Wake Me Up When September Ends

Summer has come and passed, and this past month has gone so fast.

It began with the rain in New York...

Which flooded parts of my hometown in New Jersey...

I was moved by the quick action of many neighbors to help those in need.

Days later, the banks of the Hackensack River, whose high tides had been unforgiving, looked idyllically lush...

The juxtaposition between New York and New Jersey seemed heightened in September...

... The stark differences between looking up past the eagle guarding Grand Central Terminal and the gathering crowd at the Mets/Yankee game on the evening of September 11, and looking down Van Houten Avenue in Clifton after Sunday brunch or a lonely visit to the new sculpture garden at the New Milford Library.

I love these contrasts in my daily life.

Later in September, on a return visit to Citi Field, my wife and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary with family and friends. I didn't ask for the OK to post photos, so here's simply the back of my daughter's jersey (I'm wearing the "Varettoni 35" jersey, a great gift from my great friend Joe). My daughter had the jersey made in honor of my late Dad, who was nicknamed "Chick" when he played semi-pro ball...

I celebrated my birthday on Sept. 27 by watching the sun rise on the beach at Asbury Park...

And, finally, on Sept. 29, our family attended a wake in Tenafly at dusk to celebrate the life of a remarkable woman, Carmen Unanue. May her memory be eternal.

Reflections on a Visit to 'Springsteen: His Hometown'

Act 1: Greetings From Freehold

You should grab a $15 ticket to "Springsteen: His Hometown" at the Monmouth County Historical Association, located in Freehold, NJ.

Highly recommended. With a limited run through July 31.

As described at the link above on the MCHA website, the exhibit gives a comprehensive look at how the Freehold area has been thematically woven into Bruce Springsteen's music and art throughout his career. Over 150 unique items are on display.

Here are some photos I took during a recent visit, beginning with this Facebook post:

Below are two favorites on display. The scrapbook compiled by Bruce's mother Adele, and a ring of hotel keys from the E Street Band's early tours (although I couldn't find one from South Bend, IN, and the 1976 Lawsuit Tour, see Act 2):

Act 2: Bruce and Me

Driving to the exhibit from Bergen County, my wife and I followed Waze's directions off the Parkway and down Route 9.

I didn't realize Freehold was as far inland. I thought it was closer to Asbury Park, which I've visited often in recent years. I remarked to my wife, "I don't think I've ever been on this road before."

Then it occurred to me, this was the very "Highway 9" made famous in the lyrics to "Born to Run." (Also featured in that song is a reference to Asbury's Palace Amusements, demolished 17 years ago this weekend. Here's a great nj.com video about the Palace and the iconic Tillie.)

I've been a Bruce fan all my life... or, I should say, from the time I first played "The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle" on my record player while at the University of Notre Dame, garnering the approval of the music-aficionado roommates from Canada who lived down the corridor at Pangborn Hall.

A group of us snapped up tickets for his performance on campus in October 1976. It was the first rock concert I had ever attended, and it was so good, no other concert has since measured up. It's an irrevocable memory that inspires me to this day.

That's why I call him simply "Bruce." And why, when I finally visited Freehold, I also took photos of his old house at 39 1/2 Institute Street, his old high school, and St. Rose of Lima, his family's parish church:

Act 3: Howling at the Moon

Just this week, there's more of Bruce in the news, with the announcement that "Springsteen On Broadway" will return with a limited run through Sept. 4.

Now that I've written this homage to Bruce, and posted my masked and smiling face at the Monmouth County Historical Association, I'm going to take a moment, put aside the photos, and howl at the moon in a block of text few might ever read.

I want to consider this: is Springsteen a poet for the rich?

We've all grown up now, and it seems we can afford the starting price of $600 a ticket* for a few hours of entertainment.

Does that make it worth it? Does that make it right?

As homelessness continues to sprawl on the streets off Broadway, the harsher realities of our world become harder to ignore.

It's not how much people earn. Few people seem concerned with Bruce's wealth. Not in a world where Jeff Bezos earns more than $2 million every 15 minutes, every day. It's not just Bruce, after all. Many people will benefit from New York City's revival, in many ways.

What concerns me is, how much we will pay? And for what?

A song? A story? Free shipping?

We are desperate for something of value.

Mine is a stolen moment that evokes a $6.50 ticket to a concert on an October night in Indiana, when everyone was young, and I was surrounded by friends, and everyone sang along.

The more time passes, the more money I might pay to try to recapture the past.

