September 27, 2021 - The Silent Part of the City by Jordan Myers
From my window I can see the silent part of the city. It’s colorless and most visible at dawn. The first time I noticed it was almost three weeks ago. It was early September and I stumbled out of my apartment and began walking down Ninth Avenue and since it was very early the avenue was very quiet. I did not look for the silent part of the city. It just made itself apparent to me when I glanced in the distance toward the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
This was early; so early that the sun was just coming up and as one of the busses was crossing the in-bound ramp toward the terminal, the look and feel of the silent part of the city came over me all in one instant. And I knew the feeling instantly, even if I had never felt the feeling before in my life. I write of seeing the silent part of the city and also of feeling the silent part of the city, really, because they are one in the same.
Seeing is closer to the actual physical description of what happens whenever I encounter the silent part of the city, but feeling is closer to the emotional context of what the silent part of the city allows into my experience. At first blush one would guess that this silent part of the city would be more visible at dusk and at night, rather than in the morning and at dawn. And for many years I thought the same, which is part of the reason why I never saw the silent part of the city before that morning now three weeks ago, in early September as I described.
Before that morning I thought the city’s skyline at night held the most secrets and could offer the most information about what it feels like to live in this city and constantly desire silence. I do not mean the night in the traditional sense when one means the nightlife of the city. That nightlife is far from quiet. What I’m talking about when I say the night of the city, which as I mentioned, I was mistaken in believing held the silent part of the city, are those moments that happen in the depth of the night ––– between 3am and 6am where everything is in transition; it’s not evening and it’s not morning.
Looking back it was reasonable for me to think that those hours were the hours that contained the silent part of the city. I do not blame myself for holding that belief. And I do not blame myself for holding that belief for as long as I did. It’s just that I was misguided. It’s just that when I spent so much time trying to speak to the silent part of the city during those non-night / non-morning hours, it’s no wonder that the city never offered the reply that I thought it would offer. I could not see into the dawn; I was looking far too closely at the night.
September 26, 2021 by Elizabeth Lerman
I walk deep into the park, despite the rapidly setting sun, and sit myself down in a field that smells like the wild lawn that sprawled against the sea at my grandmother’s house, a coarse, earthy scent that comes from most things green and grown, everything lush and lovely and so settled in itself.
September 25, 2021 - At the East River Park, there’s still time to reverse the course by Jordan Myers
Like many, I am saddened by the plans that the city has backed for rebuilding The East River Park. This past Spring, I played the park’s tennis courts for the first time, twice. After both matches, it was comforting and calming to wander around the park; to sit amongst the trees and contemplate my existence, and to sit and stand by the East River –– enjoying the present, and thinking about the future.
These were small quiet moments that I had to myself, and although there were plenty of people who would run, walk, rollerblade, or cycle by ––– I felt a tranquility exist and grow within me ––– the sort that I have never felt while away from water and trees. I understand that New York City is a city of progress. I grasp that moving forward and preparing for superstorms, which seem inevitable, is important, but I also know that the act of destroying and then rebuilding, in hopes to “get it right this time,” is a dead-end proposition.
I have read and I have heard that the levy that's planned as part of the city’s East Side Coastal Resiliency (“ESCR”) project will stand somewhere between eight and ten feet above ground level. Ten feet is the same height as a basketball hoop. Nature has already demonstrated that from one superstorm, it can create seas of flooding on the island of Manhattan ––– hence, lifting up the East River Park by the height of a basketball hoop won’t make a real difference. The storms will only come in higher and heavier, and what’s more, there will only be less grass to soak in and absorb the water’s nutrients. And then from there, will the city’s solution be to raise the park another ten feet higher? And then another twenty feet? And then another forty feet? I’m exaggerating, but only slightly.
It is tragic that the voices of people who care about the city, who care about the East River Park, and who care about preparing the city for future superstorms by proposing plans that integrate flood-prevention with the beauty that the current version of the park already offers –– are being ignored. And although all indications, at present, are that the ESCR plans will move forward; as of this writing, no significant changes have been made to the park. This can only mean one thing: there’s still time to reverse the course.
September 24, 2021 - The Collective & The Crew by Jordan Myers
It starts with the R word, “Rezoning,” an extension of the Z word, “Zoning,” and a close cousin of the P word, “Planning,” who has always been good friends with the D word, “Development,” together they make up the Crew.
