Wednesday, September 28, 2005

 

Recuerdo


Ferry, originally uploaded by niznoz.

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hilltop underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and the pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.



Edna St. Vincent Millay


Monday, September 19, 2005

 

christchurch, spitalfields


christchurch, spitalfields, originally uploaded by niznoz.


In 1902 Jack London arrived in London, and attempted to visit the East End. His friends told him not to, Thomas Cook’s the travel agency, who could organize a trek across Tibet--could take you to the very ends of the earth, said it was impossible, and a cab driver didn’t know how to find it (London cab drivers still don’t want to go anywhere they don’t think they’ll pick up a good fare, although I've never heard of them saying they couldn't find the "East End." Besides, there are plenty of fares there now). So, nearly 30 years before George Orwell was down and out in Paris and London, Jack London donned a scruffy suit of second hand clothes, and walked east to see how the other half lived. Here he describes the garden of Hawksmoor’s Christchurch.

The shadow of Christ's Church falls across Spitalfields Garden, and in the shadow of Christ's Church, at three o'clock in the afternoon, I saw a sight I never wish to see again. There are no flowers in this garden, which is smaller than my own rose garden at home. Grass only grows here, and it is surrounded by sharp-spiked iron fencing, as are all the parks of London Town, so that homeless men and women may not come in at night and sleep upon it.

As we entered the garden, an old woman, between fifty and sixty, passed us, striding with sturdy intention if somewhat rickety action, with two bulky bundles, covered with sacking, slung fore and aft upon her. She was a woman tramp, a houseless soul, too independent to drag her failing carcass through the workhouse door. Like the snail, she carried her home with her. In the two sacking-covered bundles were her household goods, her wardrobe, linen, and dear feminine possessions.

We went up the narrow gravelled walk. On the benches on either side was arrayed a mass of miserable and distorted humanity, the sight of which would have impelled Dore to more diabolical flights of fancy than he ever succeeded in achieving. It was a welter of rags and filth, of all manner of loathsome skin diseases, open sores, bruises, grossness, indecency, leering monstrosities, and bestial faces. A chill, raw wind was blowing, and these creatures huddled there in their rags, sleeping for the most part, or trying to sleep. Here were a dozen women, ranging in age from twenty years to seventy. Next a babe, possibly of nine months, lying asleep, flat on the hard bench, with neither pillow nor covering, nor with any one looking after it. Next, half a dozen men, sleeping bolt upright or leaning against one another in their sleep. In one place a family group, a child asleep in its sleeping mother's arms, and the husband (or male mate) clumsily mending a dilapidated shoe. On another bench a woman trimming the frayed strips of her rags with a knife, and another woman, with thread and needle, sewing up rents. Adjoining, a man holding a sleeping woman in his arms. Farther on, a man, his clothing caked with gutter mud, asleep with head in the lap of a woman, not more than twenty-five years old, and also asleep. -- The People of the Abyss by Jack London (Lawrence Hill Books, New York, 1995)
.

For much of the twentieth century the small park remained a place where the homeless slept and was known, after the vermin that afflicted them, as Itchy Park (one of several green spaces in London to have that nickname).

spitalfields

Photo by Jack London. An illustrated The People of the Abyss is available online from berkeley.edu


Wednesday, September 07, 2005

 

fire patrol


fire patrol, originally uploaded by niznoz.

Nearly every "full-blooded" Bowery male, whether immigrant or native-born, laborer or artisan, belonged to a fire company. These volunteer organizations were para-political, para-fraternal entities, organized by neighborhood, by ancestry. Like army divisions, they were formally numbered but were actually known by allusive nicknames: Big Six (famous for being Boss Tweed's company), Black Joke, Old Rock, Charter Oak, Americus, White Ghost, Shad Belly, Dry Bones, Red Rover, Hay Wagon, Bean Soup, Old Junk. -- from Low Life by Luc Sante.


The municipal fire service began in 1865 and eventually replaced the fire companies. But the insurance companies had started the move to a professional service in the 1830's when the Fire Patrol was created.

Fire Patrol is not the FDNY, although their jobs are just as dangerous. This Patrol house dates from 1907.

From The Wall Street Journal Mar 16, 1987:

NEW YORK -- Garbed in black fire-resistant coats and heavy red helmets, sirens on their red trucks wailing, three crews from the New York Fire Patrol race to an early-morning fire in an office building. They aren't firefighters. Their trucks carry no hoses or other equipment for dousing flames.

Instead, the fire patrolmen troop into the burning building and set about protecting the interests of their private-sector employers: insurance companies that write fire policies. Working mainly on the two floors directly below the firemen and the fire, the patrolmen deploy heavy canvas tarpaulins and electric pumps to minimize water and smoke damage -- and thus cut insurance claims.

Almost unknown to city residents, the New York Fire Patrol has been rushing to fires here since the 1830s. It traces its roots back even further, to 1803, when merchants organized the Mutual Assistance Bag Co. to haul out goods from one another's premises (in bags) during fires. The patrol, in fact, predates the city's paid fire department.

Once there were fire patrols in more than 20 American cities. But for 25 years, since closings in Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore, New York's has been the only one. London insurers ended a similar operation in 1983.


Patrol House 2, shown above, in Greenwich Village, is located opposite the site of a house where Edgar Allen Poe used to live. It is, apparently, haunted.


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