12,829. RUDIMENTS, PT. 1,062

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,062

(when consumption was a disease)

It's my opinion that time changes

as it moves along; that none of

that is fixed, and that the sense

of time passing that we get is a

mere elongation  -  of velocity  -

and nothing more. There should

be a place called 'Velo-City,' a

place where all things move fast.

As I became more settled into

NYC, I realized that I more and

more entered into 'time zones'

rather than places. That was fine

by me, and it aided my education,

and, as well, it was something

for sure I'd never, ever experienced

before. My earlier life had been

strictly lined out : Acceptable ideas

and things over here, and those to be

cast-off and away, please, over there.

At first it was disconcerting, but

when I began learning how to use

it, I worked it into a consort of

sorts with new information. Two

thing of interest, right off the bat,

were quite nearby to me. The first

was, at Broome and Broadway, the

Haughwout Building  -  magnificent

but dreary too; cast-iron facade; the

world's first 'elevator' in place; an

emprium for glass and china and

such (Mary Todd Lincoln shopped

and walked there, getting the White

House's first full sets of Chinaware

and dinnerware, plates and settings,

etc.). It was set up (5 stories) to

resemble some palace or something

in Venice. It was, even in its latter

days (though it is still there, revived

and cleaned up nicely now), a stunning

clip of another time and era. I'd get

lost in mind and place, though I never

went in, just standing there;  I don't

even know if in those years, one

could get inside. Much like the

Tweed Office Building on the

block just north of City Hall,

but sharing place, the ghosting

brush of time had kept it standing

but nearly forgotten, abandoned,

and near-to derelict. But the fact

of my knowledge of it and its own

presence, being there together, gave

me an entire other faction of time

and being to enter. James Bogardus

was the guy who invented what

we now call the 'Cast-Iron' building.

It was just that  -  a metal building.

He'd also invented the mechanical

pencil, in his case a metal-cased

pencil lead, adjustably pointed

and forever, thus the draw. The

E. V. Haughwout Department

Store had impressive externals,

the look of a Venetian palazzo,

and inside it provided plenty

of light (daylight, from vast

expanses of glass, sheet-glass
[plate-glass] having just recently
been invented as a  process), open

areas, display space, a commodius

entry-lobby, unbroken expanses,

and only the thinnest of vertical

columns, as needed. The use

of cast-iron was perfect for

the reproduced patterns of

columns, spandrels, and

windoows. They could be then

endlessly extended around a

building, and/or piled high,

one design-order above another.

To see such a building always

remained a wonder for me. In

addition, up the blocks a few,

at Broadway between 9th and

10th, there stood - (incredibly

enough, it is now, or pre-illness

shutdowns, a K-Mart) -  the

old A. T. Stewart  department

store  -  one of the iron buildings

of its day, it once was, on its

own, the climax of that new

Iron Age at the beginnings of mass
shopping, and the 'Department'

Store. Never before had people

so mingled, all classes as one,

milling and walking about, to

look over ready-made, fixed-

price, goods and wares.

-

I was, myself, awash in the histories

of other days, and it could not be

avoided. Perhaps others  -  the

hundreds an hour I saw  -  could

obliviously avoid and ignore all

this, but I could not. My spirit and

the very cycle of my soul attested

to an open-door policy of their own

whereby I remained able to escape

this miserable realm and enter others.

The times and the people of paper,

with their accounting and ledger

books, ink-pens and straight-edges,

always at the ready. Second-level

office balconies overseeing the

crowds while clutches of the

newest idea 'Office Girls' went

about their business; keeping the

records of sales and transactions

and balances and deliveries and

the profit and loss factor of each

passing hour. All new. The

world was an amazing jumble

of the steel-lined streetcar tracks

of the streets, the bustle of the

people, the noises and smells of

horses, wagons, carts, and drayage.

Shouts of workers at loading

docks crowded with men. The

grand teamster, sweeping by with

his team of horses, pulling another

load. The streets were crammed

with strange things, new lights,

and fantastic reflections. All of a
sudden, it seemed, people now

lived, somehow, amidst their

same streets and places where

commerce on grand scales took

place. Never before had all
that been jumbled together.

-

On the outside of the cast-iron

façade of Stewart's, molded-iron

panels were painted to resemble

stone, with a repeated column and

beam design which, in its somehow

trickery, added dignity and an

expansiveness. Each floor took 

the weight of its own outer walls

(so it was said. What did I know 

otherwise of this?), in the same

structural scheme which would

later give rise to the skyscraper.

The spacious lobby and the

wide, large windows (giving

rise to the term 'window-shopping')

allowed vistas of grand, appealing

merchandise that viewers had

never before seen let alone thought

of easily purchasing. 

-

I used to see all those photographs,

as well, of the recently bombed-out

buildings, churches and halls of old

Europe and wonder how any one,

let along a fellow class of humans,

could so willfuly set about destroying

their own pasts. Huge, destroyed,

buildings of granite and stone and

concrete merely left as hinging and

gutted piles of rubble. I couldn't

imagine why the very streets weren't

screaming out in their anguish and 

shame. Mute crowds of Germans,

and battered Slavs and Italians,

notwithstanding. At least, for the

time, in NYC none of that had been

bombed away. Most of it still stood.

-

Palaces of Consumption. I still

remembered when consumption 

was a disease. My Grandmother 

was always telling me stories. She'd

been deathly afraid, in her 1900 era

youth, of two things : Consumption,

and being dragged off, with her family,

to the Poor House. A literal place, and

real, whereto people were sent.