Bruce, the poet of the rich, knows this about me.

What he may not know is that the better me, the me I'm still trying to become, walks the streets off Broadway with more desperation each day, longing for words of hope from a poet of the poor.

I believe there's something of more value to be found in a town full of losers when we're not inspired to pull out of there to win.

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*- Prices started at $600-$850, with just a few at $75. The lowest priced ticket on seatgeek.com today for the June 26 performance is $649, with prices up to $2,500. The $600 coincidentally matches what eligible individuals received in the federal government's recent Economic Impact Payment.

A Tree Grows in New Milford

Turtle Bay Gardens, the green courtyard between East 48th/49th streets, 6 pm, 5/26/21.

A tree grows in New Milford, NJ...

    by way of Brooklyn...

    by way of a courtyard garden in Turtle Bay, New York City.

The writer E.B. White used to live in an apartment overlooking that garden. From his window, the author of "Charlotte's Web" often admired a particular old willow tree that grew next to a replica Roman fountain.

In the closing paragraph of his famous essay, "Here Is New York," White referred to the tree as a metaphor for New York City itself:

"...In Turtle Bay there is an old willow tree that presides over an interior garden. It is a battered tree, long suffering and much climbed, held together by strands of wire but beloved by those who know it. In a way it symbolizes the city: life under difficulties, growth against the odds, sap-rise in the midst of concrete, and the steady reaching for the sun.

"Whenever I look at it nowadays...I think: 'This must be saved, this particular thing, this very tree.' If it were to go, all would go -- this city, this mischievous and marvelous monument which not to look upon would be like death."

White's willow, a 1949 illustration.

E.B. White died in 1985. The willow tree died in 2009. And some people will tell you that New York City died at the start of a pandemic in March 2020.

I'm here to tell you that none of these things are true.

Just as Wilbur never forgot Charlotte, White is practically immortal and his words still capture readers' hearts today. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

Also, before the dying tree was chopped down, composer Stephen Sondheim and other residents of Turtle Bay Gardens arranged for Bill Logan, a writer and conservationist, to preserve clippings from the willow.

Logan, founder and longtime president of the tree-care company Urban Arborists, planted one outside his office in Brooklyn. The shoot from E.B. White's willow is now more than 40 feet tall, and Logan has donated shoots from the offspring to schools, libraries and parks across the New York City area.

He donated one to me this spring. He just wanted a photo in return. Here it is, Bill:

I picked it up in late March 2021 and took care of it for a few weeks. Last Friday a DPW crew proudly, and properly, planted it on the front lawn of the New Milford Library.

New Milford is a Jersey-side suburb of New York in Bergen County. As the bird flies, it's a little under 12 miles between the library and Turtle Bay Gardens.

It's less than a 30-minute drive without traffic, in the middle of a pandemic. But today, the drive took me more than an hour.

My office building overlooks Turtle Bay Gardens, and atop this page is a photo of the view on this warm, beautiful day.

New York is teeming with life (and traffic and noise and energy) today. A storm is approaching. Meanwhile, a small willow tree is growing in New Milford.

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Here's a related essay I posted last summer.

9 Images of Spring 2021

Photos mine; captions in 6 words.

Before sunset on Steuben Avenue, 5/11.

I will never understand my cat.

Mom, waiting for me to return.

Minnie Mice return to Times Square.

First sign of summer, in April.

New York shines when it rains.

Me, suspended between NYC and NJ.

Hackensack sunset; New Jersey's surprising beauty.

Slowly, my world returns to "normal."

Scenes From New Bridge Landing

One thing about New Jersey: A little distance can make a big difference.

On short afternoon walks from my suburban hometown, I pass neat rows of houses and a busy county road, and then just yards away I seamlessly pass into the Revolutionary War era.

Sure, I can see a shopping mall beyond the trees in the distance, and I know there's an Applebee's and Home Depot just down the road, but here -- at Historic New Bridge Landing Park -- an abundance of trees creates the illusion of a time bubble.

From top: Steuben House,
Campbell-Christie House,
my favorite barn at sunset.

It's quiet here, and in recent COVID days I often have the place to myself and pretend I am haunting it.

You can read all about the park, download resources, hear podcasts and take virtual video tours at a Bergen County Historical Society website. It describes the site this way:

"Historic New Bridge Landing preserves a compelling and scenic fragment of the Jersey Dutch countryside, strategically situated at the narrows of the Hackensack River and famed for its compelling role in the Revolutionary War. Its distinctive antique dwellings, artifact collections and scenic landscapes are uniquely reminiscent of a vanished folk culture, dependent upon the tidal river as a commercial artery and a self-renewing source of nourishment and industrial power."

