RUDIMENTS, pt. 936
(high graft and corruption)
'...Once the inmates are given
the asylum there isn't much
else to do but watch the show
unfold. Just stand back for the
spectacle's confetti, as the world
explodes? Wait around for the
aftermath : a new world, with
nothing owed? I turned in my
keys at Asbury Park - at that
old tavern with the sign that
read: 'Home For the Chronically
Ill.' The guy said the sign was
real, 1928, from Clyburn Hill,
where the sanitarium used to be...'
-
I remember being astounded by
'concept' - the idea of something,
a kind of close-fitting garment that
no longer fit the present day. When
I used to take the train, the stops at
Elizabeth, and Newark, used to
fascinate me. At the Elizabeth stop,
the compete wreck of a junk-city
gone to Hell would star me right
in the face, and I'd see all those
old, worn-down and boarded up
signs and stores that were no longer :
their old brick ledges and windows,
and a kind of broken dream of the
past. Elizabeth, even moreseo that
Newark, was once an early settlement,
I'm talking like 1640, 1680, for the
arrivals and settlers of the old Jersey
Colony, royalist and not. Just behind
them was Newark - which train
station, though much different, also
fascinated me. And this also had its
royalist tone, way back then. But all
that, over time, in both locations,
was changed over. I know that I've
made this point before, but the whole
premise of living, here, and elsewhere,
in those days was situated around
'water.' Ports. Passageways. Boats
and cargo, waterborne. The complete
concept of things was different and,
to us now, probably unforgivably
distant. We've lose all that, with
highways, cars, trucks and the rest.
Anyway, be all that as it may, no
one cares a wit today, and no one
knows either, but, when you get
to Newark, Broad Street runs the
main length of it, and was the first
and most used, heavily occupied
area, up from the river front some
bit away. Two blocks or so over,
heading west, after two smaller
thoroughfares (all wrecks now) the
landscape rises, there a statue of
Abraham Lincoln, and a courthouse
and the usual government crap.
That was once called High Street,
when it was good enough for normal
people. After time, by the mid-1950's
it was all a slum and a shambles, filled
with destitute, rotters, and blacks.
So, (Government wisdom here) what
do they do? Change the name to
MLK Drive (Martin Luther King),
to somehow throw the blacks a bone
instead of really working on the
problem. Rename the streets for
'em, that'll make 'em happy.' I can
hear some dick-ass Freeholder or
somebody saying that now.
-
In any case, names used to mean
something. Like 'High' Street, for
the geography. I was reading a
book on the history of all I've
just been talking about here, and
I was startled when I read that,
for some number of years, in
the beginnings, locally, High Street
was the 'Western Frontier!' Yes,
past that point it was Highlands
and to Watchungs (called mountains,
but not really; just hilly ground),
and the settlers went no further -
Natives, forests, waters and wooded
lands. Hard to imagine, now.
-
In New York City, of course, the
same sort of rabble-work went on,
but they were always more anarchic,
forward, and boisterous. They had
their own manifestations of things,
but here, on the East Jersey side, the
local folk were far more staid and
nose-to-the-grindstone industrious
about things. Plodding on. Newark
had this heavy-duty early industrial
inventor type guy named Seth Boyden.
There are one or two statues to him
in the various military parks around,
but more importantly, and gone now
too, along Frelinghuysen Avenue
the largest and worst slum projects
were named the Seth Boyden Houses.
Go figure that, for a western frontier.
-
I'd be riding the train and watching
the people coming in and getting
off, and when we'd get to the Newark
Station I'd wonder about the suited
types and the professionals who
would get off there - thinking if
they were disappointed, or considered
it a let-down, to have to get off at
Newark and not forge on to NYC.
Which - to my mind, and any
frontier notwithstanding - was the
only real place, right then, to be.
-
Back to that opening here, which I
put in quotation marks, since it's
mine and I can do that, I make
reference to a real place I used to
frequent. With my Biker band of
the usual reprobates. The 'Home
For the Chronic Infirm' - which
is what it actually said, not 'Ill' -
was a tavern which displayed that
sign in the front area, as you walked
in. It was a tavern, half comprised
of wizened old Asbury types, and
Bikers, gang guys, motorcycle folk,
whatever you'd wish to call it. In
there I once witnessed the most
amazing blues-band hoedown of
any I'd ever seen - amateur locals,
but really fine music. The e-chords
and the a-chords just got picked to
death, and the sound dripped down
the wailing harmonica walls and
right over the bar and pool table too.
High graft and corruption by music
makers, and the finest fat-guy
harmonica stuff ever too.
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