For decades they’ve been gathering at their favorite cigar bar and smoking cigars and drinking high balls and offering each other toasts for their on-going, massive, and resounding success.
Zoom in, exterior establishing shot, then to the bar’s interior –––
R, Z, P, & D sitting in and around a deep leathered booth
with high balls and cigars. Cigar smoke filters through the air.
- “Ten to twenty more years of this,” Z says, “And the entire city will be ours.”
- “Yes, yes of course! Exactly!” R, with great zest, replies.
D orders another round of cigars and drinks for the Crew, takes a long pull of his drink, then with exuberances speaks, to P “P!” (thumping P on the back) “It was brilliant, simply brilliant, the way you used climate change to generate a need for our plan to sack and destroy the entire East River Park.” The Crew guffaws, loudly and together. “Sheer genius!" D adds.
Brimming with joy and overflowing with pride, P raises a glass high in the air above the table in which the Crew sits around –––– and then after a while, speaks, “For a job well done!” Then together, with more joy and laughter, they drink.
________________________
To the Crew’s right, near the bar, gather the Collective: Org, Act, Art, and the strongest and most courages of them all, S&S: Organizing, Activism, Art, and Silence and Stillness. In order to blend into the scene of the bar that moves and swirls around them, they’ve ordered their own round of cigars and drinks. A few moments after biting into a newly unwrapped cigar, Org speaks, “Look at them over there,” indicating toward the Crew, “toasting to their success again. I’m tired of it.”
“We all are,” Art replies.
“Enough already!” Act declares, “I’m going over there! They need to hear the truth!”
Org sets a cigar down on a coaster made of gold, which hovers close to the edge of the bar, then speaks, “Not yet,” he says, “I get the impulse, and I agree, but we can’t just barge over there, cancel their party, and then expect to get what we want.”
“Then what,” Act asks, “Then what do you suggest we do?”
A long pause hangs in the air and all four of the Collective, for a while, look at each other ––– all thoughts and ideas, zero words.
Then Art speaks, “Org’s got this.”
Act sits back down; Art and Act look at Org; Org looks back at Art and Act; then Art, Act, and Org all look over at S&S, who is examining the large ice cubes that are no longer floating at the bottom of a tumblr glass. After a while, it becomes clear to S&S that the other three have fallen silent, and have directed their attention toward S&S, who locks eyes with the the barman, indicates another round for the Collective, then after one last pause, looks over at Art, Org, and Act and speaks. “I once gave a loan to a bank that had all of the money in the world.”
September 22, 2021 - Wanamaker Place by Jordan Myers
Wanamaker Place is tiny. South of East 10th Street and North of East 8th Street, the road, as designated, only carries between Lafayette and Broadway, yet it leads to one of the best stretches of roads in Manhattan to bike across. If you’re going up Lafayette, turn left, keep cycling, and take your time. Not every road (or avenue or street) with a bike lane actually makes a way for bicycles. Wanamaker Place, which quickly turns into East 9th Street, and then (on the other side of Fifth Avenue), becomes West 9th Street, does.
It’s a one-way; and yesterday, myself and three or four other cyclists all made our way west at the same time. We were just cruising, and as the brownstones adorned with ivy drifted by, everything felt natural and easy. Not once did a car honk, floor it, or creep up against the bike lane ––– one even waited as I drifted around another car that had pulled to the side. At Sixth Avenue the light held red for a while. No bother. We took a breath and took a few swigs of water. Then at the click of green, some of us carried on west and others turned right on Sixth, heading north through the Village.
September 20, 2021 - Andrade’s Shoe Repair by Jordan Myers
In the window of Andrade’s shoe repair shop, at Sixth Avenue and West Twelfth Street, hang seventeen umbrellas. They’re of the size, length, and design that can alternate as a walking cane: curved wooden handles and wrap around buttons that click into place when closed, keeping everything together. Most of the umbrellas hanging in the window are black, though others are dark blue, beige, or grey. I haven’t bought an umbrella in years.
After I asked the man behind the counter about the navy one with the cherry wood handle (third from the left), he went into the back of the shop and a few moments later re-emerged with a key. After he reached up toward the display window, he handed me the umbrella and spoke, “This one’s twenty dollars” ––– then added, “plus tax.” “Deal,” or something similar, I replied ––– paid, then was on my way.
