Sandy: "I'll Take Manhattan..."

Darlings! It's sad that only an event of catastrophic proportions would get your Enchilada back to these pages. She has been busy reviewing movies and working for no pay for the greater good of artists, but she is back to tell you about her "nordeal" apres Sandy, that evil bitch.
After the no-show that was last year's Irene, which left us stranded for four extra days in Cancun, we thought, pinches gringos, how they exaggerate. However, since the images of the great eye of the storm in the sky were pretty dramatic, this time we decided to play it safe and calmly follow the panic. Here's the report.
Sunday afternoon:
The supermarket downstairs is in pre-apocalyptic mode. I have never seen so many people stocking up, including in 9/11. Bread is gone, water almost gone, but most importantly, supplies of potato chips and Doritos, etc. have vanished off the shelves. I guess this is what people understand by non-perishables. Being totally unversed in the arts of post-apocalyptic survival, (despite experiencing the 1985 earthquake in Mexico, 9/11 and the 2003 blackout), instead of buying unappetizing canned goods, I buy the fresh ingredients for a spaghetti carbonara, asparagus and shallots and every single supermarket item that is sure to perish in the event of a blackout. See, being a denizen of chic downtown, I am convinced that power outages are reserved for the unhip. Serves me right.
Monday evening:
We are smugly following the dramatic non-reports as yet from wind battered TV reporters, all appliances working at full speed, when we see a huge blue aura come from about where the transformer of 14th Street is, the lights dip, and pop, we are without power. Being from nations like Mexico, where there are frequent power and water outages, we have learned one thing: power outages are extremely infrequent in the United States, but when they happen, they last forever. Basically, we're screwed. Soon we run out of water, since we live on the 13th floor and the pump doesn't get this far without electricity. Our building does not have a generator. So candlelights and wine it is. Also, pasta with broccoli and anchovies that I managed to cook before lights went out. So far so good. I feel like we're in Barry Lyndon and I am Marisa Berenson.
Outside our window, it looks like everyone is in darkness except for people above 34th St. What we can see of Soho, the West Village and the L.E.S is pitch black. But lo and behold, in the first extraordinary feat of surrealism (there are more to follow), the two NYU buildings next to us are awash in light, TVs glowing, stereos playing, water flowing. NYU has power. No one else does. Typical.

A room without a view. 

Throughout the night, the wind shakes our windows, which the super has informed me, are shatterproof. The building creaks. Soon we learn that the big tree that gave shade to our backyard is down like a house of cards. It broke the sturdy iron garden fence and collapsed on Houston St. It could have killed someone.

Our fallen gentle giant. 

All of lower Manhattan is in utter darkness and silence. No cars, few sirens, no noise. Eerie.
Tuesday morning:
Against all sensible advice, Magnificent Arepa wants to snoop around. So down we go through thirteen flights of pitch black stairs, with our flashlights and Petra in tow.
The streets are empty, everything is closed, the wind has scattered tree branches everywhere, some windows are broken and some street signs are askew. Tourists roam around like Jews in the desert, with nothing better to do. Downtown hotels are in darkness. We go all the way down to Battery Park, with the winds still howling, and sure enough, the water has receded but I have never seen it so high. It is lapping at the level of the promenade. This is super scary. It looks like a Michael Bay movie.
We wonder if Joe's Shanghai, which never closes, is open (soup dumplings and scallion pancake would certainly restore our spirits right about now). You know that you are in deep doodoo if Joe's Shanghai is closed. My cell phone has no signal and I rue the day when I let the fucking cable company convince me to relinquish my land line. I also can't find the transistor radio that helped me miss the party at the 2003 blackout. I heeded Bloomberg's advice and stayed home while everybody had a ball on the streets.
We are effectively incommunicado. I don't mind so much living in darkness, the respite from internet is actually nice in a way, but no water is not fun. The weather has been balmy up to now (surely the reason for the storm in the first place -- global warming central), but now it's getting chilly, and no heat, no water and no power up 13 flights of stairs becomes challenging.
Tuesday evening:
We go to our friends in the NYU building next door (luckily they just happened to move there), for a shower and to charge phones that don't work and go on internet. They are on the 26th floor, and the view of lights above 34th St and a black nothingness below is amazing. It is so reassuring and lovely to suddenly find out that dozens of friends are inquiring about us, some offering shelter. At this point we are seriously considering relocating, because what we hear on the streets is not good: it could take "days" to restore power. We get a godsend message from a friend who offers his apartment uptown. And we take it.
We go for a fast recon mission on the streets before trudging up the stairway. Our neighborhood and beyond are in the darkest dark, but NYU students are roaming about and the Korean delis on Broadway are open. The cashier tells me they will be open all night and selling breakfast in the morning. Two Koreans and a Mexican helper with three flashlights, and they feel safe enough to do it.
People are charging their equipment outside the NYU library and student center. Wicked Willy's, a bar on Bleecker, happens to be open, and it's doing brisk business, an oasis of light and booze in the darkness.
Through our walks during the day and at night we marvel (as we did during 9/11 and the blackout) at the civilization of New York City. I've seen one or two aimless people perhaps looking to steal something (or maybe I'm just paranoid) but other than that, that tourists and citizens feel safe enough to walk around with children and pets in tow is a testament to the safety and the greatness of this city.
Wednesday afternoon:
Coming down in darkness with Petra and our bags and computers in tow, we find a bunch of neighbors huddled in the lobby eating pizza. Suddenly, I get pangs of survivor's guilt. Here we are, abandoning ship, while there are people in our building that have nowhere to go. A lot of elderly people cannot leave their apartments. Luckily, our building is a solid community and I know that neighbors keep an eye on each other. I tell myself that we are helping the building by not straining its resources even further. The no water situation in a 30-story building with 180 apartments is not to be taken lightly.
We are lucky to get a cab (they are scarce downtown) and a cabdriver who does not object taking us uptown and who did not gauge us. All of a sudden, as if there was a thin, invisible line demarcating the damaged from the untouched, on 26th Street there are lights, stores are open, people are going places. Frantic Manhattan as usual. It's surreal.
The trip from Houston St to 66th St, which usually takes about 15-20 minutes, took almost an hour and a half and cost $35. Mainly because of this:

