13,825. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,214

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,214

(transistor radios)

The funny thing was, about the

Twin Towers, or the World Trade

Center as it was more officially

known, was how much I really

disliked them. In the beginning.

When they first went up, I detested

what looked to me like two

transistor radios jutting into the

sky. For you modern cats, that's

a throwback reference to the days

when Emerson and GE actually

made, wonder of wonders! hand

held radios for personal use. In

their days they were quite amazing,

and it all started about 1958. At

first, as the 'technology' of the

new 'transistor' developed, the

race was on for more and more

'transistor' in the radio; at first

6, then maybe 8, and as I recall,

by 1960 or so, 12 transistors.

I never rightly knew what was

going on with all that, nor what

a transistor even was   -  opposed

to a 'resistor', I figured  -  but the

more you had, the more the little

radio could pull in. It was as if

even this 'new' thing had to be 

entered into the then-current 

rat-race of more and bigger and 

larger, all. It was funny too, since,

as the cars got longer and wider,

with fins and swoops and chrome 

and all, so as to sort of represent

symbolic power, when I saw the

actual space capsules and stuff of

the Mercury rockets and John

Glenn and the space-shots I was

staggered by how, as of a sudden

they had been made to look like,

instead, toasters, stunted erasers,

or the silliest, most blunt-looking,

utility boxes winging in space.

So much for glitz and glamor, and

in the same manner the Twin Towers,

when finally completed, represented

nothing but expediency and an act

of 'efficiency' which brought forth

the most banal, neutral and generic

looking, vertical blocks; to make it

worse, twinned! America sure knew

how to pocket the 8-ball.

-

Walter Benjamin had it that 'all

paths lead to the present, and the

future leads there too.' I guess

that was sure truthful.

-

The hand-held transistor radio

for me, walking along Inman 

Avenue, vivified life as I knew 

it. Allowing me to walk down

Inman Avenue, where my 'home'

was, at #116, in a miserable row

of exact-pattern lookalike sand

castles, to be accompanied by

Ben E. King singing 'There is a

rose in Spanish Harlem...' Damn

it all, thought I, there really are

other places.

-

Anyway, moving along, the Twin

Towers represented to high-point

of that 1970's time, upon completion,

of flat planes, right angles, stern

visage, no windows, and people

otherwise ventilated and entombed

by 'technology,' though, then, of

the architectural operation. Complete

and utter rationality embodied in

steel and glass. Little did anyone 

know what was to come. I wasn't

much interested and, at first, as I

said, really disliked them.

-

What happened over time, especially

at right about the turn of the century

to 2000, was that I had really grown

to love them. They stood for so much

of NY for me, whether good or bad.

They were useful as refence points,

visually, to one's position on the

island, or across from it, to the

outlying places of Brooklyn, or

New Jersey. I knew the sightlines,

from uptown or across town, and

was quickly able to determine

things from where I knew the 

towers were; which streets opened

to their straight view, which were

angled, etc. I'd often sit at the

tiny outside-drinking balcony of

the Nancy Whiskey Pub and just

stare them down (a great vantage 

point there).

 -

Conceptually, it was all a different

matter. What had happened, actually,

was that, through the 1960's and with

only a modicum of consideration and

'public' permission, Authority itself,

(NY Urban Development, the folks

at Port Authority, to name but two)  -

each seeking to increase their local

fiefdoms and commands, desensitize

neighborhoods to anything but greed,

profit, and commercial venture, and

the public be damned, took over the

lands, properties, and storefront small

businesses of an entire Lebanese and

Middle Eastern district of shops ,

grocers, and small stores. It had, until

then, been referred to as the electronics

district  -  since many of the shops

and workmen of the area were of the

repair-skills for small appliances,

TV's and radios, wiring, short wave,

buzzers, relays, buttons and (probably)

transistors too. They were unceremoniously

shut down, and the people moved out -

sent scurrying, in fact. I don't know to

where they were exiled, but like the

Lincoln Center district, at about the

same time, where the same thing had

been done to Puerto Ricans, I'd imagine

it was out to those gruesome apartment

and plaza projects like Starrett City, or

out to Flushing or Queens. There's an

entire book on this Trade Center

relocation and demolition, by Danny

Lyon, entitled 'The Destruction of

Lower Manhattan.'  -  a fascinating

read and photo book showing the

derelict district, the ruins and the

demolitions and the raw vacancies

of the area. Over what amounted to

maybe 5 years, the clearance and

land preparation for the massive

excavations of the towers got

underway  -  almost surreptitiously,

without big announcement and/or

publicity, an entire section of

lower Manhattan was removed.

-

By the time the towers were 

destroyed, I had grown fond of 

them and at that peculiar time

I'd frequented and gotten myself

used to, even, the concourse and

shopping mezzanine, outlandishly,

since it was like nothing other than

a suburban mall, a commercial

chatter-space serving the thousands

who worked there daily. Food,

clothing. Ties, belts, shoes, hats,

leathers, watches and jewelry,

books and expensive collectibles,

rare-items, antiques. It was, in

its respect, pure commerce. Above

it, in a myriad of offices and

corridors, there was, for a time,

nothing so much as a great vacancy.

So much so that, at first, around 

1974, in order to keep the

enterprise solvent, the State of

New York itself became the 

largest tenant; offices, boards,

bureaus and commission and 

agencies too  -  let alone what

was moved there from Albany.

The place was, at first, a real

losing proposition.

-

Frankly, I was never sure what

to make of it. Ornament had

always been a part of architecture

on older NYC buildings  -  that 

is why we note them and 

remember them and why that

old style of 1880's grand and

stately architecture represented.

This, however was something

new, past even the steel and glass

modernism of Lever House and

the midtown ship/shape glass

and glitter buildings. The Twin

Towers were simply plain and

raw and brutish, sort of just as

they crumbled died too. The

commercial concourse within

represented nothing more than

commodity culture, internalized,

taken is and denied the street.

The business of the buildings,

in their aspects, wasn't in fact

'commerce' at all; nor was it

trade. Plain and simple, it was

mass-bureaucracy; it was the

buying and selling, and the 

transporting of, great quantities

of everything, ('Trade, Global')

by way of clerks, trackers, typists,

accountants, and shipping and

receiving management in huge

numbers. Or Governmental-force

bureaucracy  -  a brutal, plain,

force in its own way. These towers

probably deserved to die, sad to

say. The least likely suspects did

it too  -  crazed, desert, nomads,

little different than the crazed,

desert American everywhere

doing the selfsame stuff just in

the habit and rubric of another

ideology. Supposedly. Mammon.

Allah. Yahweh. Pick it.

- 

It's funny to realize that the first

attempt at taking the towers down

was a failure. It was 1986 or so

when some other Islamic cleric

masterminded a van laden with

heavy explosives to breach the 

underground gates for parking

and explode beneath a tower,

which did occur, and took out

a large area and many vehicles,

etc., but nothing enough to

dissemble one tower, let alone

two. Same sort of terror-thought.

The blind cleric was tried and

sent away for many years, vowing

that the 'next attempt would NOT

fail.' (I don't know whatever

happened to him, I think he's 

dead by now; but I know he was

imprisoned for a long time). It

was that first attempt destruction

that put up the vehicle-barriers,

gate-barricades, and no-parking

areas which were in place after

that. in any case, by 2001, that

problem too had been superseded,

in this case, by air travel. When

those towers came down, a great

part of whatever new-soul New

York was supposed to have been

getting, or building, went down

with it.