RUDIMENTS, pt. 325
Making Cars
It always amazed me how there
was a large 'Domino's Sugar'
sign right across the river -
a little ways up, by the bridge
that's at Corlears Hook. I'd
always figured sugar for all
that sugar-cane harsh labor
stuff, like in Cuba. But there,
right across the way, was a
refinery for Domino's Sugar,
which was the same name that
was on everyone's table, and
everywhere one went. People
worked there. It was a big
factory, with chutes and large
buildings, and, being as it was
right on the water like that, I
figured 'use' too - barges maybe,
or ships, from the tropics filled
with raw, or processed, or
unprocessed sugar - maybe
still cane or needing crushing,
or whatever they did to make
sugar - which process I most
certainly didn't know anyway.
It was just odd thinking of sugar
being made, processed or packed
right there. Just another of the
odd juxtapositions you'd run
across in New York City. If
you go to Corlears Hook now,
it's all gone - probably the
kinds of locals who live there
now wouldn't even know what
I was talking about. The Domino
factory is condos, but I think
they salvaged the sign, or some
part of it, and kept it displayed
ostentatiously - as if it still
meant something. The only
thing it does represent is loss,
and no one cares about that.
You can't take loss to the bank.
-
The whole section over that way,
east to the river, from like way
down and right up through the
teens and 20's, was long ago
Robert Moses-ized for projects
and low-income housing. Any
semblance of real river use is
long gone - there are parks and
runways and fences over which
people fish. People even stay there
all day - eating and cooking
outdoor stuff; ballfields, soccer,
concerts. Old people wobble
about, lingering past their years;
Hispanics and blacks fill the
place up, and, of the last few
decades, regular white urbanites
live there too - the kind who
jog, and do ballet, spandex,
aerobics, Tai-Chi; all that. It's
a different world now. When you
finally get up to the 20's, there are
huge projects, Stuyvesant Houses
and all, whatever it's called -
income targeted, small-sized
apartments, from the end of 14th
all the way through. It used to
be mostly poorer Jewish people;
now it's everyone, and even
glamor people fight to get in
there. Waiting lists. Income
battles; and all the oldsters die
off. There's also a Con Ed
generating facility there. You'd
be hard-pressed to find anyone
there who knew about the past.
One of the odd things about
New York - I found early on,
and especially disconcerting,
and it's all even worse now -
is, two blocks in one either
side of the island, if I were
tell you then - much less now,
of course, when there's really
little trace left - that a block
away was an entire, other,
busy, waterfront culture -
of ships, freighters, cargo,
workers, fish, and all that
went into it, you'd not
believe. Manhattan itself,
and New York, has become
so isolated and removed
from all, that that the
complete experience is
no longer believed or
understood. Now it's all
sports piers, parks and
walkways, bicycle paths
and the rest. BUT, and always
the clincher, on the eastside,
and on the west too, now, in
order to get to any of this,
whatever's left, or to find
any of the few remnants of
it, you first have to cross,
on the east, the FDR Drive
(there are walkways over it,
really crummy, but they work
- netted, fenced to prevent
jumpers and debris from
raining down on the highway;
and on the west side, a tad more
people-friendly, cross walkways
controlled by 11th Ave. lights
and stops. But you're still taking
your life into your hands. And,
once there, on either side. you
are effectively cut off and
isolated from the rest of the
city, and the city experience.
It's like, maybe, the New York
City motto, on the license plates,
should read: 'New York. Good
at parks, bad at city.' I guess it's
all perspective, because I was
able to take it either way. The
ring-road can be seen as a
prison-perimeter on either side.
But,in my later years, I can now
ring-road can be seen as a
prison-perimeter on either side.
But,in my later years, I can now
only envision an island full of
people, trapped there, and
mostly no longer there of
their own will; growing more
and more artificial and frivolous
as a people and a culture, taken
over somehow my monied
elites who handle nothing ever
but dreams, and who sell those
dreams to dummies, and make
millions. Certainly, unless it's
a film or some slimy docudrama,
no one knows anything about the
old waterfront, or the real, true,
old crime syndicates either.
John O'Gottie, come home.
-
I was always able to use the
Fish Market area as a marker
anyway, as something to hold
me to the authentic values of a
place that once was; being there
and still so much present. When
I was present amidst all of that,
it was as if I talked the language
of 'seafaring' and knew all its
ins and outs, ways and wants.
Certainly the law was different:
The cops and coroner people
were always dredging some poor
schmuck out of the river -
weighted canvas sacks, pieces
of people chopped up or busted
all up. Weighted down with
bricks or concrete. A regular
free-for-all, and everyone knew
it, no one was ever surprised.
Sometimes it was two people at
a time, tied together in some
miserable final moment, or after.
The Daily News or any other
silly newspaper would always
manage a photograph and play
it up big-time with some half
concocted story. There was this
mysterious, crazy-looking, sneaky
crime photographer, or the scene
of the crime anyway, named
'Weegee'. He'd take some photos
and beat it; you knew when he
showed up it was a good one.
He had a real name, but I forget.
He liked shootouts, jumpers,
suicides, rub-outs, and - of
course - these always
highly picturesque (?) body
bags of river-eaten stiffs.
Weegee got pretty famous about
that time, mostly just because
he was so weird and mysterious.
A regular Joe Gould (I'll tell you
about him sometime).
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