RUDIMENTS, pt. 1067
(the envelope had too many folds)
I became interested in architecture
mostly from being right near
Cooper Union, where there was
a lot of free-course stuff available -
courses and talks and sessions, most
about engineering and stress-distribution
and all that. Those were things that
little interested me, in fact not at all,
but in 1967 it was all a different world
and anyone could mostly walk into
anywhere - which I did a lot - and
partake. Everything was wide open;
I know that for a fact about NYU and
about Cooper Union, which usually
were more than enough for me.
There was so much turmoil
underway, and so many things
right then were undergoing really
rigorous societal change, that it
was as if people were simply afraid
to challenge others - like me - in
these cases, for fear of starting a
problem. Everyone in authority
was basically walking on ice, in
fear of organized shut-down, or
demonstrations or riots or sit-ins
or strikes. People were dying over
those sorts of issues, and NYC and
Greenwich Village were certainly
hotbeds of it all. At that time the
space all around Cooper Union
was used basically as a crazy
flea-market, open-air confab of
things for sale, laid out along the
sidewalks; hippie kids, stoned,
zonked or passed out, entering
or leaving St. Mark's Place. You
could find-to-buy most anything
there, 25 cents to a dollar was
the average. Believe me : bicycles,
mailboxes, globes, books, records
cameras, shoes and boots, clothing,
fishing reels, mitts and gloves for
baseball. It was as if old New York
City was intent on disgorging its
past. A big deal was record albums.
It's difficult to imagine now, but
these were the days BEFORE
even the most primitive cassette
tapes and 8-tracks. Record players
and LP's were the norm, each of
which were here as well. 45's, mostly
ephemeral stuff, disposable, were
there too, and people would pick
over things. There were also
sidelines - for drugs, and the skin
trades too - hippie guys would
sell their girlfriends - who'd go
willingly, for 5 dollars worth of
sex or fondle, etc. No one minded a
thing. The walk-ups and tenements
of the lower eastside, right there,
were open quarters for all sorts
of pleasures : shooting up, to
shooting in, as the saying went.
Probably a goodly, fair-share of
those hippie toddlers and kids of
those days came from such joinings.
Ostensible 'Daddies' abounded. It
was funny, I always thought, how
the one thing that most of the
people there needed - food -
was not to be had. Only later, by
Autumn, '67, did some free-food
stations and handouts begin taking
place in Tompkins Square Park,
by missions and some churches and
some welfare organizations. The Park
itself was only a little ways off, a
good deep walk east on St. Mark's,
always an eyeful and an exciting
place. For me, it was amazing.
It was filled, brimming with the
runaways and park-sleepers,
just as I had been, not long
before. They came in waves.
-
Being 'interested' in architecture
is actually about the stupidest thing
in the world to say. Architecture
demands mathematics, sciences,
algebras and geometries too; the
sorts of things I hated. My interest
was not in that plodding sense of
'how do we do this?' but always
more along the lines of the end
design, the lines and the flow of
the dimensional building. Which
isn't really 'architecture, but more
just the 'reaction' to it. Which I
dug. Like music and art, architecture
brings things out, it rings bells in
the head - each thing I'd see in
NYC, old buildings, churchs, halls,
hospitals and foundling homes too,
all of that stuff came right out of
the do-good movements of the
1880s and that period of real
turnover and new-comings to
the growing city; trying to
manage itself and create an
architectural presence no longer
ramshackle or dangerous or
run-down or filthy, and instead
construct and then protect a
sense of place and care for the
hordes. The same hordes who
fell there and kept coming like
aliens from other planets.
-
It was always strange for me, to
be walking that corridor from the
8th Street Studio School location,
east to St. Mark's, all of which then
became like a weird Main Street to
me, a collection of the imponderable:
freaks, outlandish exhibitionists,
annoying and bothersome people
some, and others the most shy
and almost sweet about things
people : reticent and confused, but
sure to be free and to be hip; the
leading edge of all that. Fanaticism.
Politics. Badinage. Crooks. Slobs.
De-frocked priests and nuns.
Soldiers and sailors on the lam.
Drm-majorettes in training, and
high-school runaways too. Fathers
looking for their daughters, and, so
sad, daughters looking for fathers.
