May 4–5, 2024
(Day 2) Meet the Women's Rights Pioneers of Central Park (5/4, 9AM); Queer Harlem Renaissance: Exploring Queer Harlem History Using Augmented Reality (5/4, 1PM); From Walter to Walt: Cruising Whitman's Literary Seaport (5/4, 3PM).
(Day 3) Before Brooklyn Commons: MetroTech's Creation and Resulting Displacements (5/5, 11AM); LUV in PLG: Telling you about my girlfriend who lived next door (5/5, 1PM).
Hmm, the first walk on Saturday never happened. I was the only one who showed up.
The second was quite enjoyable, even though it happened at 11AM instead of 1PM (scheduling snafu). I missed out on some of the Augmented Reality portion, since they wanted us to download an app, and use it along the walk. (Not me.) Fortunately, they also had hard copy photos to show us, and the commentary made things very clear. Apparently, Harlem in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s was a hotbed of queer establishments as well as jazz and black establishments. Alas, they are all gone now, but we learned a lot about their histories—people as well as places. The walk was by two (former?) Columbia students who had created a project for school and then expanded it into a walking tour. I think this was their first Jane's Walk.
The third was also a lot of fun. The tour guide was knowledgeable (though a little hard to hear) and walked us through Manhattan's City Hall area, through parts of lower Manhattan, ending at South Street Seaport. We heard about Whitman's early years and family life in both Long Island and Brooklyn. We heard about Whitman's early years on his own in City Hall area boarding houses (probably his first forays into same sex relationships). We heard about how he essentially had to self publish his writings at first. And we ended at the Seaport, where there is a small museum devoted to Whitman. It was a nice overview of his life and work in New York. They even gave us snacks and cider at the museum.
Sunday was all-Brooklyn, all-the-time. First was MetroTech Center, which I knew of only as a subway stop. It turns out that it is a rather large business complex, developed to bring business into a centralized Brooklyn area. Of course, this meant razing buildings and, in the name of progress, displacing people. The general history of the area focused on the progress. This walk highlighted a little more of the razing and displacing. In fact, the quadrangle of modern buildings, with open space in the center, was actually a design concept to keep the public (other than the folks who worked there) out. Some of this only recently came to light. There were some landmarked areas including a former firehouse, a former building that had served as a church and as a stop on the underground railway in the slavery era, and a small series of wood frame row houses. So, I saw a lot and I learned a lot. Unfortunately, some of it was in a light drizzle, but I was a trouper.
The final walk was a hoot! The guide took us along the route of his early dates with a new girlfriend. He recounted (in reality, we did) a conversation from his first date—he handed out a script, had us pair off, and read the script. It was very funny, and worked perfectly as an icebreaker. As we walked to the next stops, there was lots of interaction between us tour guests. He recounted second and third dates, including what went right and what went not so right. He stopped for story time twice; they worked well as set pieces. He took us to the sidewalk outside of a wine bar where he had an interesting date, and he shared a bottle of wine with us. Oh, and there was a miniature music box at one point. I won't spoil the ending, but we all had a great time. (I was worried at one point when we walked down a street that had a DEAD END sign. Turns out it was a false alarm.)
Will I do Jane's Walks next May? You bet I will.
ConcertMeister
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