My beat is the waterfront… more specifically, I woke up thinking and blogging on the future of B.K. shoreline. It’s all changing in the biggest little Boro since Montmartre. When Major Tom called, I suggested we walk the river up to the heights and see it all. The cameras were out, with their sattelite trucks, but I just had my trusty Nikon and I was there to cover the waterfront, not whatever trial is on…
Now I like this reporter’s self contained set up… She get’s all dolled up and sets up her camera and then she talks to her camera and its all very auto erotic…. she is a self contained broad… cast.
Believe it or not, this sort of goes to the nature of how B.K. will grow. Will it be the uber waterfront parks, the Ratner stadium strips, or…
…will it be left to smaller, more localized efforts and entreprenneurs? As an example of what the little guy is up against here, let’s go back to the subway, before I got to dumbo: Dee Dee Donuts has been on the corner of 9th and 5th Ave. for years. Suddenly a month ago Dunkin Donuts surrounded it… talk about preassure business tactics… Dee EE Donu s doesn’t have a chance… though I hear some people are being loyal: 8 to 10 Dunkin makes better dounuts and coffee too… the owner of Dee Dee is quoted in the times as saying, “Well they’ve got clean new tables and chairs where people can sit in there and people will pay for that…” They will too….obviously.
I’ve been working, or hanging out in Dumbo since the early nineties, I suppose. It’s always been a scrappy/dirty place with great views and a fun vibe, but in the past few years, you’ve seen a lot of cheap lofts turn into million dollar condos. It’s changing at light speed….I always knew it would. No place has such amazing views of the two sweetest bridges in the world (at least as a team they are… we can argue Golden Gate and there’s always Paris… oh don’t get me started on Paris, even if that is what N.Y. is becoming: a beautiful antique, to precious to be handled by the working classes, let alone the poor).
When lilacs last in the bridge yard bloomed, the bridge itself became a camera obscura, or at the very least an astrological clock. I noticed at my feet a perfect japanese flag circle of light and when I looked up for the reverse shot, I could see the smallest hole in the deckof the Manhattan bridge. “How Cool,” I thought. “Someone should lay out some photosensitive paper and make some art.”
And I single yellow glove bobbed out in the water like the hand of the lady in the lake… sweet Sir Gallahad went down to the river and he gave you tea and oranges that came all the way from Chinatown… etc. But it did point to the playgrouds, in their Semi-Vitto Aconcci boat motiff… There’s kids living down here now, where there was only artists, and drug dealers,and small manufacturing.
In the end, it all comes down to the beautiful bank and sweet money and Major Tom and I tried to put it into our domes that cap our heads, that you have to be rich to stick around here and we sat under the dome scheming and hoping , like every generation that came before us.
Tom’s got his band, The Royal Wylds (which just realeased this c.d. with cover art by Steven Lewis, who plays guitar and writes in the band and some of you may remeber his enormous political oils from IT IN space in SoHo) and me I got all you’ve seen and read and then some…but dreams are like a dozen donuts all empty in the middle without you, dear reader… so tell your friends and spread the word about the blog… we need what makes the donuts and the world go round….
