Here's an edited copy of an email I sent to an expat in a warm climate who had written a column recently that melded with thoughts on other recent reads. Will continue to edit. And edit.
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Thoughts converge on recent articles that have a common thread or two. Your column, "On Going Where Nothing Will Be the Same As It Used To Be" had me refer to these and I refer you to them.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21210: In "Finding a Lost Prince of Bohemia" Robert Danton writes of bohemian culture in Paris and other cities. The essay will be included in to be published "Les Bohemiens." Gypsies ( I think of your column here and elsewhere) are mentioned. A great piece of history this. It is online and the New York Review of Books to which I subscribe is a source of continuing enjoyment. NYRB maintains much of what it has currently published online. The essays and book views are enriching.
The thread I see here is that a bohemian culture, the arts fine and performing, have a place to be or to go to. Ergo the old Bohemias and the new ones. Bohemias are always with us whether they be of the mind or a place. It is the disappearing (though reborn elsewhere perhaps) of places that I find troubling. Some American cities did not survive urban renewal. Some places, some possible Bohemias are lost forever.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/07/hitchens200807: Well know as an atheist and criticized for being opinionated, I enjoy his perspective. In a recent Vanity Fair (I tip the postman at Christmas for his heavy bag) Hitchens wrote "Last Call, Bohemia: Entertainment and Culture." He writes of the West Village and places I know of and have been to or a least driven by many times. I was born and raised in Jersey City just outside the Holland Tunnel and worked and partied in New York. Just through the tunnel were pieces of a larger Bohemia: The Cafe Wha (my sister read poetry there, Dylan played there), the White Horse (a Behan haunt for short time) wound up a few blocks away hanging around the "No Name Bar"-it was on the way (kind of) to and from the Holland Tunnel). Shaft was filmed there and a scene shot in the "No Name" is in the movie. Had a run in there with a guy named Featherstone from 'The Westies', a gang from Hell's Kitchen. Scary-another story.
At the No Name, enjoyed a scotch with Jason Robards, Jr. It was after hours and he lived across the street. This was before the accident; he was still drinking. His bodyguard was former Secret Service and he said he was with Kennedy in Dallas. He wrote two books, The Detail and The Fourth Man. He moved to Canada. Both books were published in England. He died in Canada where he moved. Haven't read the Fourth Man yet. Wilson McCarthy his name. Intriguing. He was Secret Service but I cannot find reference to him; I looked all over the internet. He seems to have disappeared. A U.K. site had the book, The Fourth Man, available for 40 some odd dollars. This for what would seem to be an inexpensive potboiler. Intriguing. I digress.
I always thought The Village was just something else. Went to grad school at NYU and did not like seeing older buildings being torn down. I could go on here quite a bit but I won't. The point here is that Hitchens is bringing our attention to a nasty bit of business in NYC wherein 7th Avenue is being realigned. The O'Toole bullding he mentions is a wondrous looking building. Its windows resemble the portals on ships. It's hard by St. Vincent's Hospital where Jersey City girls went to work and study. Not far away the Waverly Theater would show movies that were not seen in many other theaters in the United States. One was "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" remains a favorite. The ending has a special meaning. We went our own ways and she is gone now.
Bohemians might seem to be running out of places to be in common. They will always have a certain commonality of mind, but perhaps not one of place. Cities should preserve their storefronts and walkups. New high rise construction should include storefront occupancies and every effort should be made to promote and integrate the arts into urban renewal, into new development.
I am thinking of the Jersey City waterfront where we went skinny dipping in the '50's. It was a coal pier and right across from the undreamed of World Trade Center. In fact when the WTC was built, many small shops and homes were demolished. I worked too in Manhattan (the Home Insurance Company) and remember taking lunch down at the East River. I'd doff my shirt, tee, and tie and lay out on a pier in the summer. I ate lobster outside, on an outside counter of a corner seafood store. Sloppy Louie's was nearby (gone now) and of course this was all happening during the daytime when the Fulton Street Fish Market was asleep; it was fully awake at 0' dark thirty though and the area was transformed. What a sight. We would go to watch the mongers after closing time in the pubs. It is gone now too. It is now in Hunts Point where by coincidence the old produce market (worked there one night-enough) went years ago. The old market was in......the village.
