The reflections of mine which follow concern a point of grammar that bothers me. The usage which I object to occurred in the following article which I was reading on Monday.
“Casualties of the Cashless Society: Those Who Get Seasonal Tips”
It is not a unique occurrence or example. The passage in the Times article was as follows:
“It’s a peculiar quirk of modern city life. The stock market is on fire, unemployment is down, and the average price of a Manhattan apartment is now more than $2 million. Yet good luck finding anyone with paper money in her purse.”
The reporter, if he wanted to be politically correct, could have used the awkward locution “his or her” (i.e., “his or her purse”), which I don’t particularly care for. (Nevertheless, I myself use it when I feel called upon by context to do so. But, I don’t feel obligated to use it. It depends upon my writerly instincts. In my opinion, that’s the way it should be. My or anyone else’s writing should be based upon personal preferences in matters of style, not a ukase from a language czar.)
But, the Times writer wants to show off his PC credentials with his in your face “her.” It is meant to produce a frisson in male chauvinist types. But, it actually amounts to “incivility,” so to speak, when it comes to conventions of language and audience expectations. By “audience expectations,” I mean those of the Times’s readers. If you think this is an extreme point of view, see discussions of how a writer should always keep his or her audience uppermost in mind as a “first principle” of composition in books such as June Casagrande’s It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer’s Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences. The unexpected “she,” rather than “he,” or “he or she,” produces a sensation of disorientation — and temporary confusion — in the discriminating reader.
“[G]ood luck finding anyone with paper money in her purse” annoys me. I quoted the passage to a friend of mine (a male) with an advanced degree who has very liberal views on politics, affirmative action, sexism, homophobia, and other issues and asked him what he thought. He agreed with me. He didn’t like the use of “her” in this instance and said it annoyed him too.
The abbreviation Mrs. signifies a beautiful honorific pronounced as Missus, and the honorific Miss, which is not abbreviated, has a beautiful sound (unlike the atrocious and downright ugly Ms., which is unpronounceable, but who cares? — we shall not have sexism in the workplace!). We are talking about ancient words embedded in our glorious language.
The French have the abbreviations M., spelled out and pronounced as the elegant Monsieur; and Mme and Mlle, pronounced and spelled out, respectively, as the euphonious Madame and the even more euphonious Mademoiselle. What a beautiful word.
What about the Spanish Srta. for the beautiful sounding honorific Señorita? Have the language police come up with an ugly substitute (one that does not indicate marital status) yet? I fear that they have.
I wonder if “Mademoiselle,” the 1970’s hit by the rock band Styx, will have to be retitled in the name of political correctness.
And what about the hit song “Adios Senorita” by Ivory Joe Hunter, which is still played? Title change? It’s never too late to correct the past sins of a benighted, politically incorrect lyricist.
More ominously, what about the musical Miss Saigon? Should the title be allowed to stand? Should it be changed to “Ms. Saigon”?
This is not nitpicking on my part, and it is not a trivial matter. Ask New Yorker copyeditor Mary Norris, author of the best seller Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen. As she says, “Pronouns run deep.” The PC types are all for conservation (of the wilderness and the natural environment). Why do they want to tear asunder our language? Like nature, it should be conserved, which does mean embalmed or ossified.
If a reader of this blog disagrees with me, she is welcome to post a comment.
Purportedly found on a slip of paper inserted between leaves of Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz, a used book priced at three dollars in a Housing Works thrift store in Manhattan.
Take note. Read carefully.
1. take care of YOURSELF and your kin
2. watch your back
3. don’t get involved
4. watch out for desperate types in dire straits; they at the least want something from you and may want to rob you
5. avoid undesirables; they’re trouble
6. no good can come out of helping the unfortunate; there’s only a potential downside
— “transcribed” out of thin air by Roger W. Smith, perennial bargain book hunter and would be do gooder; New York, NY, December 2017
My high school English teacher, Robert W. Tighe, was a wonderful teacher and a learned man in the humanities. He also was equipped with practical knowledge and wisdom, the sort that could be applied to everyday affairs and issues.
The topic of censorship once came up in class. Mr. Tighe said, “When arguments of censorship arise, it always comes down to the question: where you draw the line?” He continued in this vein. He asked the class, “Do you think I should be allowed to sell French postcards in the school parking lot?” We all said no. “Well then,” Mr. Tighe said, “that proves my point.”
