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Hello Lamppost

Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the morning last. Just kicking down the cobble stones. Looking for fun and feelin' groovy. Hello lamppost, What cha knowing? I've come to watch your flowers growing. Ain't cha got no rhymes for me? Doot-in' doo-doo, Feelin' groovy. Simon and Garfunkel The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)

Near the bus stop - Manhattan side of the 59th Street Bridge

The Magical Mystery Tour
I glanced up from my book and looked unthinkingly out the bus window. What I saw jolted me back to reality. Or was it unreality?

I get the same bus to work every day. I'm used to the different views from the bus window; I've had ten year's of looking at them. From Manhattan, across the 'feeling groovy' bridge to Queens. The only change being the four seasons.

What jolted me when I looked through the window, was the very fact that it was NOT the same old same old.

I recognised nothing. Not a sausage! The buildings were not the buildings I knew. The street vendors were not the familiar ones of my daily commute. The people were not predominantly Hispanic or black as I was used to. There were lots of Asian people walking briskly in one direction. Nothing was familiar.

I panicked. I recalled a novel I read many years ago ("At least I could remember SOMETHING," I sighed to myself) - about a man with Alzheimer's. He went out to his backyard and saw a greenhouse there. It wasn't so much as he didn't remember it - it was that he didn't know what it was, that scared hell out of him.

I looked hard - no, there was absolutely nothing that made sense to me. I got off at the next stop. Had I crossed an ocean? The people milling about me were nothing like the people I was used to seeing in Queens. They were young and crisp looking. Mostly Asian with a sprinkling of blacks and whites. I longed for a familiar Hispanic face.

I had no idea what to do? Should I call work and tell them I was lost? Hardly! I have some pride. How embarrassing. As I wondered what I could possibly do, I walked along with the people in this, my new found land.

Then I saw the sign, "La Guardia Community College". I could work out where I was. It really was an unfamiliar place. I was so relieved, and after asking a few passers by, I managed to find may way to work.

Looking back, I can only think that I had hopped on the wrong bus. But no other bus stops at my stop. It will remain forever a mystery.

Adventuring
Venturing out onto the streets of New York is like stepping into an adventure. The ethnic diversity, the openness of the people, the aliveness of the place, never ceases to astonish me.

The day after my mystery tour I decided to make a mental note of what I saw from leaving home to getting to the bridge.

The commute started off well. I get two busses to work. I walk to the first bus up Second Avenue, about a block from my apartment.

I turned out of the apartment complex and set off. I was walking behind a suited business man. Nothing unusual in that. But wait. What were those little green leaves flying backwards over his shoulders? Little pale green leaves picked up by the breeze from the sea, fluttered around our heads.

I started to overtake him to see what he was doing. He was eating from a punnet of strawberries. His breakfast. A nice change, I thought, from the obligatory bagel and coffee most people eat whilst breakfasting and commuting simultaneously.

We passed the local homeless; as usual he was as drunk as a skunk at 8:45 a.m. A man was talking on his cell phone, "I didn't know you were in Brazil," I heard him saying. A young couple was sitting on the sidewalk, huge roller skates stuck on the end of their legs, discussing intimate details of their relationship in loud Brooklyn accents. A woman was walking a great dane, and a man - two pink and blue designer poodles.

Once on the bus, there was plenty to observe, and I decided to concentrate on the sounds. Against the background of screeching tires, sirens and the endless bedlam of Manhattan noise, I could make out five different languages. The woman next to me asked me my thoughts on last Tuesday's municipal election. A lunatic was preaching to whoever would listen. "Praise the Lord!" Two old biddies were arguing with each other. "Shut up fatso". "Am not!" "Are so!".

Time to change busses. Back onto the sidewalk I walked a few yards without incident to my second bus stop.

It's a short walk under the skytram that shuttles between Manhattan and Roosevelt Island. Here is a photo of it.


If you look carefully you can make out a traffic cop (wearing an orange vest with a yellow stripe), and a patriotic gentleman waving several flags. But please do not think we are all crazy here. To put things in perspective, I've included a gallery of photos of ordinary New Yorkers at the end of this article.

My second bus stop is next to a Japanese culinary supply store. You can see it in the photo gallery. There are the same people waiting there every day. We nod to each other and then get back to what we were doing - drinking coffee, reading a book or the morning paper, or just people-watching.

I don't usually have to wait long, and then it is a short trip over the bridge to work.

And there I am greeted by something weird that is NOT a New York thing. My animals and my computer, Bennelong.


And now, for something completely different ...

Random Street Scenes, Manhattan

Doorman	Bus Stop 59th Street
Bus Stop 59th Street	Can collector
Anti Bush Poster at Political Street Stall	Couple with their pet
Girl with pink shoes Back to Article	Street stall

Kate Juliff
New York
September 2005