----------------------------------------------------------
Thoughts converge on recent articles that have a common thread or two. Your column, "On Going Where Nothing Will Be the Same As It Used To Be" had me refer to these and I refer you to them.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21210: In "Finding a Lost Prince of Bohemia" Robert Danton writes of bohemian culture in Paris and other cities. The essay will be included in to be published "Les Bohemiens." Gypsies ( I think of your column here and elsewhere) are mentioned. A great piece of history this. It is online and the New York Review of Books to which I subscribe is a source of continuing enjoyment. NYRB maintains much of what it has currently published online. The essays and book views are enriching.
The thread I see here is that a bohemian culture, the arts fine and performing, have a place to be or to go to. Ergo the old Bohemias and the new ones. Bohemias are always with us whether they be of the mind or a place. It is the disappearing (though reborn elsewhere perhaps) of places that I find troubling. Some American cities did not survive urban renewal. Some places, some possible Bohemias are lost forever.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/07/hitchens200807: Well know as an atheist and criticized for being opinionated, I enjoy his perspective. In a recent Vanity Fair (I tip the postman at Christmas for his heavy bag) Hitchens wrote "Last Call, Bohemia: Entertainment and Culture." He writes of the West Village and places I know of and have been to or a least driven by many times. I was born and raised in Jersey City just outside the Holland Tunnel and worked and partied in New York. Just through the tunnel were pieces of a larger Bohemia: The Cafe Wha (my sister read poetry there, Dylan played there), the White Horse (a Behan haunt for short time) wound up a few blocks away hanging around the "No Name Bar"-it was on the way (kind of) to and from the Holland Tunnel). Shaft was filmed there and a scene shot in the "No Name" is in the movie. Had a run in there with a guy named Featherstone from 'The Westies', a gang from Hell's Kitchen. Scary-another story.
At the No Name, enjoyed a scotch with Jason Robards, Jr. It was after hours and he lived across the street. This was before the accident; he was still drinking. His bodyguard was former Secret Service and he said he was with Kennedy in Dallas. He wrote two books, The Detail and The Fourth Man. He moved to Canada. Both books were published in England. He died in Canada where he moved. Haven't read the Fourth Man yet. Wilson McCarthy his name. Intriguing. He was Secret Service but I cannot find reference to him; I looked all over the internet. He seems to have disappeared. A U.K. site had the book, The Fourth Man, available for 40 some odd dollars. This for what would seem to be an inexpensive potboiler. Intriguing. I digress.
I always thought The Village was just something else. Went to grad school at NYU and did not like seeing older buildings being torn down. I could go on here quite a bit but I won't. The point here is that Hitchens is bringing our attention to a nasty bit of business in NYC wherein 7th Avenue is being realigned. The O'Toole bullding he mentions is a wondrous looking building. Its windows resemble the portals on ships. It's hard by St. Vincent's Hospital where Jersey City girls went to work and study. Not far away the Waverly Theater would show movies that were not seen in many other theaters in the United States. One was "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" remains a favorite. The ending has a special meaning. We went our own ways and she is gone now.
Bohemians might seem to be running out of places to be in common. They will always have a certain commonality of mind, but perhaps not one of place. Cities should preserve their storefronts and walkups. New high rise construction should include storefront occupancies and every effort should be made to promote and integrate the arts into urban renewal, into new development.
I am thinking of the Jersey City waterfront where we went skinny dipping in the '50's. It was a coal pier and right across from the undreamed of World Trade Center. In fact when the WTC was built, many small shops and homes were demolished. I worked too in Manhattan (the Home Insurance Company) and remember taking lunch down at the East River. I'd doff my shirt, tee, and tie and lay out on a pier in the summer. I ate lobster outside, on an outside counter of a corner seafood store. Sloppy Louie's was nearby (gone now) and of course this was all happening during the daytime when the Fulton Street Fish Market was asleep; it was fully awake at 0' dark thirty though and the area was transformed. What a sight. We would go to watch the mongers after closing time in the pubs. It is gone now too. It is now in Hunts Point where by coincidence the old produce market (worked there one night-enough) went years ago. The old market was in......the village.