I was thinking recently about Mr. Tighe’s observation, which I never forgot, and its implications — both in the “narrow” sense (how does it apply to issues of censorship and obscenity?) and in the “wider” sense of how it might apply in general to controversies where one side or the other might say, “This is beyond the pale. This goes too far.”
I stated that, in my opinion, statutes honoring heroes of the Confederacy should not be taken down. A reader of the post commented: “There’s a big difference between Robert E. Lee, who fought to preserve slavery and who fought to tear this country apart, and the founding fathers who created our government. Should statues of Hitler and Nazi monuments be preserved because they are part of history? [italics added]”
That comment (the second, italicized sentence, not the first) stopped me in my tracks. It made me think: Could it be that I am opposed to taking down MOST statues, but that here are some exceptions, some historical figures (Hitler, Stalin, etc.), who were so bad — notwithstanding my stated point of view, in variance with it, or perhaps one might say, despite it — that they should not be honored with statues?
Similarly, in my post
“is it possible (or desirable) to hold two divergent opinions at the same time?”
I noted that there were some hot button issues — ones that seem to never get resolved — that are so contentious and emotionally charged that “public agreement” on them seems impossible. For example: capital punishment; abortion; hawks vs. doves. The real test, the hard part, I wrote, comes “when one is dealing with actualities and specific cases.” For example: I am against capital punishment, but when I saw and read news items about beheadings of hostages by ISIS terrorists, I felt that I would like to see the executioners publicly beheaded. Charles Manson died a few weeks ago. I believe in the Christian doctrine of forgiveness, but I was glad to see him dead.
What about censorship? Obscenity? Pornography? Which my English teacher was talking about.
What once was considered obscene — and was verboten legally — is now common. Ulysses, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Tropic of Cancer — all of them classics — were once forbidden books. What ever happened to censorship (on obscenity grounds) of literature? It doesn’t exist any more.
Sexually explicit films and magazines that would be considered legally obscene when I was growing up seem tame and would bother no one now. Pornography is available on the Internet for free now — to suit every market niche and appeal to every prurient taste.
So, the “foul lines” keep being widened for obscenity issues.
What about the recent spate of reported sexual offenses (most of them from past years) against men? How does Donald Trump compare with Bill Clinton in this regard, or vice versa? Are Al Franken’s and Garrison Keillor’s transgressions as serious as were Harvey Weinstein’s and (allegedly) Roy Moore’s? Charlie Rose? Matt Lauer? (See more on this below.)
The bottom line, it seems to me, is that when push comes to shove — in the final analysis — judgments are made both: (1) according to principles people feel compelled to adhere to; and (2) according to the degree of outrage or indignation they do or do not feel. Perhaps this is obvious. In making judgments, one takes into account both the law as one construes it (ranging from the legislative to codes of ethics and religion) and one’s gut reactions.
I guess what I am trying to say is that, when considering grave issues, people believe they are adhering to firmly held principles. But, opinions can and do shift over time, according to what people are willing to tolerate. Just as Mr. Tighe said.
Take the Monica Lewinsky scandal, for example. Some legislators and many anti-Clinton people (including some, like myself, who always vote Democratic) felt that Clinton, having lied under oath, should have been impeached on principle and as a matter of law. Others were willing to give him a pass.
What about the wave of sexual assault and harassment allegations now sweeping the country in tidal wave fashion (mentioned above)?
Standards are shifting, that’s for sure.
But, there seems to be much confusion. Are distinctions being made, should they, according to circumstances, gravity of offense — e.g. Al Franken and Garson Keilor, say, versus Harvey Weinstein?
Is it now the unwritten law that any evidence of inappropriate sexual behavior, any improper or unasked-for advances, are henceforth forbidden, and that all cases will be punished with equal severity?
There was a good column in The Washington Post recently that addresses these issues (and, for readers of this post from overseas who may not be familiar with the current controversy, provides an overview):
All kinds of issues seem to be getting entangled here: moral principles; feminist issues; the law, which is often not clear (for instance, where and when was the offense committed? was it a state or federal crime? does the statute of limitations apply?); and so on. Then, what seems reprehensible to some may seem excusable to others. Pretty much everyone agrees that pedophilia is the worst sort of crime and is repugnant. But, were Roy Moore’s alleged transgressions those of a pedophile?
