At first (and second) glance, 14th
Street in Manhattan has no beauty, no charm, no magic, no storied past, no
architectural unity, no anything except two quintessential New York traits:
energy and diversity. It is a hodgepodge
of building styles, a jumble of noise, justifying itself simply as a useful
crosstown artery that helps you get around.
Forming a boundary between Chelsea on the north and Greenwich Village on
the south, it partakes of neither. Its
one redeeming quality is its rough-and-tumble character, its abundance of
low-cost stores and restaurants, its appeal to the budget-minded. No gentrification here (not yet, at least);
the street is down-to-earth, basic, and unashamedly out for a buck. As one store’s sign put it:
KEEP
14TH STREET GREEN
BRING
MONEY
It’s not surprising, then,
that the Greenwich Village Historic District stops just south of it, leaving it
without landmark status; preservationists must have thought it a hopeless case,
too commercial, too ugly, unworthy of protection.
But if one looks more closely, 14th
Street reveals pockets of beauty, chunks of history, slivers of charm. Let’s take a walk along the stretch I know
best, ranging from Ninth Avenue on the west to Union Square on the east, and
see what we can find.
On the northwest corner of Ninth Avenue
and 14th Street the Apple store looms, a three-story edifice usually topped
by a display of giant computer screens.
I have trekked there several times, lugging my desktop on a
cart, to consult computer "geniuses" about smoothing out computer kinks and exploring
computer possibilities. Smiling young
faces in blue T-shirts greet you at the entrance and direct you to the
appropriate floor -- in my case, the top
one, where the geniuses hold forth. Shunning
the ultra-modern glass staircase, I take the elevator. Up there in a spacious area flooded with
light from huge windows, I’m always the only customer with a cumbersome
desktop; everyone else has a small, mobile laptop, so easy to carry about, but
with far too small a screen for my purposes, which often require two full pages
side by side on the screen.
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| AchimH |
The Apple store, the third in the city,
opened at this location in 2007, but before that this was the gateway to the
Meatpacking District, which stretched from here west to the river. The building itself was an outlet for Western Beef, where a former resident
remembers seeing open barrels of pig ears and snouts in brine, jugs of pork
bellies, and carpet-sized rolls of tripe.
So here, right at the start of our trek, is a lesson about life in New York:
for all its landmarking endeavors, the city is in constant flux. From pig ears to Macs – quite a change!
Going east from Ninth Avenue toward
Eighth, you find mostly residential buildings on the north or uptown side of 14th
Street, some old and some new, their windows sprouting air-conditioners, and,
for a sobering touch, a funeral home – all in all, rather dull. But the south side is anything but dull. In quick succession you encounter the
following:
· Super Runners Shop
· Keratinbar (a hair salon and not, as I at first
thought, a karate school)
· Centro Mexicano de Nueva York
· Gourmet Deli, its doors wide open to the street
· Best Chinese Qi Gong Tui Na, offering body work to
heal almost anything
· Perfect Brows Threading Salon
· Chelsea Village Medical Building, where my partner’s
doctor holes up, when not making house calls
· Istanbul Grill, featuring Mediterranean cuisine
· Insomnia Cookies
· Rocky’s Brick Oven Pizza and Restaurant
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| Beyond My Ken |
But the dominant presence on the block is St.
Bernard’s Roman Catholic Church, a towering neo-Gothic dark-stone structure at
330 West 14th Street, dating from 1875. Replete with pointed windows and twin towers
topped with short, spiky spires, the church now announces itself bilingually as
Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, or Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard’s, the two
parishes having merged in 2003. (More of
this anon.) Once patronized by the Irish
in Chelsea, St. Bernard’s saw its attendance dwindle as the Irish moved out. The Archdiocese explained the merger with
candor: St. Bernard’s had space but lacked bodies, while Our Lady had bodies but
lacked space (and they both had debts).
But access to the church is up a steep short flight of steps, since
neo-Gothic had little awareness of the handicapped.
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| Beyond My Ken |
At Eighth Avenue and 14th
Street we find two monumental Greek temples whose classical features say
“bank.” The copper-domed structure on the northwest corner has a white-marble
façade with Corinthian columns. Built in
1897 as the New York Bank for Savings, over the years it underwent a number of
changes; served me in one of my bank’s many incarnations; later housed
Balducci’s, a legendary Italian grocery in the Village; and is now a CVS pharmacy. One can question whether majestic
neoclassical features are appropriate for the intake and output of moneys, but
to my mind a grocery or a pharmacy is definitely pushing it.
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| Beyond My Ken |
Across 14th Street on the
southwest corner of the intersection is another impressive Greek temple that
likewise suggests a bank. Built in 1907
for the New York County National Bank, it too has suffered a series of
incarnations over the years and recently housed a spa for men. If a grocery and a pharmacy are questionable,
what can one say of a spa? Flanked by
two soaring Corinthian columns, the façade is topped by a pediment with a
spreadwinged eagle, presaging laser hair removal on the grand scale, epic
pedicures. But that is in the past; the
building is now available for lease, with more flux in the offing.