Here are some images to help you set the scene. The locally iconic red barn is my favorite.

Stop by for a visit some day. See hello, if you see me, or my ghost, wandering the grounds, taking photos.

 

Various views of "New Bridge," constructed in 1889
on the site of "the bridge that saved a nation." You can look it up 🙂

Pre-COVID old-time baseball games and dances.
Bottom right, a peak behind locked doors in March 2021.

Every Picture Tells a Story

Don't it?

A month ago, I spent some time feeling inferior, standing in front of my mirror... A camera hung around the neck of my reflection. At least the lens cap was off.

I had met a few photography friends in Jersey City earlier that day, but I hadn't taken a single photo with my camera. It was only a prop. I just wanted to fit with the others. Also, I've found that conspicuously displaying a camera also gives me license to wander among strangers.

In the hastily captured image above, I was toying with my iPhone's "pano" setting an hour before a line of true photographers gathered along what is, in reality, a perfectly straight railing to wait patiently, cameras poised on tripods, for sunset.

Their photos were gorgeous. My image (auto-enhanced by Google Photos) is like a horror movie where an inanimate object reaches out into another dimension. At least it's my inspiration for another haiku:

Beckoning to me,

a desperate city skyline

knows we are alone.

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I've thought of Jersey City often this past week.

I read, for example, that an annual survey cited it as the most diverse U.S. city for the third time in the past four years.

Just a few steps back from the Manhattan skyline view, in the heart of Exchange Place, is the dramatic Katyn Memorial, a bronze statue of an impaled Polish soldier dedicated to the massacre of POWs by Soviet troops in 1940. A few years ago, a civic organization sought to move it to a more secluded area, calling the monument "gruesome."

Instead, recognizing its significance to the Polish community, the Jersey City Council voted unanimously in 2018 to keep the memorial in Exchange Place "in perpetuity."

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The city's street art also reflects its diversity.

I took the above iPhone photo of the mural "Native" by the artist Gaia, and captioned it this way on Instagram:

"Finding Shakespeare, framed by dramatic clouds, on the streets of Jersey City."

Almost immediately I received a comment from the street artist himself. "Hey," he wrote, "that's Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange!"

So I corrected the caption and researched the story of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. Then I found the website for the Jersey City Mural Arts Program and got lost in the stories of dozens of other murals I had seen around town.

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On Friday, as I do every week, I posted a photo of a New Jersey pizzeria (this one, cleverly named "Rig A Tony's") on my "Found in NJ" Instagram account. I picked a photo from just blocks away from Prince Frederick and noticed a memorial plaque outside the front entrance.

Here's that story:

A small plaza in Jersey City, William Mercado Memorial Park, features a stone memorial, placed in 2019, and titled "El Piraguero #1."

This is in memory of William Mercado, who sold piraguas (flavored ices) on the site from the time he was 12 years old until his murder at age 25 in 1994.

According to newspaper reports, William was a popular figure in the neighborhood, and his snow cones were a favorite among children. To this day, his mother tends the flowers here. His brother, George, runs a flower shop nearby.

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And now it's Sunday. As I do every week, I'm posting a photo of a New Jersey church on Instagram.

This is Grace Church Van Vorst, an Episcopal church on Erie Street in Jersey City.

"Our church is not just a building," reads one of its outside banners. I've discovered that, built in 1853 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Grace Church has been a haven for artists, musicians, people experiencing hunger and homelessness, the LGBTQ+ community, and anyone who might not fit in elsewhere. You can learn more here.

Better, you can enjoy the musical performances of its four-hour fundraiser, held yesterday on Facebook. The church surpassed its $8,000 goal, but the page has links if you wish to contribute even more.

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Every picture tells a story, don't it?

This is why I love photography. There's more to it than the craft or the aesthetic. It stops time.

An old Rod Stewart song is playing in the background as I write this. I remember the lyrics from high school.

"On the Peking ferry, I was feeling merry..."

It's a silly song, but it's full of life and energy.

Like the best photos by my favorite photographers, it focuses my thoughts on a moment I can savor, while everything else passes in a blur.

A Visit to Eagle Rock, With a View to Oz

On a clear day, you can see Emerald City.

