so I did...

go to Brooklyn to pick up flyers for the march on 9/9. An interesting trip---I got off at the Church Street station of the 2, walked south to Beverly Road, and then west to where I was to pick up the flyers. The walk west, about 8 blocks (I had actually thought it was less)  consists of mostly private houses with a few art deco and small apartment houses thrown in. The street was pretty quiet, mellow, I guess you can say. Again, I ask myself what would it have been like to have walked that street in, say, 1955.  What would I have seen? The apartment houses would have mostly tenants who were Jewish (poorish to middle class), but what about the private houses? Who lived in them. My guess is that black homeowners began to buy them in the early or middle sixties. There is a great book, called South Bronx Rising, by Jill Joness, which, in almost novelistic terms, describes the changes in two major Bronx Jewish neighborhoods from 1930 to 1975. Amazing (and sometimes very frightening) stories. But nothing similar has been written about the transition of the enormous neighborhood called Flatbush during the late sixties and early seventies. Mark Naison, who teaches at Fordham, writes a very beautiful description of growing up in the fifties and early sixties, in the section that would probably be called, East Flatbush. But the story of the more galvanic transition of that area, and the area west and south of that has, to the best of my knowledge, not been documented. Still, I am fascinated each time I walk around there, it is as if the neighborhood holds some secret for me that I might discover in these walks. And I always ask myself, what would it be like to live there? At any rate, all these thoughts were motivated by the eight block walk that I took yesterday, to E 22nd street, before I picked up the flyers.
   Flyers were heavy, but I walked west, towards Ocean Avenue, and crossed it, into Ditmas Park. A little more upscale and diverse on that side of Ocean. But how was I to get to Bushwick from there? Almost impossible, right?  Well, the Q took me to DeKalb, then I got off---thought of walking to the G, and then picking up the L, but realized that the 38 bus would take me right to the Mayday church where I was to deliver the flyers. And that is what I did. Interesting trip through Bed-Stuy, into Bushwick. Dropped off the flyers, then walked over to Starr Bar to leave some more there---had a nice talk with a bartender named Lace--we were the only ones in the bar, at that point, and then figured I had to find a place to watch the Red Sox-Yankee game. I chose Pine Box Rock Shop, grabbed a beer, had the bartender put on the game, and watched for about an hour--one of the most boring three innings that I have ever encountered, and I am a baseball fan. But carrying the flyers (there were a lot of them) had exhausted me, so around 8:15---hit the subway and returned home. Slept very well, I might say, between about 10 and 4 A.M.
  And what about today? Well, tonight I will be at my friend Alaina's song cycle, which wlll be performed, ironically, on 46 street near Broadway. (A strange venue for a downtown theater experience). Before that, not sure, have to figure this out now--another Red Sox-Yankee game at 4---important game, but that is what I said yesterday, as well. Well, will just let it happen and report Monday