Cranes are flying. 

I'm sure I'm not the only soul experiencing a high degree of schadenfreude at the prospect of bad karma for this building, where the apartments start at $80 million.
Uptown, it's as if nothing ever happened. It's Halloween. Adults and kids are in disguise (so not hip), the cineplex is open (praise the Lord!), restaurants are crammed. The only sign of something askew is that the supermarket has run out of fresh garlic. Meanwhile, this is the first time that we watch on TV the horrifying footage of the damage inflicted by Sandy in New Jersey, Staten Island and other places. We can't believe it.  As is usual, no word whatsoever on TV about the devastating effects of Sandy on other, even less fortunate countries, like Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, etc.
But there is a silver lining:
• The Halloween parade has been canceled, which gives me no small amount of glee. I hate this holiday and in particular this parade. Sorry lovers, I'm a hater.
• This storm effectively put a lid on the media obsession with the election and those stupid polls (which I am convinced are fabricated), and derailed the campaigns. This election will arrive at its home stretch with less of the incessant, polluting noise of punditry, and more of the real choice that is staring us all in the face. Sandy certainly puts in perspective the callousness of the Romney/Republican philosophy. The storm affected mostly blue states and the federal government's help will be very welcome. Obama has reacted how a president reacts. He may have severe failings, but he is a decent human being, not a robber baron. When the shit hits the fan, I'm sure all those people who clamor for less government may think twice if it it is them that have to be rescued by federal aid, by working infrastructure, by first responders, by a working government. When the shit hits the fan, are we going to vote for an experienced, serious president, or for a sleazy, indifferent corporate buffoon?

I wish safety and a speedy recovery to all those who are struggling through these difficult times.

So Much For Letter Writing

Oh well, my lovely missive to Mr. Pei was totally beside the point. It turns out that because the community opposed NYU's plans to add a fourth tower to Mr. Pei's design, and he disagreed with the fourth tower, now they are going to punish us even worse, by razing our supermarket and building a much bulkier, bigger and uglier building right on the corner, right across from the only building that does not house NYU faculty.  This is the monstrosity they plan to erect in front of my windows:

 

They claim Pei's firm likes this plan better. If they do, they are blind and utterly insensitive to the people who live in the area. This is not a victory for the community. This is much worse than the proposed tower, which at least tried to be graceful and blend in with the existing layout and was not really closely obstructing anyone's view. No matter what the plan, the fact that NYU's insistence in building smack on the superblock is horrible.  Now we are going to have to put up with far more people, in an already crowded area, our lovely plaza is going to be deformed and overcrowded and where the hell are we going to go for overpriced groceries? Plus, Greenwich Village is going to look like downtown Detroit. But unfortunately NYU owns the land and they can do whatever they please. They can raze the Village and build their repulsive eyesores all over it as they have been doing for years. I hate that Philip Johnson library of theirs, which looks like a bunker. I hate the Skirball building across it. We already live in their campus. They tried to appease the community, which was fighting not to compromise on anything and this is the terrible result.

