I don't know how long it has been, (maybe since childhood?) if ever, when I felt so much that I lived in a real neighborhood. And I have lived in real neighborhoods: the Haight in San Francisco, Gourmet Ghetto in Berkeley, Beachwood Canyon, which is right below the Hollywood sign, in Los Angeles, and even Greenwich Village. In none of those places did it feel as if the neighborhood had such a "breathing" quality.
Because I am home so much, like all the time, I am quite sensitive to the rise and fall of energy and noise outside.
Ladybird Bakery has a couple of customers whose dogs bark while they wait for their owners inside, Thursdays and Fridays around 10:30. I am not sure if it is the same dog, but maybe I will make a closer survey.
Besides Ladybird, there are two bodegas, two restaurants/bars, and a Chinese Mexican food place, Yummy Taco, which is neither yummy nor taco according to a friend from East LA who ventured there. This makes for quite a bit of traffic what with provisions and beer delivery. Engines are often on, and there are those nutty back-up beeps. If the delivery trucks leave their motors running for too long, I get the numbers and report them to the home offices.
Eighth Avenue is a fairly wide, and therefore busy street. Today was extra crazy with deliveries, construction in a couple of places, and one of those giant trucks with a bunch of cars getting delivered. There is the dance of cars jockeying lanes so that they can run the light (and be stopped a short block away). Still and all, the cars were civilized, without too much honking or roaring of engines. I can't speak for internalized frustration or externalized hand gestures.
The weather, beautiful, sweet, and serene, might have kept people in better moods.
The neighborhood feeling is comfortable and comforting, even with the rowdy barflies and the traffic of parents and children going to and from school twice a day ... when I am trying to nap! I realize that being noise sensitive is antithetical to life in New York City and I am doomed to complain ... sometimes.
Here's Jimi's take: Crosstown Traffic.
Tomorrow night, Richard Thompson at Carnegie Hall.
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ReplyDeleteNoise. I remember when I had first moved to the top floor of a rundown tenement building on 1st ave. It was summer and the windows were open. I sat in the tub listening to the multi-planed sound of the city all around me. Firetrucks and ambulances screaming through the streets. Tractor trailer sized dump trucks with engine brakes roaring, banging and slamming down the avenue. It was downright medieval.
Enjoy the show! Sure it will be awesome.