It matters, because when we are debating issues like these about which people feel so strongly, hysteria can prevail. Terms are thrown around and accusations are made loosely. Clear headedness and dispassionate judgments tend not to be welcomed or in evidence.
Which is not to say that people shouldn’t feel outrage. I myself found that I loathed Moore: his past actions, his denials, his attempts to impugn his accusers.
But, here’s a question worth pondering. Sexual harassment in the US — in the workplace, in the media, in academia — as the recent allegations show, is nothing new. Quite a few of the victimized women have indicated that complaints they made in the past were ignored. But, now, when an allegation is made against Garrison Keillor or a WNYC talk show host, they are immediately fired and their shows are canceled, despite their having disputed allegations or denied them. Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine is accused of predatory sexual behavior with minors, and he is immediately fired by the opera’s board of directors before an investigation which the board had just commenced is completed.
So, how are the swift actions by corporate boards and peremptory firings accounted for? Apparently, Mr. Tighe’s line has shifted, very fast. But, I wonder — in the case of the firings, do the boards of corporations and media and cultural organizations really care that much about the victims, or even feel outrage? I think what they care about most is staying ahead of the curve of public opinion, and making sure that they are not seen to be tolerating such behavior, lest it have a negative impact on sales, attendance, viewership, and the like.
If they really cared that much about the issues, and the victims, why were complaints routinely ignored in the past, until the very recent past, before public opinion shifted? And, if what we are talking about is criminal behavior, why not let the law run its course?
Ugliness and inaccessibility go hand and hand. The Broadway steps leading to the plaza, which is usually nearly empty of live people.
A desolate block right behind Lincoln Center: the east side of Amsterdam Avenue between 66th and 67th Streets. There are two large retail stores on this block that are empty with for rent signs — an indicator that rents are too expensive and the neighborhood cannot support commercial establishments (hence, they are going out of business).
An “inviting” “arts center”? Entrance to Lincoln Center at 65th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway.
Welcome! The steps from Amsterdam Avenue.
Warm and fuzzy. Entrance passageway, with 67th Street on left.
Ramesses II would have been proud.
A public friendly space? (“All are welcome.”)
62nd St between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues. (Lincoln Center on left.) Note the vibrant street life.
Happy clusters of people congregate like flocks in front of Lincoln Center.
Addendum: The construction of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which was opened in 1959, destroyed a neighborhood on New York City’s West Side. The project encompassed 53 acres and involved demolishing 2,100 households as well of hundreds of businesses. Something very similar happened with the United Nations headquarters, which created another urban dead zone with no vitality or street life. Jane Jacobs put it best when she described Lincoln Center as “a piece of built-in rigor mortis.”
For the American Literature Association (ALA) conference in San Francisco this coming May:
“Papers are invited on theoretical approaches to [Theodore] Dreiser’s canon and life. Some suggested approaches include Poststructuralism, Feminist Gender Theory, Material Culture, Psychoanalysis, and Philosophy (such as Foucault’s Technology of Self). Topics may include Dreiser’s philosophical writings, fiction, plays, essays, autobiographies, and journalism.”
Yes, but only if they are viewed through the prism of one of the opaque, recondite, and virtually incomprehensible lines of inquiry dear to academia specified in the second sentence above, almost all of them having nothing to do with Dreiser.
The living, breathing Dreiser and most of his works (unless they can be used to support an academically fashionable theory) are of scant interest to them.
an email to me from Professor Emeritus Arun P. Mukherjee
August 18, 2019
I admire you for sustaining your research and a passion for reading and writing outside the university. This morning, before I read your attached letter, I looked at your Dreiser blog and your responses to Alfred Kazin’s “Introductions.” I loved reading them. I fully agree with you that Studies in American Naturalism is no replacement for Dreiser studies.
I find the way literature is taught in the university under the rubrics of romanticism, naturalism, modernism, postmodernism etc. so deadly. To give you an example from my personal experience, the writers I teach are labeled postcolonial by the academic categorizers. So. I would be often asked by my students as to tell them the “postcolonial aspects of the book.” So, they are not reading the book for the portrayal of the human life in the book, but for an “ism.” It defeats the whole purpose of reading literature.
The majority of academic papers are unreadable and I am thankful that I no longer have to bother reading them.