A Letter To I.M. Pei

Do you know what cranky New York alte cockers like me do? We write letters! I have been known to write to Mayor Bloomberg (rats, the demise of small businesses), to Chuck Schumer (universal healthcare), to American Airlines (a flight to Buenos Aires with not even a towelette), etc.
I wrote this one to distinguished architect I.M. Pei, the man who designed and built the place I live in:

Dear Mr. Pei:

I live in one of your Silver Towers. I have been enjoying my spacious and bright apartment here since 1992. As I’m sure you are aware, NYU is planning to build a 400-feet high hotel tower on the superblock site of your towers. This building will strongly affect what I think is your lasting legacy, which is the lovely harmony of the towers as they stand today, but most importantly, the open communal spirit of the plaza that anchors the towers.  I wish you could see what goes on on our plaza every day. Children play, elderly neighbors huddle together to catch the sun, people have lunch alfresco: it’s a wonderful public space, with an expansive sense of openess, a unique luxury in a city like New York. It is now being threatened by the forced inclusion of a fourth tower in an area that is already quite densely populated.   

So many of us live in the Silver Towers and yet the plaza is never too noisy or too busy. It’s an incredibly civilized urban space, where people come together. Bring in a hotel in the entrance to the plaza and part of the open and spacious spirit of the plaza would be lost.

Since NYU’s expansion plan began, I have been impressed by our community’s efforts to preserve the superblock as it is. It got landmark status, but this does not seem to deter NYU. I am an amateur lover of architecture and I know cities must change and new buildings must arise (as they did in 1960 when you built these towers). But I truly believe that squeezing in a fourth tower here would destroy the wonderful harmony of the space you designed and would impoverish the quality of life of its residents.

If you have any say in the matter, I respectfully urge you to consider the lives of the neighbors that are enriched day by day by the graceful and unique place we live in. This hotel can be built somewhere else.

Sincerely,

 

The Grande Enchilada.
(trying to do my part).

NYU's Grandiose Schemes

NYU is proposing to add 6 million square feet of new space across New York City in the next twenty years, with half the growth taking place in the historic blocks of the Village—the equivalent of three Javits Centers.

Let me translate: NYU plans to add 3 million square feet of construction to my neighborhood (a lot of it on my block) and apparently not much can be done to stop it. The recent landmark status accorded to the I.M. Pei superblock, where I live, has not been a deterrent. They want to build a 38-story new hotel tower on the site. They are going to build a 17-story building on Mercer Street facing the Angelika Film Center, where they intend to put, among other things, 1,400 freshmen. They are going to put two buildings in the beautiful and serene gardens of Washington Sq. Village.
John Sexton, the president of NYU, who confuses himself with Lorenzo de Medici in a bad way, has grandiose words to sell his vision. 

“The analogy that I use is to the Italian Renaissance, when there was Milan and Venice and Florence and Rome, and the talent and creative class moved among those points,”

As if. Yet he talks about the opposition as "demagogues" and "activists". But the opposition is actually mostly neighbors. It's the people who live in the buildings and on the streets where this monstrous expansion is slated to take place. Many of the faculty who live in the Pei towers and Washington Sq. Village are not jumping for joy either. It is not so much about preserving a bohemian and artistic character that, let's be frank, has been virtually lost. It's about NYU not engulfing everything on sight.
Of course the expansion plan is a boon for construction work and jobs and money for the city, which is why Bloomberg and the politicians don't oppose it. In New York City, preservation efforts are massively heroic and mostly doomed to failure. This is the only civilized city in the world where a gorgeous and important landmark like the original Penn Station was torn down, a city that would have torn down Grand Central Station if those pesky activists and demagogues had not fought to stop it. They had Jacqueline Onassis on their side. The neighbors who live in the Pei superblock (which I am not comparing to the train stations) don't have the glamorous power credentials. We are just people. Of the three Pei towers, two are faculty housing for NYU and the other one is a Mitchell-Lama Co-op where middle class people of all ages and races live. There are a lot of elderly residents. It is a community.  And it is a community of Greenwich Villagers.
The irony is that the Pei superblock was an offending eyesore in its day. Together with the Washington Square Village buildings across the street, an entire swath of quaint Greenwich Village was demolished to make way for its brutalist, modernist aesthetic, and at least in the case of my building, for middle income people to have affordable housing. I assume this must have been a concession the city asked of NYU in order to let them build. The buildings were hated in their day (1960), but time has proven them to have been executed with a certain grace, and they provided enduring public spaces for community life. As happens with buildings of a certain age, now they have a retro feel that people are actually fond of and they are architecturally significant (I guess the Pei more than the Washington Sq. Village, but I happen to love the blocky sixties architecture and their peaceful inner courtyards).
I'm not opposed to progress. Cities change. The village is a pathetic shadow of what it used to be. But it should not become NYU. What I like about the Village is that it is full of lively and engaged people who are putting up a fight.

The little people