I never knew what I'd stepped into.
I never even thought about getting
away, because all of this, still new
and raw to me, was exactly where
I'd gotten away too. Endings only
sometimes equal beginnings. Other
times they're better, or worse.
I wasn't yet sure. Some people
told me I had 'some' talent; others
laughed me off, endlessly, as the
rube, fresh in from some other
dump. None of it, anyway, ever
brought me a thing at all.
-
But - who could ever figure that
40 years later, by 2005 anyway,
there'd be two Starbucks there
within spitting distance, an
'antique' styled subway entry,
sculpture in the plaza, greasy
guitar guys, and a big dip-shit
pizza place at the corner. The
music store, sheet music and
books, and the Village Voice,
in due time, stepped in too.
Everything is different and
everything is new, and -
speaking of sculpture - the
new buildings put in place
by Cooper Union are mostly
architectural disasters or blown
up bathtubs on acid. So much
for that. In 1967, and still today,
I stand there, disdainful of this
world around me, and say to
myself and the echoing ages,
'This, this, cannot be. Here is
where Abraham Lincoln
stood, and spoke to the crowd;
numerous other notables over
the years; here is where the
vicious riots were, drafts wars
and hangings and burnings.
Here is where the brigades
marched, out to their field
and artillery deaths in the
Civil War, and then back to
quell the riotous murders
too." There was too much for
me here to understand. The
envelope had too many folds.
-
I am not one to dwell, yet
here I dwell on. I am not one
to easily relinquish the past;
a better past, a wider past, a
past of more subtlety than today.
Therefore, I will not. I know, and
have known, that my body in this
life was sentenced here, shackled to
the foibles of inanity. And thereby
then did I stand and stay. Hating
every minute. Inanity has its
clumsy ways, and drew me in
some too. But from that I WAS
able to run. Dust on my heels
was not there for long. I made
sure to keep outrunning it; and
somewhere, somewhere in
the deep valor of time, my
own footsteps, and those of
of so many others, resound.
That is the echo of my
heart you hear. All that
I did, I did. And what I
failed at, I failed. It
all little matters now.
(the envelope had too many folds)
I became interested in architecture
mostly from being right near
Cooper Union, where there was
a lot of free-course stuff available -
courses and talks and sessions, most
about engineering and stress-distribution
and all that. Those were things that
little interested me, in fact not at all,
but in 1967 it was all a different world
and anyone could mostly walk into
anywhere - which I did a lot - and
partake. Everything was wide open;
I know that for a fact about NYU and
about Cooper Union, which usually
were more than enough for me.
There was so much turmoil
underway, and so many things
right then were undergoing really
rigorous societal change, that it
was as if people were simply afraid
to challenge others - like me - in
these cases, for fear of starting a
problem. Everyone in authority
was basically walking on ice, in
fear of organized shut-down, or
demonstrations or riots or sit-ins
or strikes. People were dying over
those sorts of issues, and NYC and
Greenwich Village were certainly
hotbeds of it all. At that time the
space all around Cooper Union
was used basically as a crazy
flea-market, open-air confab of
things for sale, laid out along the
sidewalks; hippie kids, stoned,
zonked or passed out, entering
or leaving St. Mark's Place. You
could find-to-buy most anything
there, 25 cents to a dollar was
the average. Believe me : bicycles,
mailboxes, globes, books, records
cameras, shoes and boots, clothing,
fishing reels, mitts and gloves for
baseball. It was as if old New York
City was intent on disgorging its
past. A big deal was record albums.
It's difficult to imagine now, but
these were the days BEFORE
even the most primitive cassette
tapes and 8-tracks. Record players
and LP's were the norm, each of
which were here as well. 45's, mostly
ephemeral stuff, disposable, were
there too, and people would pick
over things. There were also
sidelines - for drugs, and the skin
trades too - hippie guys would
sell their girlfriends - who'd go
willingly, for 5 dollars worth of
sex or fondle, etc. No one minded a
thing. The walk-ups and tenements
of the lower eastside, right there,
were open quarters for all sorts
of pleasures : shooting up, to
shooting in, as the saying went.
Probably a goodly, fair-share of
those hippie toddlers and kids of
those days came from such joinings.