An element of a shared symbolic system which serves as a criterion or standard for selection among the alternatives orientation which are intrinsically open in a situation may be called a value …. But from this motivational orientation aspect of the totality of action it is, in view of the role of symbolic systems, necessary to distinguish a value-orientation” aspect. This aspect concerns, not the meaning of the expected state of affairs to the actor in terms of his gratification-deprivation balance but the content of the selective standards themselves. The concept of value-orientations in this sense is thus the logical device for formulating one central aspect of the articulation of cultural traditions into the action system.
It follows from the derivation of normative orientation and the role of values in action as stated above, that all values involve what may be called a social reference …. It is inherent in an action system that action is, to use one phrase, “normatively oriented.” This follows, as was shown, from the concept of expectations and its place in action theory, especially in the “active” phase in which the actor pursues goals. Expectations then, in combination with the “double contingency” of the process of interaction as it has been called, create a crucially imperative problem of order. Two aspects of this problem of order may in turn be distinguished, order in the symbolic systems which make communication possible, and order in the mutuality of motivational orientation to the normative aspect of expectations, the ‘Hobbesian’ problem of order.
The problem of order, and thus of the nature of the integration of stable systems of social interaction, that is, of social structure, thus focuses on the integration of the motivation of actors with the normative cultural standards which integrate the action system, in our context interpersonally. These standards are, in the terms used in the preceding chapter, patterns of value-orientation, and as such are a particularly crucial part of the cultural tradition of the social system.
The sociologist C. Wright Mills “translated” the above passage into jargon free English, as follows:
People often share standards and expect another to stick to them. In so far as they do so, their society may be orderly. — C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination
Thus, reducing the length of the passage from 331 words (per Parsons) to 23 words (in Mills’s “translation”).
Our front doorbell just rang while I was busy on my computer. Somewhat annoyed, since it was the umpteenth time today (lots of Christmas deliveries), I trundled downstairs and answered the door. Saw no one on the doorstep.
Within a second or two, two boys were in front of my stoop. Nice looking boys with cherubic faces. About age eleven, I would guess. Snow shovels in hand. A few inches of snow had just fallen.
Without giving them a chance to speak, figuring I didn’t want to waste their time, I told them, peremptorily (and recalling a few times when we have gotten ripped off in the past by boys we agreed to let shovel our driveway), “No, thanks. Don’t need shoveling.”
They politely left.
I was thinking about how, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when I was about the same age, my friends and I used to go around knocking on doors asking to shovel people’s front porches and walks. What a golden opportunity a snowstorm presented to make pocket money. Fifty cents to shovel their front steps and walk. A whole two dollars sometimes for a driveway.
I ran upstairs to tell our tenant about the cute kids I had just seen. My wife wasn’t home; I couldn’t tell her.
“No, she [our tenant] won’t care,” I thought.
What to do with my good holiday feelings? Let them shovel our walk!
I ran downstairs to see if the boys were still around. No one in sight. I shouted as loud as I could, “Boys! Snow shoveling!” They reappeared.
“How much to shovel our stoop and walk?” I asked. They didn’t have a figure in mind.
“Would five dollars be all right?” I asked. They nodded yes.
A few minutes later, my bell rang again. The boys were standing there, wishing to discuss some “technicalities” regarding ice (or something of that sort) on the sidewalk. Handsome lads with ruddy faces, one with a parti-colored knit cap. Obviously wanting to do a good job. Impressive conscientiousness.
“Looks like you did a good job,” I told them. “Here’s two more dollars.”
I asked them what school they attended, and they told me they were both in the sixth grade.
I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Day. When he asks a boy whom he espies through his upstairs window to buy a prize turkey for the family of his clark.
‘It’s Christmas Day!’ said Scrooge to himself. ‘I haven’t missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!’
‘Hallo!’ returned the boy.
‘Do you know the Poulterer’s, in the next street but one, at the corner?’ Scrooge inquired.
‘I should hope I did,’ replied the lad.
‘An intelligent boy!’ said Scrooge. ‘A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there? — Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?’
‘What, the one as big as me?’ returned the boy.
‘What a delightful boy!’ said Scrooge. ‘It’s a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!’
‘It’s hanging there now,’ replied the boy.
‘Is it?’ said Scrooge. ‘Go and buy it.’
‘Walk-er!’ exclaimed the boy.
‘No, no,’ said Scrooge, ‘I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell them to bring it here, that I may give them the direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and I’ll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes and I’ll give you half-a-crown!’
