Um, that doesn’t sound like a concert, ’Meister. Well, yes and no—but more about that later. Jane’s Walks are named for Jane Jacobs, who was an urbanist through the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. She notably tangled with Robert Moses to defeat a program that would have had a large roadway cut right through Greenwich Village. In honor of her, the Municipal Art Society has sponsored Jane’s Walks here in NYC as well as in other cities. The focus is loosely architecture but can really include just about anything. The walks are led by volunteers who put together a walk based on what pleases them, or interests them, or is their area of (loosely, once again) expertise. NYC’s were May 5, 6, and 7 but May 5 was a workday for me (and it rained cats and dogs!), so I focused on Saturday and Sunday.
I always set an ambitious agenda and this year was no exception. On Saturday, I accomplished four out of five (with optional alternates) on my agenda. Carnegie Hill Then and Now; Murray Hill; Downtown Jazz; and Tudor City. I skipped the 6pm Gay Bars that Are Gone walk because, after a day of traipsing, I decided that I really didn’t want to end up in the West Village/Chelsea at 7:30pm and then traipse home and put dinner together.
Carnegie Hill was like visiting an old friend—the Church of the Heavenly Rest, all those tony private schools I would never have been able to attend, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the House of the Redeemer, etc. But we also took note of ‘smaller’ mansions and large, fancy buildings that have been apartmentalized—is so a word, I just used it! The tour guide was fairly knowledgeable if a bit soft spoken. And of course, if someone had a question that she didn’t quite have the answer for, someone on the tour Googled it (mostly the asking/list price for mansions/big houses that were on the market).
Murray Hill had two leaders. This was good and bad. At one point, one would explain something to a portion of the group and then when the group was fully assembled after walking to a meeting point, the second leader would tell us what some of us had just heard. They need to work on their tag-team talking. But the basics were there and very interesting—the original Mrs. Murray entertained members of the British army during the Revolution after they had vanquished the Colonial forces. Her smart thinking allowed the Colonial troops to make their retreat and combine with General Washington’s troops, to regroup and eventually succeed in winning the war. Interestingly, when one of the guides saw people taking notes, she informed us that we would all get a little brochure that outlined all of what we were seeing that day. I got one, and it is a very nice walking tour that can be taken on one’s own, incorporating mansions, the Morgan Library, Sniffen Court, as well as the brownstone where Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt lived when their first two children were born. I asked for a brochure and ducked out early so that I could make my way to the Lower East Side for the Downtown Jazz tour. And I almost missed it.
As some of you may know, who know me in person, I am an early person. As in, I do not like to be late. Ever. Imagine my chagrin when my bus down Second Avenue was rerouted due to a street fair. The tour meeting place was the corner of Essex and Delancey Streets at 2pm. I arrived at approximately 2:07pm—OK, OK, at exactly 2:07pm. No tour group. On a whim, I walked one block east, looking for a tour group. At the next corner I looked downtown. Nothing. I looked uptown. There was the group!
The downtown jazz scene was never really my scene but I feel that it’s important to broaden my horizons. Mine are now broader. The tour leader here was very passionate about his subject matter and he had visuals. Specifically album covers (I presume the records, too). Albums. The things you listened to before MP3, iPads, CDs, or cassettes (or 8-Tracks for you real nerds). The only name I’m going to remember is Sonny Rollins, because Sonny used a portion of the Willamsburg Bridge as his ‘woodshed’—a place where he went to get his head, heart, and breath together at a time when he felt that he just wasn’t playing at the level he wanted to. He did this for about two years. When he came back to the world of performing and recording, everyone heard/saw a huge difference. Long story short, our tour guide is on a mission to get the bridge renamed as the Sonny Rollins Bridge. Hey, it worked for Ed Koch and RFK, why not give this a try? Along the way, we also saw buildings that used to house LES jazz venues but, alas, are no more. In a cool turn of events, while walking from place to place, the guide used his iPad thingy to play jazz recordings of the people he was discussing. I liked that a lot. Next for me was a bus ride uptown for about fifty blocks to Tudor City. Here, I was early.
While waiting for the tour guide, I guess I looked like I belonged because several people asked if I was the tour guide! When he arrived, he went into his spiel about Tudor City—a collection of tall buildings with very small apartments on the far eastern edge of Manhattan. As it turns out, they are all condos (or co-ops, I still get those confused) in buildings that were built in the mid- to late-1920s. Their crenellated tops and casement windows evoked Tudor to the developers, hence the name. And that’s about all we learned. We didn’t walk the site to see/explore any of the architectural designs. We got a smattering of history about the construction. But we mostly got a talk/lecture (based on a college dissertation) on the financing involved, the landlord feuds involved, and the infighting involved with the financing and feuds. Not quite a Jane’s Walk. In fact, several people left after about ten minutes, after we convinced the guide to not stand in an exposed area, with both wind and traffic noise. This, indeed, was a minor flaw with most of the walks I went on, The guides talked away from us, not to us. Granted, I know that they are not professional tour guides, but many of them told us they’d done these before. Did they not realize they have to talk to us? Whew! And that was only Saturday.
So. Sunday. After a time snafu (totally on me), I attended So You Think You Know 34th Street? It was pleasant enough with a nice bit of history (dueling mansions) about 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. And we did go into the lobby of the Empire State Building (I hadn’t been there in years) and learned about the marble, a clock, and a sometimes-working anemometer. I saw the old B. Altman building, but from a different viewpoint from the one I saw the day before on the Murray Hill walk—what a difference a day makes. We really explored very little of 34th Street but we saw other parts of the neighborhood, including L-shaped buildings, where there are holdouts (usually corners) that have to be built around. One is at Macy*s, where after Macy*s became the success that it was, the holdout owner approached R.H. Macy about finally selling. Macy did not deal; good on him!
Next, I hopped on the R train for a trip to the Prospect Ave. stop and a Five Bridges of Gowanus tour in Brooklyn. Alas, that was not to be, due to a power outage at DeKalb in Brooklyn. Hey, I tried to be non-totally Manhattan-centric. Since my next tour was in Chelsea, I decided to kill some time there. Checked out the FIT Museum. Closed on Sundays. Bummer. So I did the next best thing. I found a place to sit, drink beer, and read a book. Waldy’s. Go there (or call for takeout/delivery if you’re in the ’hood). I didn’t eat but they were doing a good, steady business from their wood burning oven. And all of the product on display was Italian—Cento tomatoes, Colavita olive oil, etc. I had two pints of draught Brooklyn lager and did some people watching along with my reading. I rarely do that, so it was a nice change of pace.
Oh, back to Jane’s Walks. At 3pm I was part of about 30 or so folks watching a
3-D Time Machine slide show. Time Machine because after seeing the slides of the Madison Park/Flatiron district, the walk would include true 3-D views of many of the slides we just saw. Alas, there was just enough drizzle after the slide show that I decided to ditch and just head home.
On both days, I had a 6pm walk on my agenda but on both days I decided that I didn’t want to start traveling home at 7:30pm. So I opted out. Jane’s Walks 2018? Count me in. I don’t think I’m quite ready to design my own walk to lead. But I’m thinking about it.
WalkMeister
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