(no subject)
Mar. 23rd, 2005 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jawnbcI walk along the boardwalk on 114th Street, past the derelict hotels, decrepit nursing homes, through gaggles of not-quite-nuts-enough-to-be-entitled-to-proper-care folk, the sun dancing in my eyes. Under the winter's sun, the split timbers and displaced spikes aren't bleached out like they are in July. And without the chatter of the crowds, the broken glass under foot crunches. I need to watch my step here. This is not a safe space.
As you move away from 116th Street things get a bit...tidier. SRO hotels become apartment buildings; the boardwalk isn't in quite the same degree of disrepair. More often than not people clean up their dog's shit here, and take their empty beer bottles to a garbage can. There's the odd group of Irish seniors about: transistor radios playing the old music, men chatting with men and women chatting with women. They are not animated. As the sun goes down (and the temperature drops), they do not linger. The sky turns from azure to indigo, the wind picks up onshore. Street lamps flicker and sway in the breeze.
The boardwalk ends at 126th Street, 2 blocks after Nanny's and a block before Ma's. This part of the peninsula is not for the DFDs (down for the days). There's no street parking in summer, and any non-locals who appear on the beach in summer are scrutinized to the point of hostility. Who the fuck are you? Why the fuck are you here, on our beach? Though in winter, there's the odd person walking a dog or jogging at the shoreline. I make my way down the last ramp, walk a block towards the bay and another block west. Despite this being a "good" neighbourhood, the roads and sidewalks are in disarray. You can't build something solid on sand, without it crumbling. The cracks are everywhere.
Da never locks the door, a habit from when they had a dog to keep intruders at bay. But in reality, like on the beach, people know who belongs and who doesn't. I've not met many of their neighbours, but my face tells the story: I'm one of them, I'm OK, I belong.
I belong.
As you move away from 116th Street things get a bit...tidier. SRO hotels become apartment buildings; the boardwalk isn't in quite the same degree of disrepair. More often than not people clean up their dog's shit here, and take their empty beer bottles to a garbage can. There's the odd group of Irish seniors about: transistor radios playing the old music, men chatting with men and women chatting with women. They are not animated. As the sun goes down (and the temperature drops), they do not linger. The sky turns from azure to indigo, the wind picks up onshore. Street lamps flicker and sway in the breeze.
The boardwalk ends at 126th Street, 2 blocks after Nanny's and a block before Ma's. This part of the peninsula is not for the DFDs (down for the days). There's no street parking in summer, and any non-locals who appear on the beach in summer are scrutinized to the point of hostility. Who the fuck are you? Why the fuck are you here, on our beach? Though in winter, there's the odd person walking a dog or jogging at the shoreline. I make my way down the last ramp, walk a block towards the bay and another block west. Despite this being a "good" neighbourhood, the roads and sidewalks are in disarray. You can't build something solid on sand, without it crumbling. The cracks are everywhere.
Da never locks the door, a habit from when they had a dog to keep intruders at bay. But in reality, like on the beach, people know who belongs and who doesn't. I've not met many of their neighbours, but my face tells the story: I'm one of them, I'm OK, I belong.
I belong.