I emailed the following comment to my wife last month: “Do you realize that you married a genius?”
Don’t worry, I said it in jest. Or at least half in jest. It’s okay to make such comments, jesting or not, to one’s spouse.
She responded, “Let’s not get carried away, dear.” She tends to keep me from getting a swelled head. She is never awed by me. Admires me, yes. Knows my weaknesses all too well. Takes me with a grain of salt. Isn’t given to making exaggerated claims about anyone, including herself.
I have never liked Lincoln Center. It’s a sterile “arts center” with worse seating and acoustics than Carnegie Hall. The architecture is typical 1960’s (think Shea Stadium): functional but uninspiring. Lincoln Center ruined a neighborhood; the surrounding streets have no street life. There are hardly any restaurants, watering holes, cafes, or places of interest, other than one or two rip-off restaurants on the other side of Broadway, across the street from the main entrance.
Guess what? The pioneering urban theorist and writer Jane Jacobs, who became famous for her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, said essentially the same thing:
… the street, not the block, is the significant unit. … When blight or improvement spreads, it comes along the street. Entire complexes of city life take their names, not from blocks, but from streets — Wall Street, Fifth Avenue, State Street, Canal Street, Beacon Street.
… Believing their block maps instead of their eyes, developers think of downtown streets as dividers of areas, not as the unifiers they are. … The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York is a case in point. This cultural superblock is intended to be very grand and the focus of the whole music and dance world of New York. But its streets will be able to give it no support whatever. Its eastern street is a major trucking artery where the cargo trailers, on their way to the industrial districts and tunnels, roar so loudly that sidewalk construction must be shouted. To the north, the street will be shared with a huge, and grim, high school. To the south will be another superblock institution, a campus for Fordham.
And what of the new Metropolitan Opera, to be the crowning glory of the project? The old opera has long suffered from the fact that it has been out of context amid the garment district streets, with their overpowering loft buildings and huge cafeterias. There was a lesson here for the project planners. If the published plans are followed, however, the opera will again have neighbor trouble. Its back will be its effective entrance; for this is the only place where the building will be convenient to the street and here is where opera-goers will disembark from taxis and cars. Lining the other side of the street are the towers of one of New York’s bleakest public-housing projects. Out of the frying pan into the fire.
— “Downtown Is for People,” Fortune, April 1958
… New York consists of an intricate, living network of relationships–made up of an enormously rich variety of people and activities. … Consider the interdependence, the constant adjustment, and the mutual support of every kind which must work, and work well, in a city like ours.
This cross-crossing of relationships means, for instance, that a Russian tea room and last year’s minks and a place to rent English sports cars bloom well near Carnegie Hall. …
All that we have in New York of magnetism, of opportunities to earn a living, of leadership of the arts, of glamor, of convenience, of power to fulfill and assimilate our immigrants, of ability to repair our wounds and right our evils, depends on our great and wonderful criss-cross of relationships. …
This is all so obvious it should be unnecessary to mention. But it is necessary, for our slum clearers, housing officials, highway planners and semi-public developers have been treating the city as if were only a bunch of physical raw materials – land, space, roads, utilities. They are destroying New York’s variety and disorganizing its economic and social relationships just as swiftly and efficiently as rebuilding money can destroy them.
The most direct destruction is, of course, associated with clearance, and this is a painful aspect of slum elimination of which we are becoming aware. It was described well by Harrison Salisbury, in his New York Times series on delinquency. “When slum clearance enters an area,” says Salisbury, “it does not merely rip out slatternly houses. It uproots the people. It tears out the churches. It destroys the local businessman. It sends the neighborhood lawyer to new offices downtown and it mangles the tight skein of community friendships and group relationships beyond repair.”
…. Our rebuilders have no idea of what they are destroying, and they have no idea of repairing the damage – or making it possible for anyone else to do so. The entire theory of urban rebuilding rests on the premise that subsidized improvements will catalyze further spontaneous improvement. It is not working that way in New York. Living communities, portions of living commercial districts, are so ruthlessly and haphazardly amputated that the remnants, far from improving, get galloping gangrene.
Furthermore, the newly built projects themselves stifle the growth of relationships. We are now conscious that this is true of the huge public housing projects. What we may not be so aware of is that this stifling of variety and of economic and social relationships is inherent in the massive project approach itself, whether public or private housing or anything else.
