First walking tour of the year

Saturday, February 27

...found me slogging through the snowy streets of Chinatown with a dozen young people who could never slog again. They all had been through their personal hell in Iraq or Afghanistan. Some of them had the misfortune to step on bombs, and one had had a major stroke. All were my guests from Hospital Audiences Inc. (HAI), found at www.hainyc.org and all were disabled. Parents, spouses and children came along.

I had gotten an email from Guides Association president Tony Di Sante a few weeks earlier, looking for volunteers to do this unpaid gig. The only payment was to be a dim-sum brunch. Well, it's the off season, and I love dim-sum. It's not as if I had work that day. I signed on. Joe Mauriello, another long-experienced guide, also agreed to take a group.

I got there about five minutes late, the Smart Car having slowed to a crawl with all other Saturday-morning traffic on the West Side Highway. The crews were out doing pothole repair, a real necessity this winter. I parked at a garage on Worth by Broadway, and jogged down to the debarkation point in my snow boots. I have plantar's fasciitis and quickly discovered that a walking tour in snow boots wasn't going to do me any good. But what's fasciitis when compared to the loss of a leg?

All these people were strangers to New York City. Nick, in a Quickie, was wearing a bright red Huskers jacket. I asked if he was a Nebraskan, but he replied that he was from Missouri! Shelly or Shelby, alternating between a Quickie and a cane, was from Alexandria, VA. It was his first time here; her third. I didn't have a chance to ask the others where they were from. But most if not all were staying at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. HAI ran them up here for a weekend of fun, paid for by donors and staffed by volunteers.

HAI runs buses with ramps or chair lifts around the city for the convenience of their guests. These people stayed in a hotel. The bus picked them up and took them to the corner of Worth & Baxter, a great location for people who have essentially worked for the federal government for the past few years, when you think about it. Quite a-propos for these veterans: some of them joined the armed forces because of The Attacks of September 11. They got off the bus right across the street from the Federal Court House, where Khalid Sheikh Mohammad may -- or may not -- be tried for the murder of over 2,000 New Yorkers.

This was the old Five Points neighborhood. The corner of Baxter & Worth was the only intersection left, after much official revamping by the City, of the original five intersections. This is the area celebrated in the wildly inaccurate 1920s book, "Gangs Of New York" and in the wildly inaccurate Daniel Day Lewis film of ten years ago. For instance, while city statistics show around 100 murders per year at that time, the book "Gangs Of New York" insisted that there was about a murder a night, in that area alone.

New York City in the 1860s resembled the set of the film made in Italy only in that all the structures were made of wood. NYC was essentially a wooden city at that time. The Great Fire of 1864, however, had prompted city officials to alter the building codes to preclude wood from construction materials after 1864. That is, all new construction had to be brick, metal, glass, stone, or other non-flammable materials. But most existing buildings were still made of wood, in that day. However, the hundreds that went up in flames would soon be replaced by the wonder material of the day, cast iron. The region between Houston and Canal, for instance, would become known as The Cast Iron District; later known as SoHo.

Depictions of the Chinese in "Gangs Of New York" was also inaccurate. The prostitutes with whom the gang members were sleeping could not have existed in NYC at that time, because of highly restrictive immigration laws of the day. These barred Asian women from entering the USA at a time when the White-run government wanted to keep the country as White as possible. The fear of Asians was known then as "the yellow peril."

I know this because, for a decade, it was my business to know the 1860s inside and out. I was an Abraham Lincoln impersonator. In fact, the Daily News ran a photo of me, in costume, at the Green-Wood Cemetery grave of gangleader Frank Poole.

The Five Points neighborhood had been greatly revamped, as said above. Ethnically, it was rich with different peoples, though those populations distrusted and often fought each other.

The Points had been the site of the oldest Jewish cemetery in the Western Hemisphere (still two blocks away), the people of Shearith Israel of the 1650s, actual victims of the Spanish Inquisition. Plus, it was where half-free Blacks had lived and farmed outside the protective town wall at Wall Street. After the failed Irish uprisings in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Five Points became home to angry, revolutionary Irish emigrees, a population that swelled steadily, with every attempt to overthrow the British. This population perhaps doubled in size during the Potato Famine -- now referred to by Irish historians as The Great Hunger -- of the late 1840s.

And then came the Italians. The 1850s were a time of civil unrest in Italy's city-states, a string of civil wars slowly unifying a fractured nation into the modern state of Italy in 1861. In that year the Italian government allowed the emigration of the people, and hundreds of thousands of citizens of economically-depressed Calabrese left for the West. Many settled in Five Points, spreading a few blocks to the north, into what is now known as Little Italy.

