Returning to WIlliamsburg.....

for amazing desert with my friends Clint and Kim. A really good time talking---full of energy. Then it was time for them to go---and, at around 3, I was left with choices of where to go--how to finish this trip to the neighborhood that, beween 07 and 18, I spent so much time in.

So I walked around this neighborhood, actually walked south from Metropolitan---went to South fourth and then to Berry---a new bar-restaurant now takes South fourth's place---and then south again on Berry to Broadway. Looking at it now, the next morning, I feel a sadness---with more spare time this summer should I return---and come to terms with the memories of the past. So much has changed since the bar closed in late July of 18---I have changed so much physically---not sure how will I feel about another trip back soon. Anyway, afterwards, walked over to the major bus stop, under the Marcy Street J station and took the 46 east on Broadway and then south on Malcolm x boulevard. Interesting trip---although I know that Bed-Stuy has absorbed many white gentrifiers in the last 15 years, the bus was mostly black and hispanic--I don't think anyone taking this trip would imagine Bed-Stuy as a highly gentrified area. Of course, I did not travel on the side streets---that is where most of the change has taken place. I left the bus at Fulton, and took the C to Lafayette, near BAM, and then got my much needed ice coffee from the Center for Fiction cafe, and stayed there for a while, reading Tony Kushner's very interesting play, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism, etc. My plan was to go from there to outside the Public Theater in the East Village to watch the free performace of the musical version of The Comedy of Errors, but by the time I left, my body let me know that the choices were over---it was simply time to return to the upper west side and rest for the rest of the evening.

One more memory: the subway moved very quickly on my first trip, so I decided to get off at Lorimer on the L,instead of Bedford, which was closer to the desert place. Sat down in a semi-park near Union and looked around. Felt very refreshed by the space---everyone was young, which I liked---a sharp contrast to the cold, upper west side where everyone just walks past you with very little interest. Felt like I could just stay on those benches for a long time---but of course, didn't. Moved through the almost completely rebuilt and expensive Williamsburg to my desert destiny. More to follow.