Moving east from Eighth Avenue, at no. 229
on the north side of the street, one sees a churchlike façade and, next to it,
stairs rising to a parlor-floor entrance.
Passing it many times on a bus, I got the impression that this was a
nunnery, a religious house sealed off from the bustle of 14th Street
and immersed in appropriate devotions.
And of course I was wrong. This
was, until 2003, the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, an 1850 brownstone
converted to a Catholic church in 1921 to serve the Spanish-speaking residents
of the neighborhood (which had once been known as Little Spain). Its Spanish Baroque façade is rare, probably
unique, in the city, and the church’s name commemorates the Virgin of
Guadalupe, who appeared to a Mexican peasant in 1531 and has since been much
venerated in Mexico.
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| Beyond My Ken |
By the early 2000s the little church could
no longer accommodate the growing population of Mexican immigrants, so in 2003
the parish merged with St. Bernard’s, a short block to the west. But that short block seemed long to
many. While the Caribbean Hispanics who
worshiped at the little church welcomed having a seat at Mass at St. Bernard’s,
many knew they would miss Our Lady’s warmth and intimacy, its unique Latino
“feel.” Just as, at St. Bernard’s, some
of the elderly non-Hispanic parishioners were likewise grumbling about the
necessary change, as the church was refurbished and “Hispanicized” to make the
newcomers feel more at home. Bright
colors were added, and a painting of the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe was
installed in front of a mosaic portrait of St. Bernard above and behind the
main altar. Flux again, pleasing to some
and disturbing to others. The abandoned
little church is locked up tight now, with a bilingual sign, WE MOVED.
At no. 225, on the north side of West 14th
Street, one finds the 14th Street Framing Gallery, a custom framing shop that
shows the works of artists in its window and thus doubles as a gallery. My friend John once took me there to see the
paintings of an artist friend of his, Scott Rigelman, who is often displayed
there. Though Rigelman also does bucolic
scenes and still lifes, what I saw in the window were urban industrial scenes often
devoid of people and with a hint of Edward Hopper’s haunting loneliness. Rigelman calls these works “industrial,” but
don’t look for workers or machinery in action, just looming buildings, static
scenes. John describes his friend’s work
as “cool” and “analytic,” as opposed to “emotional” and “romantic,” an
appraisal that strikes me as accurate.
Rigelman’s work finds its audience, for in
the last several years he has sold some 45 paintings on 14th Street,
many of them impulse purchases by patrons who just happened by, though many of
them have then become repeat customers who seek his work out at the Framing
Gallery. And when the set decorator for
the film Learning to Drive walked
past and by chance saw Rigelman’s work, he was so taken with it that he
acquired two paintings to use in the film.
Two of Rigelman’s paintings are currently displayed, both industrial,
studies in brown and gray with a touch of dull red, their subdued quality
contrasting sharply with paintings by other artists in the window who strive
for warmth and color – something for every taste. But who would have thought? Art on West 14th
Street!
Just beyond the Framing Gallery, at no. 219,
we leave religion and art behind as we encounter We the People, a self-styled
debt-relief agency that proclaims in
bold letters
DIVORCE
$499
INCORPORATIONS $399
BANKRUPTCY $499
WILLS
$199
Bargains indeed. To which their card adds in fancy lettering,
“Rest in
Peace.”
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| Beyond My Ken |
On the southeast corner of 14th
and Seventh Avenue, at no. 154-160, is a 12-story loft building dating from
1912. I have been past that building
hundreds of times, and into the second-floor J.P. Morgan Chase branch a dozen times, without ever noticing the lavish
polychrome terra-cotta decoration by architect Herman Lee Meader adorning it on
many levels, though masked now by scaffolding.
Meader had visited Mayan sites in Yucatan (I know those sites), and some
see a trace of Mayan influence in the scrolls and wiggles and curlicues of the decoration
here. Only recently have I discovered
terra cotta in New York and (better late than never) fallen in love with it. Again, who would have thought? Mayan art embellishing J.P. Morgan Chase on
brash and bustling West 14th Street!
Yet another 14th Street surprise.
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| Beyond My Ken |
The imposing seven-story building at
138-146 West 14th Street, now housing the Manhattan campus of Pratt
Institute, is a Renaissance Revival loft building dating from 1895-96. Eight monumental arches frame the windows of
the lower floors, while the seventh floor features sixteen smaller arches under
a crowning stone cornice. There is rich stone
and terra-cotta ornamentation throughout, including palmettes, lion’s heads,
and rosettes. This structure introduces a note of grandeur into our walk
and definitely redeems 14th Street from the drab commercial hodgepodge it
seemed at first to be.
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| Beyond My Ken |
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| Beyond My Ken |
Guarding the entrance are great gilt metal gates that seem always to be locked tight shut, sometimes with several homeless people sprawled or huddled in front of them. Peering through the gates, one gets only a glimpse of monumental stairs mounting to the left and right, leading to a spacious interior. Clearly visible on the wall in back of the grotto are the words of the Army’s English founder, William Booth:
While
women weep, as they do now,
I’ll fight.
