage where the Polish National Association had its hall with Saturday night dances. At twilight, the houses would empty out and neighbors would stroll behind their homes and yards on that beautiful sandy hill and talk (really talk) to each other. My aunt would play her accordion, people would sing and we would watch the sun set as a collective group of people. This was community. This was a feeling of place, this was home. Not some fancy archways with blue neon lights going down a dark and dreary alley. We grew gardens back there. There was a special mushroom native to that soil that I've never found again. There was unity and peace and a big huge sky which we sat under and watched the sun change into the moon.
Celebrating women
Today is National Women's Day, celebrated worldwide. Even Cuba makes a legal holiday out of it. What happened here to us?
I offer these quotes from Eve Ensler's book, "I Am an Emotional Creature -- The Secret Life of Girls Around the World."
"must not hurt so much. must be MORE PROFOUND. must be easy. must not be about only me. must not take up all this time. must not make me feel left out. MUST NOT MAKE ME WANT TO KILL MYSELF. i think i sound angry. everyone is really quiet for a long time. then China says maybe there's no more logos or demands. maybe we just make it up as we go and so there's no pressure or point. we're just here, okay. with each other, doing stuff."
"I dance to the heartbeat of life.
I dance because girls are the ultimate survivors."
