Native New Yorkers
view the world through the grimy lens of experience, some might say
cynicism. Expecting and preparing for
the worst possible result from all people and situations seems the most sensible
way for a New Yorker to travel through this life. And travel we do - on busses, in taxis, on
ferries, and through subway tunnels, all within close proximity to our fellow
citizens. Because of these myriad public
transportation options, most of us don’t have a personal relationship with the
internal combustion engine; after all, if God had intended for New Yorkers to
drive, He wouldn’t have provided Alfred Ely Beach the idea for an underground
pneumatic railroad back in 1869.
And the subway
works just fine, thank you. Okay, it’s
sweltering in the summer, stifling in the winter, and crowded all the time,
but, it’s so much easier than taxis or busses.
Relatively few things can go wrong.
It runs on tracks from point A to point B; it can be fast or slow or
stuck in a tunnel, but it will never deviate from its path leaving you stranded
in a strange neighborhood. And for those
occasions requiring personal transportation there’s an Avis Car Rental garage
on East 43rd Street.
My grandfather owned
a car in the city which he used for both his business and to drive upstate for
weekends; my father had one, too. Although
I had learned to drive at seventeen, I rarely saw the need to actually do so. I had always commuted to school and work in
the more traditional fashion - strolling
to the subway stop, passing the firehouse, chatting with the firemen and
petting the dog, picking up a newspaper and coffee, and observing the theatre
of the city’s streets along the way.
Like most New
Yorkers, I’ve seen pretty much everything
life has to offer on those walks – from the homeless man lying on a
plaid sofa watching tv under the Queensboro Bridge to the bride in full white
wedding regalia boarding the B train. Yes,
in our travels New Yorkers have seen it all.
We’ve seen it with our own eyes, we’ve seen it often, and right now it’s
blocking the entrance to the building where we need to go, dammit. And no one in New York has seen more than its
police officers.
In the early years
of our relationship, Jamie’s office was in Brooklyn Heights and we lived on the
Upper West Side, just a few blocks from Engine Company 76. Jamie’s was an inconvenient and
time-consuming commute so Louis, his boss, thought a company car was in order:
that’s how a blue Mercedes C class entered our family immediately
enrolling us in that subset of city dwellers
whose lives are governed by the New York City Department of Transportation
Alternate Side Parking calendar, downloadable in various languages including
Chinese, Russian, and Haitian Creole.
(Believe me; woe of apocalyptic proportions betides the ignorant fool
who leaves his car on the wrong side of the street when a Department of
Sanitation street sweeper is due.) Months
passed with Jamie driving to work and my hopping on the train, each of us
pleased with the arrangement. Then came
the summer Saturday that we were invited to dinner with friends in Chappaqua, out
of the city, one of those occasions that the car was supposed to make easier.
Around noon, Jamie wandered into the living
room where I was watching a film I’d recorded.
I pushed the pause button when he
began to talk. “I have to go to meet Stu at Hudson Street at 3 o’clock so why
don’t we get ready early, I’ll go to the meeting then call you when we’re
through and you can meet me and we’ll head to the Damiano’s.”
I considered the
suggestion, then shrugged, unimpressed with the idea. “What’ll I do while
you’re with Stu?”
“Go shopping in
SoHo.”
I wrinkled my
nose. “No, I don’t want to do that. It’s a schlep from Hudson to any stores I
like and I was going to wear the blue suit with high heels tonight and I hate
walking around outside in nice shoes.”
“Take the car.”
“Yeah, and park at
Hudson Street and I’ll still have to walk all the way over to West
Broadway. No, thanks.”
“No, you take the
car, park on Broadway and I’ll walk over and meet you when Stu and I’re done.”
Pause. “Me drive?”
“Yeah, you know
how.”
Exhale. “Yeah, I know I know how but I don’t parallel
park real well.”
“So learn.”
He was using that
tone, that ‘What’s wrong? Can’t rise to the challenge?’ tone that I hate but
remain unable to resist.
Two beats, then
three. I blinked. He blinked.
I sighed. “Okay, fine. I guess I’d better get in the shower now then.”
By 2:45 pm we were
downtown. Jamie exited the car in front
of his friend’s mid-block office building and I slid behind the wheel. Before slamming the door he leaned in and
said, “I’ll call you when I’m through and you can tell me where you are and
I’ll come find you. Then we’ll drive to
the Damiano’s.”
“Humph, I’ll
probably be in traffic court.”
“Nope, you never
get a court date the same day as the offense.” Grinning, he slammed the door
and strolled away.
