12,840. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1067

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1067

(the envelope had too many folds)

I became interested in architecture

mostly from being right near 

Cooper Union, where there was

a lot of free-course stuff available -

courses and talks and sessions, most

about engineering and stress-distribution

and all that. Those were things that

little interested me, in fact not at all,

but in 1967 it was all a different world

and anyone could mostly walk into

anywhere  -  which I did a lot  -  and

partake. Everything was wide open;

I know that for a fact about NYU and

about Cooper Union, which usually

were more than enough for me.

There was so much turmoil

underway, and so many things

right then were undergoing really

rigorous societal change, that it 

was as if people were simply afraid

to challenge others  -  like me  -  in 

these cases, for fear of starting a

problem. Everyone in authority

was basically walking on ice, in

fear of organized shut-down, or

demonstrations or riots or sit-ins

or strikes. People were dying over

those sorts of issues, and NYC and

Greenwich Village were certainly

hotbeds of it all. At that time the

space all around Cooper Union

was used basically as a crazy

flea-market, open-air confab of

things for sale, laid out along the

sidewalks; hippie kids, stoned,

zonked or passed out, entering

or leaving St. Mark's Place. You

could find-to-buy most anything

there, 25 cents to a dollar was

the average. Believe me : bicycles,

mailboxes, globes, books, records

cameras, shoes and boots, clothing,

fishing reels, mitts and gloves for 
baseball. It was as if old New York
City was intent on disgorging its
past. A big deal was record albums.

It's difficult to imagine now, but

these were the days BEFORE

even the most primitive cassette

tapes and 8-tracks. Record players

and LP's were the norm, each of

which were here as well. 45's, mostly

ephemeral stuff, disposable, were

there too, and people would pick

over things. There were also

sidelines - for drugs, and the skin

trades too  -  hippie guys would

sell their girlfriends  -  who'd go

willingly, for 5 dollars worth of

sex or fondle, etc. No one minded a

thing. The walk-ups and tenements

of the lower eastside, right there,

were open quarters for all sorts

of pleasures : shooting up, to

shooting in, as the saying went. 

Probably a goodly, fair-share of

those hippie toddlers and kids of

those days came from such joinings.

Ostensible 'Daddies' abounded. It

was funny, I always thought, how

the one thing that most of the

people there needed  -  food  -  

was not to be had. Only later, by

Autumn, '67, did some free-food

stations and handouts begin taking

place in Tompkins Square Park,

by missions and some churches and

some welfare organizations. The Park

itself was only a little ways off, a

good deep walk east on St. Mark's,

always an eyeful and an exciting 

place. For me, it was amazing.

It was filled, brimming with the

runaways and park-sleepers,

just as I had been, not long

before. They came in waves.

-

Being 'interested' in architecture

is actually about the stupidest thing

in the world to say. Architecture

demands mathematics, sciences,

algebras and geometries too; the

sorts of things I hated. My interest

was not in that plodding sense of

'how do we do this?' but always

more along the lines of the end

design, the lines and the flow of

the dimensional building. Which

isn't really 'architecture, but more

just the 'reaction' to it. Which I

dug. Like music and art, architecture

brings things out, it rings bells in

the head  -  each thing I'd see in

NYC, old buildings, churchs, halls,

hospitals and foundling homes too,

all of that stuff came right out of

the do-good movements of the

1880s and that period of real

turnover and new-comings to

the growing city; trying to

manage itself and create an

architectural presence no longer

ramshackle or dangerous or

run-down or filthy, and instead

construct and then protect a

sense of place and care for the

hordes. The same hordes who

fell there and kept coming like

aliens from other planets.
-
It was always strange for me, to
be walking that corridor from the
8th Street Studio School location,
east to St. Mark's, all of which then
became like a weird Main Street to
me, a collection of the imponderable:
freaks, outlandish exhibitionists,
annoying and bothersome people
some, and others the most shy
and almost sweet about things 
people : reticent and confused, but
sure to be free and to be hip; the
leading edge of all that. Fanaticism.
Politics. Badinage. Crooks. Slobs.
De-frocked priests and nuns.
Soldiers and sailors on the lam.
Drm-majorettes in training, and
high-school runaways too. Fathers
looking for their daughters, and, so
sad, daughters looking for fathers.
I never knew what I'd stepped into.
I never even thought about getting
away, because all of this, still new
and raw to me, was exactly where
I'd gotten away too. Endings only
sometimes equal beginnings. Other
times they're better, or worse.
I wasn't yet sure. Some people
told me I had 'some' talent; others
laughed me off, endlessly, as the
rube, fresh in from some other
dump. None of it, anyway, ever
brought me a thing at all.
-

But  -  who could ever figure that 

40 years later, by 2005 anyway,

there'd be two Starbucks there 

within spitting distance, an

'antique' styled subway entry,

sculpture in the plaza, greasy

guitar guys, and a big dip-shit

pizza place at the corner. The

music store, sheet music and

books, and the Village Voice,

in due time, stepped in too.

Everything is different and

everything is new, and  -   

speaking of sculpture  -  the 

new buildings put in place

by Cooper Union are mostly

architectural disasters or blown

up bathtubs on acid. So much

for that. In 1967, and still today,

I stand there, disdainful of this

world around me, and say to 

myself and the echoing ages,

'This, this, cannot be. Here is

where Abraham Lincoln

stood, and spoke to the crowd; 

numerous other notables over 

the years; here is where the 

vicious riots were, drafts wars

and hangings and burnings.

Here is where the brigades

marched, out to their field

and artillery deaths in the

Civil War, and then back to 

quell the riotous murders

too." There was too much for

me here to understand. The

envelope had too many folds.

-

I am not one to dwell, yet

here I dwell on. I am not one

to easily relinquish the past;

a better past, a wider past, a

past of more subtlety than today.

Therefore, I will not. I know, and

have known, that my body in this

life was sentenced here, shackled to

the foibles of inanity. And thereby

then did I stand and stay. Hating

every minute. Inanity has its

clumsy ways, and drew me in 

some too. But from that I WAS

able to run. Dust on my heels

was not there for long. I made
sure to keep outrunning it; and

somewhere, somewhere in 

the deep valor of time, my

own footsteps, and those of

of so many others, resound. 

That is the echo of my 

heart you hear. All that 

I did, I did. And what I 

failed at, I failed. It

all little matters now.