Take the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts for example. It is planned entirely on the assumption that the logical neighbor of a hall is another hall. Nonsense. Who goes straight from the Metropolitan Opera to the Philharmonic concert and thence to the ballet? The logical neighbors of a hall are bars, florist shops, non-institutionalized restaurants, studios, all the kinds of thing [sic] you find on West Fifth-seventh Street or along Times Square or generated by the off-Broadway theatres down here in the Village. True, halls and theatres are desirable to each other as nearby neighbors to the extent that their joint support is needed to generate this kind of urbanity and variety. But Lincoln Center is so planned and so bounded that there is no possible place for variety, convenience and urbanity to work itself in or alongside. The city’s unique stock-in-trade is destroyed for these halls in advance, and for keeps, as long as the Center lives. It is a piece of built-in rigor mortis. [italics added] …
Lincoln Center shows a brutal disregard for still another type of urban relationship. It will have a catastrophic effect on Amsterdam Houses, a ten-year-old, 800-family public housing project. Amsterdam Houses is now bordered by factories, railroad tracks. garages and institutions except on its eastern side. On that one side, fortunately, it faces, across the street, forty-eight lively neighborhood stores, part of a non-project, ordinary community. The stores and the non-project community will be cleared out to make way for Lincoln Center. The tenants of Amsterdam Houses will therefore no longer have neighborhood stores or any contact with non-project community life, which they desperately need. Instead they will have the Metropolitan Opera. This project will be utterly shut off to itself and isolated. I should think its people would explode. What kind of irresponsibility it this that deliberately and at great expense, makes intimate neighbors of public housing and the Opera, depriving each of the neighbors it needs?
— “A Living Network of Relationships”; speech at The New School for Social Research, April 20, 1958
Jane Jacobs and I both think, see, and say the same things. I am convinced she was a genius. She stood urban planning and the way people think about cities on its head.
Ergo, I am a genius.
Just kidding.
But, I see in her writing and views similarity to my own writing and cast of mind. For example:
We are both by nurture and nature contrarians.
We are liberal on many social and political issues, but we have a deep, ingrained strain of conservatism. Some commentators perceived Jacobs, who was arrested for anti-government and antiwar protest activities, as being reactionary.
We both rely on good old plain thinking more than education or professional credentials. We try to think everything through anew, to see it for ourselves — through our own eyes — to examine it “from the ground up.” We don’t tend to be influenced by accepted doctrines.
We both distrust big government and social engineering.
We are both essentially apolitical, but apt to be attacked for our views.
She is refreshingly jargon free. She writes simply and clearly (and, persuasively).
Does my writing compare? I will leave it to the judgment of readers of this blog. But, you know what, I think it does. So there!
Lord & Taylor, New York City; photo by Roger W. Smith
photo by Roger W. Smith
The following is an exchange of emails from today between me and the poet and essayist/writer Luanne Castle, host of the popular website (of which I am a fan)
I am in the Lord and Taylor’s department store (great store) shopping for a pair of gloves, and I suddenly thought of your great post about the closing of stores.
Apropos this, see link to NY Times article from October below
“Lord & Taylor Building, Icon of New York Retail, to Become WeWork Headquarters”
I don’t know if you know New York City or have been there.
I grew up in Greater Boston, have lived in NYC since my early 20’s; my wife is a native New Yorker.
I am not a clothes horse (I’m actually the opposite) and I’m not a shopper, but my wife introduced me to Lord and Taylor’s department store and I love it.
It’s located on Fifth Avenue between 38th and 39th Streets, two blocks from the New York Public Library, my home away from home … people come to see the Christmas display in the front windows at the Fifth Ave entrance.
It’s such a nice store to just be in … I will go there on breaks from the library and get a coffee and snack in the cafe … sometimes will do a little shopping or hang around … the staff is so pleasant.
It’s an oasis … my wife and I are so disappointed that it’s essentially closing next year (shrinking from the current ten floors to two).
My wife loves to shop there … she goes on Sundays when there’s parking in midtown Manhattan.
I loved to go Christmas shopping with my Dad and siblings in Jordan Marsh, the main department store in Boston, when I was growing up. They had wonderful displays of toys, such as a big, elaborate electric train display.
We have family photos of my older brother and my sister with the Jordan Marsh Santa — my brother was sitting on his knee … they both have that starry-eyed look of wonderment.