While
men go to prison, in and out,
In
and out, as they do now,
I’ll fight.
While
there is a drunkard left,
While
there is a poor lost girl upon the streets,
While
there remains one dark soul without the light of God,
I’ll
fight – I’ll fight to the very end.
And on the wall high above
those words is the Army’s crest, a circular rising-sun motif topped with a
crown and containing the Army’s motto BLOOD AND FIRE, signifying the blood of
Jesus and the fire of the Holy Spirit.
Just across West 14th Street from the Salvation Army complex, at no. 125, looms another massive building of unlovely brick and glass, housing the McBurney YMCA, which moved here from 23rd Street in 2002. Sharing the site above the Y is a residential complex known as Armory Place, its name commemorating the National Guard armory that formerly occupied the site. The McBurney Y prides itself on its famous members. The world of finance was changed forever when Merrill met Lynch in its swimming pool at another site in 1913, and author William Saroyan stayed in a guest room in 1928. Other members have included playwright Edward Albee, artist Andy Warhol, and actor Al Pacino, and the very thought of them all in the pool simultaneously – which probably never happened – thrills me to the quick. A virtual tour of today’s facility shows both sexes running or cycling in place, lying flat on mats lifting heavy weights, playing basketball, and executing slow-motion movements worthy of ballet; one feels sweaty and tired just from watching. Membership includes free towels and WiFi, and free supervised child watch. If the Salvation Army is a quaint and charming – and most necessary – throwback to another age, the McBurney is as tech-savvy and with-it as they come.
On the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue
and 14th Street is a new building I love to hate: the New School
University Center, a 16-story boxy monstrosity with a skin of horizontal brass
bands artificially aged to acquire a “dark golden-brown hue” (they look gray to
me), and an “innovative stair system” providing a “grand avenue,”
glass-encased, that creeps up the sides of the building, its space meant to provide students
with “informal interaction.” I don’t
know which I hate more – those horizontal strips or the exposed staircases, the
brass or the glass – but I’m sure that the students, without architectural
stimulus, will manage plenty of informal interaction on their own. Granted, the building is innovative and
eye-catching, and far from dull. But I still
detest it, and it’s good to have something to detest; it keeps you from getting
bland.
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| MusikAnimal |
Finally we come to Union Square, whose
name, by the way, has nothing to do with the massive pro-Union rallies held
there at the outbreak of the Civil War, or the countless labor-union rallies
held there subsequently; it simply reflects the convergence there of the old
Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) and the Bowery Road (now Fourth Avenue). By the mid-nineteenth century the Square,
once a potter’s field, had become an exclusive upper-middle-class residential
neighborhood whose homes faced a nicely laid-out park with tree-lined walks and
a fountain. By the 1870s, as was always
the case in a fast-growing city, the neighborhood was being invaded by
commercial enterprises – hotels and pharmacies and pianoforte showrooms – and gentility
fled elsewhere.
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| George Washington in Union Square Park. Aude |
Then and now, Union Square has been the scene
of labor-union rallies, and protests and demonstrations of every stripe and
hue, including a May Day rally and several Occupy Wall Street demonstrations
that I have chronicled in this blog. Also
chronicled is the Union Square Greenmarket, the granddaddy of all greenmarkets,
which I visit regularly on Wednesdays throughout the year. Frequenting the Square are artists displaying
their works (some amusing, some garish); folk singers, some of them more
screechy than harmonious; chess players looking for an opponent; a turbaned
African-American woman displaying assorted wares on a sumptuous cloth by a
fountain; and, newly arrived, a young Hare Krishna devotee with the requisite
shaven head and orange robe. Witnessing
all the to-do are four bronze statues dedicated to advocates of freedom: a mounted
Washington, one arm outstretched, heroically surveying his surroundings since
1856; a nobly posed Abraham Lincoln, dedicated in 1870; a bigger-than-life Lafayette,
installed for the 1876 Centennial; and a spectacled and skinny Mahatma Gandhi, who
since 1986 has been seen walking with a staff in an enclosed little garden near
the southwest corner of the park.
Coming soon: New York Hustlers: Elmos and Minny Mice,
topless cuties, CD hustlers, fake
Buddhist monks, the Naked Cowboy and Cowgirls, and how a wiseguy teenager from
the West Side made hundreds of dollars on weekends as an action bowler.
Available now: For a preview of my new book, a collection of
posts from this blog, just google the title; the table of contents will give
you an idea of what’s in it. Available
online from the usual suspects: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. The e-book, now in preparation, will also be
available soon. If you go to Amazon and type in the title, you may not find the book, but typing my name will get you to it; Barnes & Noble poses no problem. If you have the preview on your screen, you'll see them both listed on the left; click on either and you'll also find the book. And if the book doesn't interest you, no problem; it will find its readers in time.
©
2015 Clifford Browder
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