RUDIMENTS 513.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 513

(making hay on brennan's farm)

Hoping you've all seen

the  photo of the Brennan

farm at today's 84th Street

and Broadway, in the late

1880's, I'll go on : In 1974,

there were two books out,

recently published, those

years, which I devoured.

One was titled, 'Will They

Ever Finish Bruckner

Boulevard?,' and it was

by Ada Louise Huxtable,

the Architecture Critic

for the NY Times. The

other was by Lewis

Thomas, entitled, 'The

Lives Of a Cell.' I was

enraptured of both, for

two different reasons, I

guess. They were both

well-written, and exquisite

to a fault. The thing about

Lewis Thomas' was the way

he presented humans as a

swarming-organism, getting

things done and making

things by their united

energies and chatter. His

clarion call sentence was

'We need more noise!' - said

as his refutation of those

seeking calm and discreet

quiet by which to settle

the world. His point was,

by NOISE do things get

done! Most certainly a

city argument. Ada Louis

Huxtable, on the other

hand, wrote notably of

NYCity structures,

design, construction,

utility, etc : the bricks

and mortar fabric of

the urban-scape.

-

A real focus of her

book was, for 1974,

the just-finished Family

Courts Building, in NYC,

which JUST happened

to be built at the Centre

Street area, which was

the smack-middle of the

old Collect. (Pronounced

'Ka-lect' and not 'collect,'

like 'collect'ing garbage).

It was a striking piece of

new architecture, back then,

in a thin veneer of a current

brutalist-style concrete and

glass assault. I liked it for

about half a year, and it

suddenly looked nasty and

passe. It's still there; been

re-freshened up once, and

slightly changed. In fact,

at that location is an entire

raft of NYCity bureaucracy

buildings, as I previously

said. And the irony of all

this is, of course the manner

in which the usurpation of

things by Government  -

city, state, and Federal

(courthouses and jails

at various levels, etc).

The old Collect Pond and

the old Rutgers homestead

are long and sadly forgotten.

Bums hang about now, under

the overhangs or at the little

park where the final part

of the Collect was sent

underground. This is far

downtown, bums pee, crap

lounge, eat, sleep, drink,

and die there. It's (almost)

not even dangerous because

the lethargy that permeates

the place runs right through

all these half-dead guys. The

Tombs is right there too,

across the street. It's all

very weird but it's about

the richest piece of NYC

and Manhattan (pre-NYC)

arcana you cam find. No one

has ever chased me away;

you can sit, eat or drink as

you wish. There are bicycles,

or parts of them anyway,

still locked in place on the

chain-link portions of the

cautionary fencing around.

Benches are plentiful enough,

though they usually have

guys sleeping on them, with

bags and bundles of vagrancy

belongings, the likes of which

you've probably not seen

before. One time, late of

a long Summer day, mid

June, I know this because

of the Gooch's Garlic Run

motorcycle rally that had

brought me there. We'd

broken off from the mob

and went here to settle in.

There were a few bums

about, interested and

talkative, in their way,

about the motorcycles,

they began jawing  -  the

one guy had a swollen

tongue! I mean swollen.

It like filled his mouth

and affected his speech.

I'd never seen that before.

Wondering about it all,

I said to my friend nearby,

'Holy cow, how's that guy

eat?' He replied, 'Heck with

that, how's he French kiss?'

(Biker humor; you had to

be there I guess). The

Tombs also being right

nearby, there were also

classes of degraded people,

mostly black and white

(this was late 1990's) and

families, milling about  -

the waiting area encompassed

an overhang, a covered area,

and a lobby/steps, where

people milled about for

visitation hours, hearings,

etc. Had Dante Alighieri

been here with me, I'm sure

we, together, could have

written a nice, late-entry

chapter to his famed book.

Inferno, or not. Police

personnel, motorcycles,

cop cars, prison-transport

vehicles, paddy-wagons,

chains, gates, beepers and

stingers. It was already a

version'd tease of Hell

anyway, and  -  with this

swollen tongue guy as

well  -  I fully expected

a swarm of Bosch freaks

to be leaving though the

main doorway (Hieronymus

Bosch, Flemish painter.)

-

Ok, this is leading to 

my last point. All of this

is quite unique to me, how

all of this old, sacred, rare

landscape of old Manhattan

island has been desecrated

and pillaged as it has. Down

at the Collect, I almost want 

to cry. Referring back to that

photo of the Brennan farm,

which location is not the

corner of 84th and Broadway,

it is here my story veers

wildly off  -  and I send 

out my warnings about 

tastefulness and offense. 

-

In 1984, working with a

friend, (Jeff Gordon, of

w87th street, down near 

the end, by Soldiers and

Sailors Monument and

Riverside Park  -  a very

nice, spaciously bold,

large pre-war apartment,

grandfathered through

his family, at those reduced

rents that allows  -  and

his wife, Juanita Elefante,

a Filipino who had lived

in the old San Juan Hill

projects and who was

displaced, along with her

family, when Lincoln

Center was built, on a

record LP project for 

Polygram Records, I

arrived one day, about

three hours too early. 

With that time to kill, 

I walked around, stopped

in a bookshop or two,

and even dipped into the

Mystery Book Store (on

87th, dedicated to mystery

books). I went to the corner

of 84th and Broadway, and

waited some more  -  not, 

at this time, knowing 

anything about Brennan's 

farm, nor what I was 

standing upon. A long 

white van kept driving

slowly about, stopping, 

people got off, new 

people got on, one 

or two at a time, and 

then it drove off again,

returning in 10 or so 

minutes. 84th and 

Broadway. Yep. Isn't

this all a kicker? You

know what was going 

on? The well-appointed

van was carpeted and

set-up  -  it was a brothel

on wheels, grandly doing

its upper west side business.

On Brennan's farm.