And then came the Chinese, first laborers on the Western railroads who moved east, joined by those who sailed the seas but settled here. After restrictive immigration laws were eased in the 1880s, Chinese women started trickling into New York, and the true Chinatown was born. Ironically, Chinatown was first a street-corner in Little Italy. Now Little Italy is surrounded by Chinatown, and half the buildings of Little Italy are Asian-owned. And a Malay restaurant located itself across from Ferrara's on Grand Street in the 1990s.

Jews, Blacks, Irish, Italians and, finally, Chinese swelled the neighborhood to the breaking point. Not only was Five Points considered the worst neighborhood in the USA, it was also the most crowded. About five thousand people lived in the tenements of the two blocks bounded by Baxter, Mulberry, Worth and Bayard streets. We know this because it was the number of people evicted from their homes -- without relocation rights! -- in 1895, when the City destroyed their tenements and put up a park on the site. Italians dominated street life in that day, so the park was named for Columbus. Nowadays, Chinatown completely surrounds Columbus Park, seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=tourguideStan#p/u/40/FeFefFe2P-Q

This was where my guests debarked down the wheelchair ramps. The Park was open, but a foot of snow stood on it, rendering it unusable until a few days of warmer weather could melt the snow away. I had to find a way to conduct a tour while simultaneously figuring out what sidewalks were shoveled wide enough for people with crutches and wheelchairs. It wasn't easy.

Our destination was Jing Fong, a gigantic dim-sum house on Elizabeth Street, five blocks away. I led them through the basketball courts at the south end of Columbus Park, a mistake, I realized too late. There were three steps down into the basketball court. This slowed everyone down, because a tour group only moves as fast as its slowest member. Shelly had to get out of her wheelchair and walk downstairs with the aid of a cane, eschewing the help of her father. Nick was an athlete: he did a wheelie on his Quickie and bounced down the steps to a perfect two-point landing, then came to rest on his guide wheels.

We went north on the Mulberry side of Columbus Park. Just at the spots seen in the video above, but much snowier. We turned right at Bayard, then left on Mott. Once on Mott, we stopped halfway up the block. I turned their attention to the south end of Mott Street, where Transfiguration Church stands, and told them of the Cuban Catholic priest Father Varela. He, in the 1850s, united Irish Catholics and Presbyterians into The Ancient Order of Hibernians, the organization that runs the Saint Patrick's Day Parade to this day.

While the Catholic church stood within sight two blocks away, I pointed out the Buddhist temple just to our left, and remarked that, while many Chinese in New York are Christians, a large number are Buddhists. And many are in "mixed" families that follow the traditions and ceremonies of both faiths.

And tell me what street
Is nice as Mott Street
In July?

After a struggle north, we got to the intersection of Canal and Mott, which had been plowed several times. The sun was coming out of the clouds. It was above freezing, and we had to negotiate a large snowbank, followed by a large puddle. That done, we crossed Mott and did the same with another puddle and snowbank, then continued east on Canal.

"This is not the hardest thing these young people have done," I told myself. They've seen far worse. Everyone crossed the street in good humor, as far as I could tell. Positive attitudes, all of them.

We came next to Elizabeth Street, where the Fifth Precinct is housed in an 1881 building, as seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=tourguideStan#p/u/19/z8ykt9KaJiE
I essentially told the group the same story I tell in the video, with one addition: In the 1940s, Dynamic Comics (later DC) created a character, a member of an interplanetary police force, which took its name from from the lantern held by the Dutch Night Watchmen of old Nieuw Amsterdam: The Green Lantern.

Jing Fong Restaurant is seen behind me in the video. We went in and and enjoyed a dim-sum brunch, on the house. I was awed. The place is gigantic. It must have more than 500 seats. A dozen ladies pushed dim-sum carts around, and we picked and chose what dishes would be put on the table to dip into.

After brunch I volunteered to take another group down Canal to the schlock shops, where they could buy fake watches, fake bags, fake sunglasses and maybe some fake food. The HAI buses were scheduled to pick them up at Canal and Elizabeth in one hour. It took a good twenty minutes to get to the shops, down Canal around Lafayette Street. Once there, I chatted with the shop owners, most of whom, as it turns out, are Bangladeshi.

I pointed out a cast iron building on Broadway at Greene, and mentioned that it had been an impromptu jail for Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. Then they went in shopping. I didn't have the heart to tell them that money made from the fake bags would possibly go to fund international terrorism. These people only make $20,000 a year, and can't afford nice things. So let them shop and have fun, I thought.

With fifteen minutes to go, I went back into the shops and gathered them up, one bunch after another. The shops, each essentially a hole in the wall, mostly had no doors, so spotting group members was easy. We went back up the hill, with the same problems over and over: crutches and wheelchairs negotiating snowbanks and puddles. One guy, from Fresno, CA, opted to walk on crutches and his one leg, to spare his wife from having to push the heavy wheelchair through all that. He wasn't very good at it yet, but he did okay. He didn't fall in the slippery conditions, which had been my main fear.