September 19, 2021 by Elizabeth Lerman
It’s interesting, I think, my response to water. I feel the difference in the weight of waves. As a child I would float for hours, slipping back onto land only when wild arms stretched into sky and summoned me for dinner. I would walk barefoot back to the house, trailing my toes in the loose dirt of the road, the sun and shore behind me. We’d eat the fresh quahogs my brother and father and I dug out from wet sands of shallow sea. You could always taste the ocean in them, a buoyant brine softened by steaming broth and melted butter. Sometimes you would catch a grain of sand as you sipped from the shell and it would crunch between your teeth and take you back to your afternoon by the bay.
September 17, 2021 - Rosa Maks’ “Slow Bye” (Chapter 4)
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3
And Chapter Four, Titled No.
Tonight I just got back here to bed, bed bed bed,
My yellow room where I live still,
You called it diarrhea from your mouth tonight
The amount of all the things you said
It’s always such a hollow to tear away from the place
After work
It’s like I’ve torn away from the sweet nest
of a place I should stay all night
I love you!
In the story you’ve wrought.
THE HOLLOW EMPTY MEANS A RETURN TO THE REST OF THE WORLD.
You’ve been talking about this car
Listings on eBay
I refuse to delude further but I know that you kind of could
I look at your Christmas tree I look at your face in the painting under the brim of a black
hat the face in the nude photo, looking upwards, wrapped around a woman, I look at the
face, across, in the pink under the brim of this lounge the sweet people I hate, the sweet
people I love, tippers or not, tonight was a good one and I wouldn’t trade it, your old
man friend gave me too large a bill, for school, he called it, then spoke about my powers
my spells I am casting, joking about the spells I am casting then breathing into the
Breathalyzer and then you dictate how many more he can have.
The bitch, as you called ‘er, tickling you with a feather as you lean over my candle again
She takes a picture you, me, feather, candle
I’d like to convert it away from cellular file, too precious
You’re not the first one to point out a particular speck fleck of brown I have in iris but I
am so obviously satisfied.
Father boy lover you love me all those ways you just said
Yet you’ve never thought of a kiss or beyond!
Strange dreams you’ve described where I reign queen
Of yours
I wish you’d said strange things on our last Friday before Christmas
But all you said
Is something nondescript
And forgettable
Only that we had twelve nights left
I wanted to go and ride away and go camping for months
I wanted to come back after that for a second and depart again this time for long
To the southwest
Now I don’t want to anymore
Because how to leave your moviemaking
How to leave your spark-eye smirk at them all
Your big inspiration
Your antics
Your stumbling out when I come to help with whatever in the morning
Your cute disgusting stumble
When you’re wearing the same dog hairy flannel you slept in
And a t- shirt from a veteran’s organization
And your ash is in the exquisite golden ashtray next to pipe and beer and matchbook
This is the only time I’ve known a person to be real
Make me an offer
Stop counting down
Stop telling me I’m leaving to do wonderful things
Make me an offer
Make me an offer
Force me to stay here
to live in this place
Give me the bar til I can’t bar no more
Don’t let me lose this don’t let me go back down there where the people talk about
things I don’t get
Where they have hard to understand frameworks
Where they are disappointed
Where they head towards global calamity
I feel a realization, gracious gracious stupefier.
You built something rare.
A point where energy converges and at first it looks normal looks brooklyn looks
legitimate in all its bureaucratic duties
for hipsters
But being inside it
Having a tarot card role inside it, standing within it for more than three years now
cracking open beer cans in the dark,
It becomes so clear
That what you’ve made
cannot be boring.
We’ll be buried dead, you about thirty or forty years sooner than me
The last green night I sell beer and whiskey and vodka for you I will try to express my
love and then after that I don’t think I will ever again.
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Rosa Maks was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She is also a printmaker and is currently trying her hand at a degree in print in Tucson, Arizona. She's also a poet, freelance writer and aspiring banjo player; passions include music, creative writing and long distance bike touring. She has worked as a chess teacher, a bike frame sander, a candle maker and gallery assistant, among others. Too mercurial for her own good, she hopes her non-fiction creative writing and true-story poems speak in her place. You might find her at Rockaway Beach in Queens, dragging her bike through a dune or somewhere far from home, picturing that very image with longing.