The demise of Lord and Taylor’s is a real disappointment. There is a Macy’s in a mall near where we live; shopping there is downright unpleasant.
My friend Ella Rutledge commented as follows on Facebook:
Ella Rutledge, December 14, 2017:
You probably know that Jordan Marsh was long ago replaced by Macy’s and the Filene’s across the street has also been closed down. No more Filene’s Basement! I agree with you and your wife about department stores. Japan does them really well, and I used to love wandering through the many floors of beautiful things and smelling the perfume when I walked in the front door. Too bad about Lord & Taylor. [All of the US stores Ella mentions are in Boston, except for Lord and Taylor.]
Roger Smith:
Really interesting input, Ella. I was vaguely aware that Filene’s Basement was gone, didn’t know what had happened to Jordan Marsh (or Filene’s itself). Then, there was the bargain clothing store Raymond’s, where I bought a favorite sport jacket I had forever (wouldn’t fit me now) in college for $19. Interesting about the Japanese department stores. Wish I could visit them. I was in Tokyo once in the 1990’s. Strolled along Ginza but didn’t actually go into any of the department stores with the dazzling window displays, unfortunately.
“New York City is releasing a report on Friday aimed at easing congestion on the Brooklyn Bridge, which has become known as the ‘Times Square in the Sky.’ The Brooklyn Bridge has become as famous for its outsize crowds as its sweeping views of the New York skyline — earning it the distinction of the ‘Times Square in the Sky.’ “
Oh, no. Another report coming. Already, I am dubious. The Brooklyn Bridge is indeed famous, as a beautiful bridge and an engineering marvel, for its promenade and views. But, “Times Square in the Sky”? That appellation (can the word appellation be used with a structure?) doesn’t fit. It’s like calling Barack Obama “the Donald Trump of the Democratic Party.”
“The elevated promenade of the iconic bridge is clogged with selfie-posing tourists, vendors hawking water and souvenir knickknacks, and harried commuters just trying to get to work or back home.”
There is some truth to this all. Yes, the bridge is clogged — at peak hours, such as during rush hour and often during the day — but it depends on weather and other factors.
With tourists, many leaning over the sides to admire the view or taking “selfies.” This is a bad thing? Not whatsoever. That the bridge is a tourist attraction — as is Central Park — is actually wonderful, in many respects. It means that the bridge is special and is so recognized. The tourists add so much to the vitality of the pedestrian throng. (More about this below.)
The vendors do NOT present a problem. They are unobtrusive and are mostly located at the Manhattan entrance to the bridge. That they are selling water to me is a plus, since I often walk the bridge on hot summer days. There are few “vendors hawking … souvenir knickknacks,” and those that are, are not a bother to me; they are also unobtrusive. The writer of this article, Winnie Hu, who has the Times “pedestrian transportation” beat, exaggerates and distorts for the sake of a story. You would think this is the Grand Bazaar. Far from it.
“Cyclists constantly brake for pedestrians overflowing into the bike lane. Pedestrians yell at cyclists for going too fast, or coming too close.”
This is true. It’s a fact of life on the bridge, when it’s crowded (which is not always). But it’s not a serious problem — it’s a consequence of having the elevated walkway (which is mostly a boardwalk) of the bridge shared by pedestrians and cyclists. If you are going to have this, you are going to have some jostling of each group for the right of way.
I cross the bridge as a pedestrian. Sometimes, I stray a bit into the bike lane, sometimes owing to absent mindedness, at other times because the pedestrian lane is crowded. Bikers ring their bells or shout at me to get out of the way. I can bear it. The bikers seem to me to be too aggressive. They regard “errant” walkers like me as a nuisance. It’s the kind of tradeoff and interaction that regularly occurs in a big city, and it’s one I can live with. I am sure there are unobstructed jogging, bike, and equestrian paths somewhere in idyllic regions beyond the city limits.
“In response, the New York City Department of Transportation is taking a series of steps to relieve congestion on the Brooklyn Bridge, including possibly creating a separate bike-only entrance to the bridge on the Manhattan side and limiting the number of vendors and where they can sell on the promenade.”
Beware the New York City Department of Transportation. Social engineers, not many of whom, I suspect, actually walk the streets and bridges, as I do. Congestion on the bridge (pedestrian congestion, that is; there are also traffic lanes on a lower level) is a FACT on certain days and certain hours (such as rush hours, weekends, during nice weather, and so on), but it is not a PROBLEM.
