n y c's passion for grids
Manifestation of the passion#1:
Manhatten island, New York city: grid city. "It's impossible to get lost in this city," said noisynotes, not known for his navigational skills. I disagree. I have a good visual memory of places, and I can usually find my way around after having gone through somewhere once. But I'm no good in a grid city. The right-angle edges of streets confuse me. What was to the right before becomes something on the left - right and left, up or down, it's all meaningless when you're constantly trying to work your way around squares and rectangles and lines.
It doesn't help that everything is supersized. The avenues are the width of 6 lanes each. It takes a long time to walk from one to the next, so if you've been walking in the wrong direction, ah yes, I know this well... After 1st Ave comes 2nd Ave. After 2nd Ave comes 3rd Ave. But after 3rd Ave... Why did they introduce names for some avenues and numbers for the rest? It all adds to the confusion.
The most interesting thing about New York for me, personally, is that I can't find my way back to my favourite bookshops and museums without looking up a directory and studying a map - as if I was going to them for the very first time. I have been to New York about 5 times since my first visit in 1997, and unlike all the other cities I've been to for about the same number of times or less, the locations of places seem to leave no mnemonic imprint.
So I stumbled around Union Square before I saw Barnes and Nobles and went in there to look up the address of The Strand. I remembered that it was somewhere off the square but where exactly simply escaped me. It's a bookshop I have been to every single time since my first visit to New York. (More on the shop below).
Being lost and finding one's way time and again can be frustrating. But it also lends something to the unexpected re-discovery of favourite places. Turn a corner and suddenly, there it is. The St. Marks Place bookshop. The MOMA. It's like bumping into old friends.
Manifestation of the passion#2:
A block before 14th St. and Broadway, I had two slices of chocolate chip banana bread and a mug of hot chocolate. I was sugaring up for the next stop on a free afternoon in New York: The Strand - a bookshop of used, remaindered and mint condition books all at reduced prices. It is highly recommended that one sugars up before going into a shop that prides itself on having 18 miles of books.
I suspect that new capital has been injected into The Strand. They have come up with a whole slew of their own merchandise (totes, tee-shirts, mugs). And the whole place just seemed cleaner, less dusty, less disorganized. You could still get books for less than a dollar, but these were mostly outside the shop, on tables and trolleys on the sidewalk.
I don't miss the dust and the book selection is still great. I even bought totes for friends and a tee-shirt. But the makeover does seem to have cleaned away some part of the shop's appearance that made browsing and shopping there an unforgettable and unique experience in the past. They didn't use to arrange the tables and shelves in the shop with any care for walking space. You had to wade through stacks of books. You could get lost between History and Fiction. All that's gone. Now it's grid city in The Strand.
Manhatten island, New York city: grid city. "It's impossible to get lost in this city," said noisynotes, not known for his navigational skills. I disagree. I have a good visual memory of places, and I can usually find my way around after having gone through somewhere once. But I'm no good in a grid city. The right-angle edges of streets confuse me. What was to the right before becomes something on the left - right and left, up or down, it's all meaningless when you're constantly trying to work your way around squares and rectangles and lines.
It doesn't help that everything is supersized. The avenues are the width of 6 lanes each. It takes a long time to walk from one to the next, so if you've been walking in the wrong direction, ah yes, I know this well... After 1st Ave comes 2nd Ave. After 2nd Ave comes 3rd Ave. But after 3rd Ave... Why did they introduce names for some avenues and numbers for the rest? It all adds to the confusion.
The most interesting thing about New York for me, personally, is that I can't find my way back to my favourite bookshops and museums without looking up a directory and studying a map - as if I was going to them for the very first time. I have been to New York about 5 times since my first visit in 1997, and unlike all the other cities I've been to for about the same number of times or less, the locations of places seem to leave no mnemonic imprint.
So I stumbled around Union Square before I saw Barnes and Nobles and went in there to look up the address of The Strand. I remembered that it was somewhere off the square but where exactly simply escaped me. It's a bookshop I have been to every single time since my first visit to New York. (More on the shop below).
Being lost and finding one's way time and again can be frustrating. But it also lends something to the unexpected re-discovery of favourite places. Turn a corner and suddenly, there it is. The St. Marks Place bookshop. The MOMA. It's like bumping into old friends.
Manifestation of the passion#2:
A block before 14th St. and Broadway, I had two slices of chocolate chip banana bread and a mug of hot chocolate. I was sugaring up for the next stop on a free afternoon in New York: The Strand - a bookshop of used, remaindered and mint condition books all at reduced prices. It is highly recommended that one sugars up before going into a shop that prides itself on having 18 miles of books.
I suspect that new capital has been injected into The Strand. They have come up with a whole slew of their own merchandise (totes, tee-shirts, mugs). And the whole place just seemed cleaner, less dusty, less disorganized. You could still get books for less than a dollar, but these were mostly outside the shop, on tables and trolleys on the sidewalk.
I don't miss the dust and the book selection is still great. I even bought totes for friends and a tee-shirt. But the makeover does seem to have cleaned away some part of the shop's appearance that made browsing and shopping there an unforgettable and unique experience in the past. They didn't use to arrange the tables and shelves in the shop with any care for walking space. You had to wade through stacks of books. You could get lost between History and Fiction. All that's gone. Now it's grid city in The Strand.
posted by wheyface at 4:40 AM
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