A Reminder to Walk
If you're looking for a sign, here it is
Walking is simple. It’s free and you can do it anywhere. It doesn’t matter what time of day. It doesn’t matter where you go. Walking puts you in the place you need to be, especially when you don’t know what you need or where you need to be (unless you’re about to be run over by a guy carrying groceries on his hoverboard, then you might want to dodge that). Walking is one of life’s greatest blessings, along with seeing. All you have to do is get up and go. Go and see.
When I’m walking around Greenpoint, Brooklyn’s northernmost neighborhood, I think most about where I grew up. Chicago has always been known as a working class city, and Greenpoint once was too. Despite the many qualities—fake thrift stores, trendy restaurants, new ‘dive’ bars etc—that deem Greenpoint the “next Murray Hill” by some, I find that that the old school charm still exists. The neighborhood is still ripe with evidence of its more humble beginnings, evidence that makes me feel right at home: Polish bakeries, warehouses, family-owned businesses, car dealerships and banquet halls, pot-holed parking lots, shopping centers connecting grocery stores, fast food chains and auto body shops, and the heavily trafficked expressway that slices through. Am I describing Old Irving Park, Chicago or Greenpoint, Brooklyn? The answer is both.
The neighborhood is like an onion—all you have to do is peel back the layers. Greenpoint may be subjected to the same cultural cycles of relevancy that we apply to music and fashion and art, but it’s a tale old as time, the argument of then vs. now, that something or somewhere is over even when it’s barely just begun for others. So what? Screw that. It’s New York, for goodness sake. “Cool” neighborhoods come and go, but there’s always something to be seen below the surface. History, for starters.
In Greenpoint (and wherever else) I try to accept the newness, though begrudgingly. I’ll lament the places I never got to know (Pencil Factory, I’m talking to you), see (metaphorically) beyond the shiny new condos that block out the Manhattan views beyond the East River, and I’ll do what I do best, which is walk.
Is there a better time to walk, than late after dinner on a Tuesday night?
The best thing about a neighborhood is being able to walk to the next one. Obviously this is not so common across the U.S., a notoriously un-walkable country, but hey, as long you have two feet.
Walk all the way down McGuinness Boulevard and you’ll be taken right up the Pulaski Bridge, over Newtown Creek and straight into Queens. In Long Island City, I spot a large box on the curb. Taking a closer look, I see it has my name written on it. After rifling through its contents I continue walking with some new prizes: a stainless steel pan and wok (with a $300 value after Googling the brand), a box of pet treats (not expired, I checked), a small kitchen knife. Jackpot. This is what happens when you walk. You uncover hidden messages. You find stuff you didn’t know you needed. Yesterday it was someone else’s, today it’s yours.
Four years in and recently someone from New York called me a New Yorker. It’s always flattering to hear that, even if the prescribed rule by cityfolk is “10 years.” Anyways, I said no I’m not. I’m just Claire. Claire in New York. From you-know-where. Someday I’ll probably be Claire Somewhere Else.
Back over the bridge, where the full moon glows behind a shade of clouds and the Kosciuszko is bright orange in the distance, I wander back to Greenpoint. I cut down a side street and find someone has curbed four milk crates full of books. I spy a mix of American Lit classics, paperback beach reads, books on travel and books for kids, books in Polish; a family kind of collection. I kneel down to go through them. There are some children’s books worth noting, including a very detailed 1970s paperback about where babies come from.
Arms full, I continue my walk back home. My findings do not include the children’s sex book but instead some familiar classics: Frankenstein, Shakespeare, A Wrinkle In Time. Did I need these things? No, not necessarily. Were they free? Yes. Did I consider myself someone who often feels emotionally attached to material items? Yes, but not always. Free is the bounty that allows us to acquire gifts just as we easily as we can let them go. Slowly I’m learning to let go.
On my street my apartment is green from the illuminated corner store beside it, like a guiding light. I consider picking some sunflowers from the public square down my block, which has been on my mental to-do list for most of the summer, but I relent. I’m too tired. I guess there’s always tomorrow, but not for long. Even the leaves have been falling off the trees in McGolrick since mid-July.
I may not be able to stop time, but what I can do is walk. I encourage it. I encourage you. You might see something you hadn’t seen before. You might think of something you hadn’t thought before. You might even find me and tell me off for taking something I shouldn’t have. But you won’t know if you don’t walk. So walk.
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I’m very excited to try out The Lady in Greenpoint, a 3-mile walking audio ghost story starting at the Pulaski Bridge