🛋️ Pull up a Seat
A collection of curiosities from one corner in New York City
“New York is the concentrate of art and commerce and sport and religion and entertainment and finance, bringing to a single compact arena the gladiator, the evangelist, the promoter, the actor, the trader and the merchant. It carries on its lapel the unexpungeable odor of the long past, so that no matter where you sit in New York you feel the vibrations of great times and tall deeds, of queer people and events and undertakings.”
—E. B. White, Here is New York (1949)
One day you encounter a discarded crushed red velvet couch with an ornate flower pattern, sans cushions, placed on a corner near your house in a perfect position for street-gazing—at least before the garbage men take it away.
“Welcome to the theater of New York City!” you imagine a carnival barker belting out, “Take a seat and help yourself to a 24/7 live cam of humanity!”1
You wouldn’t dare actually sit down for fear of bedbugs, but as you imagine doing so, all the scenes you’ve experienced at this same spot flicker across your memory.
One day you watched a disheveled man ride by on a CitiBike, fully naked on the bottom—no pants or underwear. You recoil in horror at all the times you rented one, not realizing you might have shared those same plastic seats with someone else’s junk.
You watch Superintendent Leon sweeping leaves off of the sidewalk in front of the church, lamenting the trash can tipped over by rummagers in the night.
After sunset, you see rats scurry in and around the large black trash bags at the curb awaiting pick-up, foraging for food. Sometimes all you see are lumps moving within the piles, as if the bags themselves are alive.
Once, midday, you watch a tiny dog run straight into the crosswalk after their owner, who hadn’t realized they had gotten free from their leash. They only narrowly missed a collision with the oncoming traffic by a few short strides.
On a nearby telephone pole, you spot a serious sign warding off a local offender:
On another day, you’ll sit inside a stuffy but sweet new Italian pasta cafe, eating tagliatelle out of a plastic bowl with a flimsy plastic fork, unwelcome COVID leftovers.
You bump into Amanda Seyfried early one morning as she transitions from her black car to her her movie trailer. You make small talk while your dogs say hello, smiling on the inside while doing your best to pretend she’s just another neighbor.