A Pictorial Aside: A NEW YORK AUTUMN

I wished that I had talked to this young woman who is carrying that large, red banner urging us to “seek the living Jesus,” but she had enough struggles fighting the wind that worked its mischief on her banner.  Clearly, some heavenly force was testing her commitment.Her message, however, is as old as the church itself, which many were already challenging in the 3rd-4th centuries A.D., as organized religion began to displace personal commitment. A contemporary example (which may be connected to this young woman) admonishes that “the lord Jesus is not in any church.”

This photograph was taken a block from where I live, recording the marathon’s token foray into the Bronx.  At mile 20, eight of the elite men runners are still running in one bunch.  Kenya’s Geoffrey Mutai, seen here on the far right, would pull away from his peer group two miles later to win the race by 52 seconds in a time of 2:08:24.

This temporary structure–a glass tent on Duarte Square–was designed by the firm, Production Glue, and its glass walls and roof are meant to be emblematic of transparency and openness (dare we hope, in government?).The design also made major use of plastic milk crates: for a sort-of entry propylaeum in front of it;  for that big red arrow that you can see pointing down to the entry door;  for large, block lettering that identifies the side of the tent;  and for chandeliers, soapboxes and other interior decorative features.

How fitting for milk crates to appear so prominently in a building meant as a locus for an on-going dialogue between the people of New York City and their incoming mayor, whom many call “a man of the people!”  After all, the ubiquitous plastic milk crate is probably second only to duct tape when it comes to products closest to the heart of the common man–all-purpose, do-it-yourself materials.

Mayor-elect De Blasio anticipates that this Talking Transition tent will expose him to grass roots solutions and “hidden gems.”  He was quoted as saying, “if you give people a chance to offer their ideas, you’ll find an extraordinary number of New Yorkers who have positive, productive ideas.”This is a “‘think tent’ instead of a think tank” said Christopher Stone, president of the Open Society Foundations.  Open Society (which is run by George Soros) and nine other groups developed the idea of Talking Transition well before New York had held its elections, by the way.

Over the fifteen days that Talking Transition took place, tens of thousands of New Yorkers participated in a wide range of events, talks, and opportunities to offer suggestions. The event ended with a “Town Meeting” in which a packed tent and on-line participants discussed three major issues that were prioritized from the two weeks of surveys: education; housing; police-community relations.

Among the participants were several veterans of Occupy Wall Street (OWS), and one of these, Goldi Guerra (of Occupy Staten Island) pointed out the delicious irony of having the setting in Duarte Square:  “It’s really great that rich people finally think it’s cool, putting up tents in Duarte Square, ’cause this is something Occupy Wall Street tried doing two years ago, and all we did was get arrested.”

With hand-written signs on cardboard saying things like “homeless, no family, no support,”   “happy hallowe’en, please help, some change, a dollar,”   or “I’m homeless, I don’t steal, I don’t hurt people I ask,”  the homeless of New York City have been making a reappearance on the streets in recent years.”Homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s.”  Wages for low-income New Yorkers has fallen and, even more importantly, the number of affordable housing units also has fallen.  Be aware that this June, New York had an all-time record of 52,400 homeless people, but these are only the ones who were sleeping in municipal homeless shelters.  We have no idea how many “unsheltered homeless” there are–like these people, pictured above, on the streets.

The homeless issue will be a challenging one for the De Blasio Administration.  However, we should keep in mind, as Ian Frazier wrote in the New Yorker, that “during the twelve years of the Bloomberg administration, the number of homeless people has gone through the roof they do not have.”

Clearly, the tragedy of America’s homeless is not the result of liberal policies.   Rather, it is the result of “The GOP’s Poverty Denialism,” as Michelle Goldberg puts it.  As she notes, in contrast to earlier Republican leaders who at least acknowledged the plight of the poor, today we “see on the right a combination of poverty denialism and outright contempt.”  Of course, this attitude has its roots in an even earlier Republican, as Peter Dreier documented in a 2004 study for the National Housing Institute entitled, “Reagan’s Legacy: Homelessness in America.”

A graffiti-etched glass wall on Canal Street and a ripped poster of a missing, autistic fourteen-year-old make up a heartfelt poem, easily passed-over amidst the visual cacophony of Canal Street.

Madame Tussaud offers a bit of surrealism to Times Square (which already is pretty surreal).   I imagine that the hand–besides acting as an attention-getter–may refer to the fact that Madame Tussaud wax museums offer its visitors the opportunity to cast their own hand in wax.  Thus, once sated with the museum’s 225 life-like effigies of stars and icons, you may “take your wax hand home and display it with pride, showing your friends and family that you are a star too!”

Finally, certain urban details just jump out more when encountered at night.  I don’t know if blue is the fashion color for this season, but at night one can hardly miss these electric blue shoes in Valentino’s window.As for Thor (or actually Thor II, as in Thor: The Dark World), he (it?) has bulled his way well past $500 million in global ticket sales and past the first Thor, which earned $449 million.  Thus, fittingly, as one of those heroes so many empathize with, Thor not only visually blends into the toy store logo at night, he emotionally becomes us: therefore my title, Thor R Us.