Once the group gathered at Canal and Elizabeth, they gladly got into the buses. Each bus had a driver and aide who either escorted people on crutches up the steps, or pushed wheelchair people up the extendable aluminum ramp. Glad to get on the buses for two reasons: One, they wouldn't have to work their way through snow for the remainder of their trip. And two, the buses' next stop was the Theater District, where the HAI guests were treated to Broadway shows at the Saturday matinees.

A few days later I left a message on the phone of the HAI co-ordinator, volunteering to do it all again, next time a group comes to New York. It's the least I can do; they deserve everything I can give them.

OK, the Smart Car isn't intimidating to other drivers, but...

...that doesn't give Van 9 of Yeshiva University the right to "share" my lane with me when going around the bend. It's a big, white, 12-passenger van with the YU logo on the back. The driver routinely keeps the left-side wheels in the Central Park bike lane when cruising through Central Park.
And, when in the right lane, he invades the space of the car in the left lane, whenever the road curves to the left. He got so close to me that I could see the top of the van in my sun roof. I am NOT going into the bike lane because this guy has to invade my space frmo the right. I will speed up or slow down, take other action. Today, I honked at him. By convention, almost no one honks a horn inside the park. But the Yeshiva U van wasn't being driven safely, so I honked once. Then I honked twice more when nothing changed. But the only thing that got the driver back in his lane was the fact that the road straightened out.

What's wrong with his own lane?

Someone in NYPD or PEP should be stationed on foot at those long left bends, like the one going up the Great Hill. They can watch for vehicles that use the bike lane as their secondary car lane, and signal ahead to summons those drivers.

It's finally cold out

It's not going to go over 35 F today. It's sunny and breezy. I drove a friend around NYC and NJ in the Smart Car much of yesterday, during the wild rainy weather we had. When done, I was tired. I knew I should have gone to work but I didn't feel like it. Now I wish I had taken advantage of that day of late afternoon sun and temps in the 50s. NYC is 15 or 20 degrees shy of 50 right now, and it'll be even colder tomorrow.

There's a "HEATED SEATS" sign I clip to the pedicab for cold weather, but it blows off in the wind, and today is a windy day. If I charge $20 per ride in Midtown, my usual fee, I doubt I'll get five rides for $100 by 10 PM, my quitting time. Nobody believes the seats are really heated until they sit on them. Here's how it's done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Xa7MZXHEQ

Here goes. I'm off to work. Please hire me when you see me on Fifth or Sixth Avenues tonight. I'll warm you up.

From the Apple Store to the Metropolitan Museum

A young couple on TripAdvisor.com asked how to tweak their itinerary for a Christmastime trip to New York City. I gave them a walking tour through Central Park, since they wanted to see both the Metropolitan Museum and the Apple Store. The two are connected by Central Park.

Here's my reply:
Start at the Apple Store. Go one half block north of the nearest corner of the park, and enter through the wall, down a flight of steps. Turn right along the duck pond. Go up on the stone bridge and have someone take your picture with The Plaza behind you. Skating rink is nearby. Wanna hold off on Bryant Park and skate here instead?
Walk uphill to a multicolored wall-less building that has a slate roof. This is the Dairy, where they sell clothing that benefits the Central Park Conservancy. Go up the path, not the road, uphill from the Dairy and over the top. You should see rising steps cut into the stone, to your left about here. Continue down and under a bridge. Continue to the Carousel. It's $3.50 a ride.
Uphill from the Carousel, walk alongside East Drive. Out to the left on Central Park West, see a twin-towered apartment building, home of Steve Martin and other notables. It's called the San Remo. You're looking at it over the grass of the Sheep Meadow. You may see lights in the trees at Tavern On The Green, across the meadow. The tavern is better looked at than sampled, for another month, at least.
Continue parallel to the road. You're going uphill. Many massive trees are ahead. This is the world's last grove of American elms. Dutch elm disease killed off almost all of our native species. You will see a statue of a man in a robe holding a furled flag. He is Columbus. Turn at his statue and go up under the arching elm branches, on The Mall. This is where Meryl and Dustin exchange the little boy in Kramer Vs. Kramer, where Santa's sleigh runs out of power in Elf, and where Jennifer and Ben walk the ferret in Along Came Sally. The Mall runs between English-language authors' statues, about a quarter mile north. As you near the north end, you see a real mall, not the kind studded with stores but a real mall. Sit on the last original park benches in the park. To your right is Nussbaum Bandshell, dating from a time when, to hear music outdoors, you had to make it yourself. In Mr. Deeds, Adam Sandler buys bikes off of two boys. He and his girlfriend then ride them dangerously down the stairs.