Above is the view from Eagle Rock Reservation. More specifically, it's from the lookout next to Highlawn Pavilion, a restaurant/hall on the ridge of the Watchung Mountains, in the midst of a 400-acre park triangulated by Montclair, Verona and West Orange.

It's the site of Essex County's September 11th Memorial. 

Here are some photos of the memorial items from a recent visit:

Above is "Remembrance and Rebirth," a bronze figure lifting a lantern to the former site of the Twin Towers.

To the left (with caption information from the brochure linked above and published by the Essex County Department of Parks, Recreation & Cultural Affairs) is the 120-foot granite "Wall of Remembrance." Engraved there are the names of the 3,000 people who lost their lives in the September 11 attacks, including those aboard the four airline flights.

The three memorial artifacts below are:

Freedom - An 8-foot, bronze, life-size eagle with its wings spread in full flight.

Gabriella - A life-size bronze sculpture of a young girl holding a teddy bear. She represents the more than 1,000 children who lost a parent, brother, sister, grandparent or other family member.

Firefighter Helmet - On a short pedestal to the left of Gabriella is a replica FDNY helmet engraved, "with deepest gratitude from the people of Essex County, New Jersey, in memory of the 343 New York City Firefighters who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty on September 11, 2001."

Finally, here's a World Trade Center artifact that is preserved at the site: a 7,400-pound steel and concrete portion of the foundation. Behind that is a newer statue saluting the search and rescue dogs of 9/11. More than 350 Daschunds, Golden Retrievers and other dogs were called into action that day.

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Of course, Eagle Rock is also the site of some stunning views of the New York City skyline.

Those aren't hard to stumble across in New Jersey.

When I posted the photo at the top of this page to "Found in New Jersey" on Tumblr, a friend (I don't know his real name, everyone seems to be anonymous there) commented: Pete Hamill wrote that when he stared dumbstruck at Manhattan for the first time in his life, his mother said, "Peter, you've seen it before. It's Oz."

Traveling around New Jersey, this skyline can appear suddenly and magically: driving over a bluff heading south on Route 17 past Ramsey, or north on the Turnpike approaching Newark, or east on Route 3 in Nutley or on Route 80 in Hackensack.

I also have favorite destinations to see the city in the distance: Weehawken and Jersey City, Fort Lee Historic Park and Garret Mountain Reservation in Paterson.

The view from Weehawken.

Sometimes, New York's skyline appears unexpectedly. On my first visit to Gateway National Park, I was surprised to see the city to the north since it's a more than 50-mile drive from Sandy Hook Beach to One World Trade Center, the heart of Ground Zero.

Stumbling upon the view, I felt a kindred connection to what F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the Dutch who sailed down the Hudson River from the opposite direction centuries ago.

In January 2021, the copyright on "The Great Gatsby" has expired, so I end this post with a clear conscience as I quote some favorite lines:

As the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes — a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

 

The view from Jersey City.

20 Images of 2020

In January, walking to work in Manhattan with the sun in my eyes. A video loop of the same basic image shows the Ghosts of 2020 Future.

In February, a post-Valentine's Day trip to Asbury Park, followed by a post-quarantine visit in July, again haunted by sunrise shadows.

In March, I saw Manhattan for the last time in months... first, from a final plane trip at the start of the month, then walking to work past Times Square on March 13.

In April, it snowed in my hometown in New Jersey, and deer roamed the suburban streets during lockdown.

In May, I needed to drive into Manhattan to run an errand for Mom. I didn't get out of my car, except to shoot this photo of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Later, I stopped on the way to Mom's house to sneak a photo of the Great Falls in Paterson.

In June, I saw my youngest daughter for the first time in months. It was a foggy night on the Seaside Heights boardwalk, and I stopped when she didn't realize it so I could capture her image before she disappeared into the mystic.

In July, I met photography friends, socially distanced, at the Empty Sky Memorial in Jersey City.

In August, I visited Fort Lee Park with my wife (and returned in October for a different perspective from the Palisades).

In September, I went for a walk with my oldest daughter in Saddle River Park, and we watched birds already heading south.

In October, I was back at work in New York two days a week, enjoying the office view and returning to find Times Square decidedly not a "ghost town."

In November, I stopped to take a photo in Bloombury, NJ -- and found more shadows on the face of this church.

In December, a friend who hasn't been able to return to New York asked for a photo of the new skyscraper, One Vanderbilt, in the season's first snowfall.

Finally, after Christmas, I returned to Asbury Park to take a photo of 2020's last full moon...

... and howl.