Walking Is Transportation

IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME

Last night, an 1872 French Second Empire mini-mansion across the street from our house caught fire, the inevitable conclusion to a decades-long process of disinterest and disinvestment.

42 Westervelt Avenue in St. George was never as grand as the French Second Empire building pictured right, but its proportions suggest it was probably pretty impressive in its day.

Here's an incomplete record of its recent physical deterioration.

Like many larger residential properties in St. George, 42 Westervelt Avenue was chopped up into apartments some time before World War II. Under the right management, with proper maintenance and appropriate improvements, it could have continued to provide solid housing for six families.

But once the building fell into the hands of its current absentee owner, its fate was sealed. He promptly filled the building, and others he owned adjacent to this property, with friends and relatives and for a long time it was rundown but quiet and "respectable."

But that was only a temporary reprieve from this handsome building's continuing downward slide.

When these friends and relatives left, one by one, they were replaced by crack addicts and their friends. In short order, the building became a flop house whose occupants you see on the front stoop in the photo, above, dated 2008.

And so it continued through 2009, when the photo at left was taken, and well into 2010.

Until last night.

I took the photo on the left, below, through glass and a mesh screen, producing an eerie visual that perfectly represents last night's craziness,with hordes of firefighters responding to a four-alarm blaze that not only savaged 'The Crack House.' It also severely damaged the beautifully restored post-Civil War-era rowhouse to the right, separated by only a narrow alley.

I took the photo below, right, from my front porch this morning. I want to try and get the Landmarks Commission involved here, to make sure that whatever happens next, happens in a preservation context.

Just to get this on the record: Two fire marshals were here this morning and described the building as severely damaged but 'structurally sound'---their words. Just in case we need to repeat them for the benefit of those who'd rather raze it and replace it with 20 townhouses, built front to back. Landmarks protection has to mean more than that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A YEAR AND A MONTH LATER

 

 I KNOW YOU MISSED ME 'CAUSE YOU TOLD ME SO.

I stopped writing WALKING IS TRANSPORTATION (WIT) in October, 2009 because I wanted to do other things. It really was gratifying to hear from so many people that they looked forward to reading my work; that they liked the look of WIT as much as what it and I had to say. And that they were sorry to hear I wasn't writing it anymore.

If memory serves, as it often doesn't, this is WIT's fourth incarnation. I'm retaining the title WALKING IS TRANSPORTATION as a kind of platform or backdrop, in the same way I might make a comfortable home for myself in the words, JAZZ IS (everything).

 A VERY BRIEF HISTORY

Phase 1: WIT began life as a straightforward advocacy tool for, as the name suggests, walking as a practical, efficient and inexpensive means of transportation. It became clear to me, a few months into the game, that there was only so much I could say without repeating myself and boring others.

Phase 2: Either I took a break or simply transitioned into a kind of community-observer journal focused un-self-consciously on Staten Island, with occasional forays into visual art, jazz and electoral politics.

Phase 3: For a brief and intense period, WIT became a daily journal. The subjects varied; what mattered was to produce an issue a day. An impossible standard that I stopped trying to meet in October, 2009.

As I begin WIT's third return-to-life, it seems important not to make any promises or projections. That said, what's certain is that    WIT will reflect my current interests. 

ANOTHER JOURNAL OF A SOLITUDE ? MAYBE.

I first read May Sarton's journal in the mid-70s, less because of the word 'solitude' in its title than because of its profile of a writer's retreat to the country, which I and my wife were then contemplating.

Reading it again today, as I plan to, 35 years or so later, it's the word 'solitude,' not the words 'country retreat,' that interests me. That's because, for some time now, I've been grappling with what many, perhaps most people would consider my withdrawal--if not from society, then from certain aspects of my former life.

I can't deny the accuracy of the word 'withdrawal' when applied to what I do and, just as often, don't. But lately, for the first time in about five years, it's occurring to me that perhaps the wish for solitude, for the solitary, is an impulse I don't have to resist or reform or moderate or deny. It's a wish that feels--to use a word not so much used these days--authentic; and one that, for now, I intend to fulfill.

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