As I review what I write here, I need to not that I am not intending to speak of myself, per se; rather offerieng a reflection of experiences and observations of a Bohemian environment.
A recent story in the Jersey Journal (Jersey City) spoke of the high cost of living in Jersey City and the need for less expensive housing for municipal employees. I won't digress on the horrible crime rate in the city and wish proponents luck. Jersey City was never demolished by urban renewal. There are housing projects and they are coming down (some have) and other kinds of housing will be built. Friendly housing. No more twenty story cages. Places for a Bohemia still exist. I ponder, we might be too close to Bohemia to realize we are in it.
Downtown, the city is alive with new places to eat and venues for the fine and performing arts. There seems to be more of them since I left 25 years ago. New Yorkers coming over in droves. I remember the city very well. Many storefronts are in place, ripe for young businesses. We had garrets, I know where there are still a few. The city is always having a discussion with builders who want more building and less retention of historical place.
I memorized the streets in my district. I walk the city in my thoughts. It was a great place to grow up. I wished my daughters could have experienced it. It's a long, very long story.
Anyway, I recommend the two articles to you. Hitchens by the way has prompted me to write a bit and idle thoughts may be found at http://painesense.blogspot.com/. I use Tom Paine as a nom de plume. Paine's writing was not, to the best of my memory, referred to in the Catholic schools I went to. I understand why. Talk about living a provincial life.
You mentioned Baldwin and Stein. When Baldwin went to Paris, he left a city, New York, that was always a bit of Paris. And Stein too could have had her salon in New York, still and always an attraction for artists and writers. Doubtless she had a leg up acquiring new art and meeting avant garde artists. Bohemia is important as a place, yet it is the bohemians who make it that place. Like gypsies, they will wander. Especially if their garrets are bulldozed or the rents go up. Make experiences a place to be. Cull the good from the bad; ditch the baggage; keep the suitcase. Have we not, some of us, a Bohemia of the mind?
A recent story in the Jersey Journal (Jersey City) spoke of the high cost of living in Jersey City and the need for less expensive housing for municipal employees. I won't digress on the horrible crime rate in the city and wish proponents luck. Jersey City was never demolished by urban renewal. There are housing projects and they are coming down (some have) and other kinds of housing will be built. Friendly housing. No more twenty story cages. Places for a Bohemia still exist. I ponder, we might be too close to Bohemia to realize we are in it.
Downtown, the city is alive with new places to eat and venues for the fine and performing arts. There seems to be more of them since I left 25 years ago. New Yorkers coming over in droves. I remember the city very well. Many storefronts are in place, ripe for young businesses. We had garrets, I know where there are still a few. The city is always having a discussion with builders who want more building and less retention of historical place.
I memorized the streets in my district. I walk the city in my thoughts. It was a great place to grow up. I wished my daughters could have experienced it. It's a long, very long story.
Anyway, I recommend the two articles to you. Hitchens by the way has prompted me to write a bit and idle thoughts may be found at http://painesense.blogspot.com/. I use Tom Paine as a nom de plume. Paine's writing was not, to the best of my memory, referred to in the Catholic schools I went to. I understand why. Talk about living a provincial life.
You mentioned Baldwin and Stein. When Baldwin went to Paris, he left a city, New York, that was always a bit of Paris. And Stein too could have had her salon in New York, still and always an attraction for artists and writers. Doubtless she had a leg up acquiring new art and meeting avant garde artists. Bohemia is important as a place, yet it is the bohemians who make it that place. Like gypsies, they will wander. Especially if their garrets are bulldozed or the rents go up. Make experiences a place to be. Cull the good from the bad; ditch the baggage; keep the suitcase. Have we not, some of us, a Bohemia of the mind?
Pictured above is Kiki by Mann Ray. She was know as the 'Queen of Montparnasse.' She was an artist, model, and cabaret singer who was the symbol of bohemian Paris. The Man Ray photo will be remembered in advertisements for the broadway play 'Oh Calcutta.'
Tom Paine
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