September 14, 2021 - Spaces in between buildings where the horizon has broken and the first glints of the day hold in the air for a while, waiting. by Jordan Myers
Light in the city makes itself known through shadows. Spaces in between buildings where the horizon has broken and the first glints of the day hold in the air for a while, waiting. From afar ––– for instance, when examining the city’s skyline from a distance ––– Jersey or Brooklyn perhaps, these spaces in between buildings are difficult, if not impossible to see. From those viewpoints all of the buildings coalesce ––– they become one: “The Skyline.” But once you reach the island, and you begin walking along the sidewalks that line its avenues, and moving across its streets, those spaces in between buildings are evident ––– they’re clear. All of the value of the city lies within their clarity. And the whole world of the city rests within those spaces.
September 13, 2021 by Elizabeth Lerman
I don’t know exactly how far the water has danced me out but I know that my feet cannot find sand and my legs are dangling, loose and liquid, under the ocean’s sweet surface, the gentle rocking of the waves rippling through the walls of my body, skin and self shaking with the sea in its hypnotic hurry to reach the shore.
September 12, 2021 - Field Notes from the US Open - “The Quiet Excitement of Tennis” - Karlton Miko Tyack
In between World War I and the 1918 pandemic, the US Open (then the US National Championship) carried on. It was the only Grand Slam tennis event that year. When my friends and I attended opening day at Flushing’s Billie Jean King Center on August 30th, it was the first time the US Open was actually open in two years. By the end of the day, I realized something. When you and your friends have been kept apart for so long, by way of furloughs and pandemics and politics, the best way to finally come together again, is as tennis spectators.
I’ve always believed that sports can bring people together. I decided that this is especially true with tennis during the contentious first round match between Andy Murray and Stefanos Tsitsipas. As Murray masterfully delivered the first serve, I sat in the audience with my group of five: two Britons, two Greeks, and me, the Yankee in the middle.
My friends Nicholas and Mykos were born and raised in Palaio Psychiko. “If Tsitsipas wins, drinks are on you guys,” Nicholas declared to James and George, the British faction. As for drinks, I’m happy to report that the comfortingly familiar Honey Deuce highball cocktail, with its tennis ball-like melon garnishes, was especially popular this comeback year.
During the early sets, Murray played like his old self, chasing down drop shots and attacking forehands. “Get your credit card out, Nicholas,” whispered James.
Tennis must be the only fast-moving sport in which spectators whisper to each other. To win, players need to sustain concentration for prolonged periods of time; and on this occasion, the Murray and Tsitsipas face-off lasted a whopping four hours and forty-nine minutes. Unlike football or soccer, we tennis fans have to give our energy to the players in a quiet way, to see the wins we’re wagering for. It’s as if politeness is built into the game’s DNA, even in the face of a bet.
Yet the silence doesn’t mean a lack of excitement and strength, or even a lack of drama. After losing the first and third sets, Tsitsipas came back hard and strong, to the pleasure of Mykos and Nicholas. After the excessively contentious and difficult year and a half we’ve had, my friends and I especially enjoyed this polite kind of excitement and competition.
After nearly five hours of play, Tsitsipas did win (6-2, 7-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4), and James and George enjoyed buying Honey Deuces for our friends as much as Mykos and Nicholas enjoyed winning their gentleman’s bet. I bought my own, of course.
Apparently, Andy and Stefanos are still mad at each other. Murray didn’t appreciate Tsitsipas’ multiple and excessively long breaks, and Stefanos didn’t see a problem with abiding by the ATP rules, which allow for one bathroom break during a three-set match, and two breaks during a five-set match. As bad as their match got, the five of us are still friends. In tennis, the rage stays on the court, or between players, where they have an outlet for it.
As each set started, and the announcer asked fans to be quiet and seated, I remembered that tennis is the only sport that audience members are ever asked to do that, with a please and a thank you, no less.
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Karlton Miko Tyack was born and raised in West Los Angeles. He spent summers with family all over New England and studied art history in Massachusetts. Consequently, he’s a fan of the Patriots as well as the Dodgers and the Kings. He also loves the outdoors, dogs, riding horses, and Christmas time.
Karlton worked in the art gallery world for ten years, and moved to New York for an opportunity with one of the city’s auction houses. New York has quickly become his favorite city. He resides on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