Ostensible 'Daddies' abounded. It
was funny, I always thought, how
the one thing that most of the
people there needed - food -
was not to be had. Only later, by
Autumn, '67, did some free-food
stations and handouts begin taking
place in Tompkins Square Park,
by missions and some churches and
some welfare organizations. The Park
itself was only a little ways off, a
good deep walk east on St. Mark's,
always an eyeful and an exciting
place. For me, it was amazing.
It was filled, brimming with the
runaways and park-sleepers,
just as I had been, not long
before. They came in waves.
-
Being 'interested' in architecture
is actually about the stupidest thing
in the world to say. Architecture
demands mathematics, sciences,
algebras and geometries too; the
sorts of things I hated. My interest
was not in that plodding sense of
'how do we do this?' but always
more along the lines of the end
design, the lines and the flow of
the dimensional building. Which
isn't really 'architecture, but more
just the 'reaction' to it. Which I
dug. Like music and art, architecture
brings things out, it rings bells in
the head - each thing I'd see in
NYC, old buildings, churchs, halls,
hospitals and foundling homes too,
all of that stuff came right out of
the do-good movements of the
1880s and that period of real
turnover and new-comings to
the growing city; trying to
manage itself and create an
architectural presence no longer
ramshackle or dangerous or
run-down or filthy, and instead
construct and then protect a
sense of place and care for the
hordes. The same hordes who
fell there and kept coming like
aliens from other planets.
-
It was always strange for me, to
be walking that corridor from the
8th Street Studio School location,
east to St. Mark's, all of which then
became like a weird Main Street to
me, a collection of the imponderable:
freaks, outlandish exhibitionists,
annoying and bothersome people
some, and others the most shy
and almost sweet about things
people : reticent and confused, but
sure to be free and to be hip; the
leading edge of all that. Fanaticism.
Politics. Badinage. Crooks. Slobs.
De-frocked priests and nuns.
Soldiers and sailors on the lam.
Drm-majorettes in training, and
high-school runaways too. Fathers
looking for their daughters, and, so
sad, daughters looking for fathers.
I never knew what I'd stepped into.
I never even thought about getting
away, because all of this, still new
and raw to me, was exactly where
I'd gotten away too. Endings only
sometimes equal beginnings. Other
times they're better, or worse.
I wasn't yet sure. Some people
told me I had 'some' talent; others
laughed me off, endlessly, as the
rube, fresh in from some other
dump. None of it, anyway, ever
brought me a thing at all.
-
But - who could ever figure that
40 years later, by 2005 anyway,
there'd be two Starbucks there
within spitting distance, an
'antique' styled subway entry,
sculpture in the plaza, greasy
guitar guys, and a big dip-shit
pizza place at the corner. The
music store, sheet music and
books, and the Village Voice,
in due time, stepped in too.
Everything is different and
everything is new, and -
speaking of sculpture - the
new buildings put in place
by Cooper Union are mostly
architectural disasters or blown
up bathtubs on acid. So much
for that. In 1967, and still today,
I stand there, disdainful of this
world around me, and say to
myself and the echoing ages,
'This, this, cannot be. Here is
where Abraham Lincoln
stood, and spoke to the crowd;
numerous other notables over
the years; here is where the
vicious riots were, drafts wars
and hangings and burnings.
Here is where the brigades
marched, out to their field
and artillery deaths in the
Civil War, and then back to
quell the riotous murders
too." There was too much for
me here to understand. The
envelope had too many folds.
-
I am not one to dwell, yet
here I dwell on. I am not one
to easily relinquish the past;
a better past, a wider past, a
past of more subtlety than today.
Therefore, I will not. I know, and
have known, that my body in this
life was sentenced here, shackled to
the foibles of inanity. And thereby
then did I stand and stay. Hating
every minute. Inanity has its
clumsy ways, and drew me in
some too. But from that I WAS
able to run. Dust on my heels
was not there for long. I made
sure to keep outrunning it; and
somewhere, somewhere in
the deep valor of time, my
own footsteps, and those of
of so many others, resound.
That is the echo of my
heart you hear. All that
I did, I did. And what I
failed at, I failed. It
all little matters now.
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