Go down those stairs. Restrooms are halfway down them. Continue down to the Navy Terrace. The Angel Of The Waters, at Bethesda Fountain looks down at you, as seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD7j67NGQis
Facing the Lake, head to the right, toward a distant green roof. This is the Loeb Boathouse. You may recall a Sex & The City scene taken on this path, with the guy who was such a snob that he would never leave Manhattan, because the rest of the world sucks. Coming closer to the Boathouse, another Sex & The City scene: Carrie fell in the water here at the verandah. Mr. Big leaned over to help her out, and she pulled him in too.

Bathrooms are attached to the Boathouse.

Walk uphill on East Drive, in the pedestrian lane. It's shared with bikes, so be respectful of them. Watch out for the crouching black panther on the rocks to your left.
Farther ahead is an open space punctuated only by a lone statue. Get a good look at his face, then pull out a $10 bill. Notice the similarity?

Continue on. You should see a huge building -- not so much tall as wide -- dominating the view ahead, across the road. Next crosswalk, cross and head downhill. This will be the Metropolitan Museum. Go warm up.

On The Beach

There are parallels between behavior in the book (or film), "On The Beach" and the pedicabbing business in New York City right now.

Today is Thursday, 11/19/09. This Saturday, the pedicab regulations will go into effect, and every pedicab will be insured and with a licensed driver. Until then, it's the Wild West.

Broadway Greenway Wrong-way

"On The Beach" is a Cold War book about the end of the world. The USA and the USSR released all their nukes, destroying each other, yes, but also poisoning all the air in the world. The last known American nuclear sub steams into a port in Australia for some R&R before they all die. All the Australians know they'll be dead in two weeks, too. There's a lot of suicidal behavior, because people would rather die quickly and in their own chosen way, than suffer two weeks of radiation sickness. Everyone knew that everyone was going to die.

This week, pedicab drivers are doing all the things they won't be able to, come Saturday. They're swerving on two wheels, taking passengers the wrong way on crowded Midtown streets, cutting off other pedicab drivers, running lights...you name it. They have only this week in which to make money before heading back to central Asia or wherever. Without a driver's license and a Social Security number, this week's driver is next week's unemployed. They're doing all they can to make all the money they can while they still can.

Yesterday I crossed the Broadway Greenway, stepping aside for a pedicab driver hauling two passengers up the hill the wrong way.

Hereafter, all licensed pedicab drivers can get traffic or criminal court tickets for their actions. And the companies they drive for will be held responsible for the actions of their drivers, so the companies have to hire responsible people.

But that's for the future. For now, feel free to run over pedestrian toes, zip in front of a city bus, and drive the wrong way on Broadway. It's typical behavior this week. Let's hope it doesn't continue into next.

Pedicab regulations become personal

We in the NYC pedicab industry have been racing a deadline for the past two months. Mayor Bloomberg signed a new law in August, to take full effect on November 20. Pedicabs without Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) plates will be illegal on city streets. My friend Rene told me last night that he's going to give up the business. He's an illegal alien from El Salvador, and has made a living by driving a pedicab for more than four years.

We started talking, I mean, seriously talking, sometime over the summer. We became friends in June or July. We never exchanged phone numbers, but shake hands when we meet on the street.

In order to get a license from the DCA for pedicab driving, one must have a driver's license from the USA or one of its allies, and a social security number. Rene probably has a license, but can't get a SS# unless he goes in for a green card. And that's not likely to happen.

For the past fifteen years, driving a pedicab has been a decent way to make a living in New York. In tough times you have a job, if you're willing to work harder than you normally would. In good times you'll zip past jaywalkers texting as they mill through traffic, calling after us, "Why don't you get a real job?" But you're too busy negotiating traffic and texters while making $20 in ten minutes -- which those idiots will never be able to do.

Eight years ago I was working as a double-decker guide when I chanced to meet longtime pedicab driver Craig Molino and asked him, How much money do you expect to make tonight? His answer was "About $200." Assuiming he was working five days a week, that's about a thousand a week, no small sum in New York.

Craig actually hasn't been driving pedicabs in a couople of years, because of all the illegals diluting the business. I suspect that half of all pedicab drivers are illegals of one kind or another. Craig got fed up about two years ago, but is considering coming back after 11/20/09, and I would welcome him back; I've missed him. Getting some of the longtimers back would take away some of the hurt that is sure to come when I lose the cameraderie of others, when the deadline falls.

Overheard

Overheard last week when I was taking a guy from Penn Station to 53rd & Eighth:

"Amigo! How ya doing? ...Still dating that couple?"