Limiting the number of vendors or taking measures to control them is entirely uncalled for. The vendors bother no one. To repeat, they are not obtrusive. They are an asset because of things like bottled water which they sell, at moderate prices. They are making a living. What is really going on here is common to policy initiatives taken by social engineers: attack the problem at the “lowest level” by picking on the easiest targets, which means those lowest on the socioeconomic scale who have no one to advocate for them.
“These steps were outlined in a report released Friday that was based partly on the findings of an engineering study by a consulting firm, Aecom, which was hired by the city in 2016 to look for ways to relieve overcrowding and improve safety on the promenade.”
Beware of such studies. The firm hired gets a hefty fee for a producing a report that was and is entirely unneeded in the first place. It’s incumbent upon the firm to find “problems” that need to be corrected or rectified, and to come up with nonessential recommendations. So, they find, for example, that vendors are a problem, which they are not. Or that, more seriously, there are too many pedestrians, which there are not.
Here’s the truth. The crowds on the bridge are exhilarating. That there are so many people on a high, as it were, from walking over the bridge, makes it fun to be part of the crowd. (The reason people live in cities: because they like to directly or vicariously interact with and experience other people and to be part of what Walt Whitman called the “democratic En-Masse.”)
I sometimes walk over the Queensboro Bridge to get to Manhattan — it’s closer to my home. Even on nice days, the Queensboro Bridge has very few pedestrians. When it is cold or the weather isn’t anything to rave about, there are hardly any pedestrians. Walking over the bridge is, consequently, not uplifting. And, the views, which could be spectacular, are nothing great because of a barrier on either side of latticework that restricts one’s view. And, the promenade is a cold cement walkway.
Walking the Brooklyn Bridge is the opposite type of experience, and the crowd makes it fun. People always seem to be in great spirits, as is the case with Central Park. It’s fun to see all the attractive people, most of them young and vibrant, not only getting exercise but reveling in the atmosphere. Many of them are chatting, taking photos. Couples are having a wonderful time together.
Sometimes I stop to chat with the tourists. There are so many of them. They add so much to the atmosphere (of the walking throng, that is). They are often taking photos of one another. This is a problem that social engineers should be concerned about? (And what about the fact that tourists contribute mightily to the local economy?) Sometimes I will ask one of them to take a photo of me. They are invariably obliging. And, usually, it happens that this leads to me striking up a conversation with them to find out where they come from and what they think of New York. You can only have these experiences frequently in a great metropolis like New York.
The tourists are not taking “selfies.” They are taking photos of one another (this is a crime?), as is often the case with young couples, and young people in general, such as a girl posing for a friend taking a photo of her.
“The Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883, once carried far more people when railroad cars and trolleys used the bridge. But today, traffic is limited to six lanes for passenger vehicles and the wood-and-concrete promenade overhead that narrows to just 10 feet across in places, barely wide enough to fit the side-by-side pedestrian and bike lanes.”
Yes, the pedestrian promenade is narrow at spots; at other points along the walkway, it’s wide. So what? Some city sidewalks are narrow; others are much wider. PEOPLE MANAGE.
“Several vendors said that they did not want to give up their spots on the bridge. ‘I don’t want to move, I want to stay,” said M.D. Rahman, who was selling hot dogs and water on a recent afternoon.’‘I have my family to take care of — this is my bread. If I move, where do I go?’ “
Good for him! I hope the vendors prevail, but I am dubious about the prospect. The MTA did the same thing, opening subway stations without the usual newsstands selling newspapers, sodas, and candy which are missed by subway riders. Why are amenities such as vendors selling water and hot dogs and newsstands gotten rid of? Because the bloodless policy wonks could care less about what actual living, breathing people want. It’s a sort of perverse exercise in control and “crowd management” by efficiency experts run amok. As if crowds were a priori a problem in a metropolis. Crowds define it, make it what it is Crowds are the protoplasm of cities.
“… transportation officials have postponed any decision on whether to widen the promenade itself, including one option to build decks on top of the girders that run directly above the car lanes. The new report cited Aecom’s finding that a larger promenade would attract even more people and add more weight to the bridge, which could be a problem.”
The bridge was completed in 1883. Vehicles and walkers (yes, people!) have been crossing it ever since. It was and is an engineering marvel and is a beauty to behold. It doesn’t’ need fixing!
