It promised to be a chilly Saturday and I was feeling a bit restless in my hotel room. The room was not very high up and the sounds of the city intruded. I found myself missing the caws and croaks of the crows and parakeets I regularly hear from my Jaffa apartment, even the cars racing up and down Yeffet street and the occasional gun shot. But mostly, I missed the crows. I had always admired crows and fantasized about befriending one. This city has no crows, I thought. Shrugging, I found a nice track on SoundCloud, streamed it on the room’s TV, raised the volume a bit and went into the shower. I was soon disturbed by rigorous knocks on my room door. Quickly wrapping a towel around myself and lowering the music volume I opened the door, a “can I help you?“ on my lips only to be greeted by a frowning hotel security officer. “Please lower the volume, sir, the neighbors are complaining”. “Of course”, I replied and shut the door. Honestly, the music was indeed too loud but I felt somewhat rebellious and so I’d forgone my instinctive “Oh, I’m sorry”. I guess some of my current mood surfaced in my eyes because, a split second before the door closed in his face, the security officer’s eyes opened wider in alarm. I really need to get out before I do something reckless, I thought.
A few minutes later I was out the revolving hotel door and walking east on 42nd street. A friend once said I should visit a small park not far from there and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to visit it. The way took me past Tudor city, this archaic sounding place taken from Europe and dropped into this bustling Island city. The tall red brick towers, topped by turrets and faux battlements, were too far for me to detect any of the medieval faces carved into them or any birds (crows?) perched atop the steeples.
My walk took me past an eerily quiet UN building, the UN Plaza displaying no flags announcing the visit of some country’s dignitary, the green lawns devoid of life. I continued north along 1st avenue until I could cut farther east to be summarily halted by the FDR Drive and then the East river. My only option was to turn back north.
There was no more pavement. I looked around: the East river was on my right, right behind the highway. I was trying to find an alternative to turning back into the city. That was when I spotted an iron gate with a sign asking to close the gate behind me when I enter.
So I did.
A sudden change of scenery greeted me. Oh, the din of vehicles racing along the FDR Dr. never ceased nor dimmed but the park, for it was a small park I had entered, somehow incorporated it into something else, something unique, an ambience all on its own, melding engines, trees, water and forsakenness.
On my left were high brick walls seemingly holding the city in and up. In some parts the walls were rising out of the park grounds but in others they were supported by the tips of a buried granite foundation. Around me trees were growing out of pavement stones and interspersed were benches and tables. The trail took me roughly north but it did have minute twists and turns which succeeded in hiding from view various vagrants slumbering on benches.
What I immediately noticed was the sense of permanence each bench occupant had permeated into his or her chosen bench. One figure, mostly lost within the folds of its large dark coat, only one arm protruding and a long nose and high forehead , surprisingly unlined, showing, had near him, on a table, a tall candle cleverly attached to a little pumpkin base. Beside it was a small velvet wrapped package. The sleeping figure did not seem concerned that someone might take his belongings while he was unconscious. Indeed, none of the park denizens seemed bothered by such concerns, as if each was protected within his or her own little bubble.
Another minor twist and another figure came into view, slumbering in a seated position, his black dreadlocks interspersed with just a bit of white, obscuring his face. On his table rested a Hanukiah. Wait, no, it was a Menorah! Seems I immediately attached to that person the nearest spiritual occasion just like the last figure had a pumpkin so close to Halloween. This figure was not marking Hanukkah, still more than a month away.
I kept on walking. Something made me turn around and take a look. My eyes widened in surprise and awe, my heart racing suddenly. I had a view of the two seemingly sleeping figures I had just passed, only now, for a second there, I thought I glimpsed something else. Each of them was sitting upright, each clutching an object. The woman (for it turned out the person with the long nose and high forehead was an imposing, hard eyed woman) was holding onto the pumpkin base of her now lit candle and the dreadlocked man was gazing deeply upon the lighted Menorah. The air was suddenly silent, no cars, no rushing water, not even the rustle of leaves.
“KRAA!”, a lone caw sounded somewhere nearby though the one producing it did not display its grim self.
I blinked. Sound rushed in and the sight was gone; Just slumbering vagrants with kitschy junk near them. Weird, I thought to myself, I should write about this, it would make a cool urban fantasy.
Continuing my walk, the trail led me right up to the granite bones of the island city and the brick wall laid on top of them. It seemed as though I had reached a dead end. I was about to turn back, though a strange sense of foreboding kept me from immediately heading back through that part of the park inhabited by the two figures. Not sure what to do I continued right up to the wall face. And suddenly steps hewn into the rock base showed themselves. I climbed the few steps until I’d reached a fork. I could continue climbing them to what seemed the exit from the park or I could take a right onto a raised pathway overlooking the park and ending in a view of the East River.
I turned right, not in a hurry for this little excursion to end.
From the path I could not see back deep enough through the park to where I’d come from. Only a part of the park showed itself. Continuing, I emerged from the cover of trees and looming wall, and the view opened up to reveal the East river. Looking up and down the river and the FDR Dr. right beneath me I saw no reason to continue down the steps towards a no-exit abandoned area filled with rubble and discarded things. I opted to remain there on my high perch and looked across the river at the southern tip of Roosevelt island.
The overcast sky, the cold dark waters rushing beneath me, the desolation immediately to my left and the park I had left behind contributed to a sudden shudder that ran through me. I suddenly noticed someone had inscribed something on the railing:
POE SWAM HERE BACK IN THE DAY.
A tapping sounded to my right but when I looked nothing stood there, no beady eye, no ancient, grim, black raven. Just my imagination then, playing along with the inscription.
I wonder if this really was the point Poe rowed to when he lived in New York City, I thought, thoughts of a raven and a lonely man and slow descent into madness running through my mind