Using my walker’s
gps I tried to figure out how to pilot this monstrous vehicle back toward
Broadway. I knew that avenues run north
to south and streets are east to west but I am an Upper West Side baby; except
for attending NYU, I had little experience with southern Manhattan and even for that I exited the
subway at West Fourth Street and walked.
I knew that Hudson Street met West Broadway somewhere around Chambers
Street and that it runs both north and south so I could find the stores I
wanted easily enough, providing I could get to that point. The problem was that all of this was in the
direction opposite of where I was headed and I didn’t have the vaguest idea how
to get back to where I wanted to be.
Guided only by rudimentary
native New Yorker’s geography – east are the beaches of Long Island and west is New
Jersey and everywhere else until you reach Los Angeles – I nosed into the thick
Saturday afternoon traffic, slowly, nervously, inching what I hoped was
eastward. So many people, so many cars,
so many trucks, so many One Way signs sprang before me that in no time I was
completely discombobulated. I don’t know
what I did wrong but I found myself
crushed in the middle of the New Jersey-bound Canal Street traffic jam crawling
toward the open, leering mouth of the Holland Tunnel. Damn Jamie and his bright ideas.
The mere thought
of the tunnel panicked me.
Obviously it began in lower Manhattan but I had no idea where it ended. My mind conjured images of Lucy Ricardo’s
first driving lesson when, panicked, she attempted a three-point turn in the
tunnel and reportedly stopped traffic all the way to East Orange, New Jersey. Determined not to befall the same fate, I
looked nervously for someplace, anyplace, to turn out of the stream. It wasn’t going to be easy; all of the
streets seemed to be one way, feeding into the four lane bottleneck approach to
the double-tube tunnel. My palms grew
sweatier with each street I passed. About
a block before the actual entrance I noticed another one-way sign pointing
toward Canal Street but the street itself was blocked by blue NYPD
sawhorses. Rejoicing, I switched on my
right turn signal and began the laborious process of exiting to the right. I swerved around the sawhorse and saw three
New York City police officers standing by identical sawhorses at the opposite
end of the street; they were waving away all traffic attempting to turn into
the street. Hearing my approaching
engine, one broke from the cluster and sauntered toward my car. He gestured for me to stop, so I did; I
lowered the window and waited expectantly, hopefully.
“Lady, did you see the one-way sign?”
“Yes, but I’m
lost. I was getting forced into the
tunnel traffic and I didn’t mean to go there. I don’t want to go into the
tunnel. I don’t even know where it
goes. I was trying to get over to the
left to go to West Broadway but nobody would let me over. So I turned here to go around the block and
try another way.” I smiled.
His eyes narrowed
slightly. “Lady, this is a one-way
street. You’re going the wrong way.”
“Yes, I know.” Hadn’t
I just explained that?
He flexed his
jaw. “You’re going the wrong way on a
one-way street. You have to turn around and go back”
“No, I can’t go
that way. I’ll get pushed into the tunnel.” My hope was fading.
“Look, lady, either
you turn around or I am going to write you a ticket for driving the wrong way
on a one-way street. Now turn around.”
“No, I’ll get
pushed into the tunnel. If you have to
write the ticket, then write it but I
can’t go back that way. Nobody will let me over and I’ll end up somewhere in
New Jersey, I don’t even know where.” At this point all hope was gone and panic
was creeping into my voice, not for the ticket, but for the possibility of
getting lost in New Jersey.
He pushed his cap
further back on his head as he stared at me staring at him. He sighed.
“Lady, what do you want me to do, stop the traffic for you?”
“Yes, please.”
His eyes widened. I had chosen to take his sarcasm seriously
and now he was stuck, as stuck as I was.
He sighed again. “All right. Turn around and follow me.”
I executed my
three-point turn successfully and followed him up the slight grade. He stepped into the first lane of traffic and
held his right arm rigid with his palm toward the line of cars while gesturing for me with his
left arm. He repeated the process through
the lanes until all approaching cars had stopped; I followed behind him an inch
at a time like a tentative but obedient dog.
After I had cut diagonally across the stopped traffic I braked near the officer. He lifted his left arm and pointed
theatrically in the direction I needed to go, then swept his right arm across
his chest, brushing past his face, then dropped his head, in concert with the arm, into a dramatic
courtier’s bow. I yelled ‘thank you’
through the closed window and accelerated slightly. As I passed him I could see the grin on his
face.
Yes, we’ve seen it
all here in New York. And there are
reasons why many of us choose not to drive.
