5. Ridgewood, Queens

One of the great pleasures of living in such an immense city is that there is always somewhere new to go. I was reminded of this recently when I had an appointment to meet someone in a neighborhood that had up until then been one completely unglimpsed: Ridgewood, Queens. Long touted as that bridge too far, where once proud Bushwick pioneers had relocated after the last wave of gentrification hit that storied enclave of artist’s studios cheek to jowl with industrial businesses. How that neighborhood became hip I do not know. How it ceased to be hip and became just another urban tragedy is also not clear. But if any neighborhood deserved to be a proper area for artists, writers, bookshops, and rare book dealers, Ridgewood is it.

My appointment was at 1:00 pm so I had to make sure I got an early start. These days I take more buses than trains, saving them for solo trips around the city and into the boroughs. The M train is one I’d never taken before. I transferred from the #6 at Broadway-Lafayette, an extremely familiar hub very close to Soho. What was interesting was how the riders altered their aspect from the moment I stepped into the train car. There was a mood in that car. You could tell where it was going. I could feel an intensity pouring out of the half a dozen riders who sat equidistant from one another down to the end of the car. They oozed artist. A strange combination of vintage clothes and brooding countenances. Living on the Upper East Side, I hadn’t sensed that particular intensity in quite the same way as often.

The ride over there, once it passed over the Williamsburg Bridge, was somewhat familiar. The M runs over much of the same tracks as the J and Z lines, which I had taken on occasion years before, to get to parts of South Williamsburg and Bushwick. But the M curls off and heads north, and as it begins that turn, the light changes. I was blessed with good weather that day, and the fact that I hadn’t taken a train into Brooklyn for quite some years. The same old sights were new again. The low tenements huddled on other side of the elevated train tracks, the little spaces carved out on their roofs for people to sit, and past the immediate details, the buildings farther off, towards Bed-Stuy, especially the beautiful old churches.

I got off the subway at Forest Avenue, and had some time to kill. Here was an old ethnic neighborhood nearly untouched by time. I saw some Hasidic Jews walking down the street in an in intense conversation. They spoke in Yiddish yet some familiar words struck me. Yiddish is based on old West Germanic tongues, the same as American English (in English, the Germanic shares space with Latin). I’m Jewish on my mother’s side, from Lithuanian born immigrants who settled in Cincinnati where my great grandfather Louis Sien owned a shoe store with his sons. They later moved to New York and settled in another Queens neighborhood, Jackson Heights.

I also saw artist dudes in plaid jackets and old tee shirts talking about going to galleries. The area was active but seemed sparsely populated. It was still February I suppose, and midweek. There were a bunch of old closed storefronts and a few new places, like a Mexican restaurant. There was a laundromat with a great name. A Romaniain Orthodox church built into a multi-family home with a huge porch, ornately decorated. A funky little store with no name that sold tee shirts and hoodies and what looked like Japanese toys. A pork butcher. The last place I stopped before my appointment was what looked like the local hub cafe, one of the chain of Variety Coffe Roasters that was in a triangular shaped end of a building. Inside was very sock-hop 60’s with bright colors and mirrors. Everybody was reading or working on their computers. There was a baby carriage and someone else had their dog there. I had an espresso and a croissant to nosh on while I waited.

After my appointment I walked the other way back around to the train station, admiring the old row houses and the population of local pigeons with all their favorite hangout spots. I visited Topos Bookstore where I knew one of the owners but had never made it out there to see his shop when it was still new (he was not there). It was a funky little place with a few cafe tables, little nooks everywhere, and free zines at the door. Then I walked back to the train and home. A welcome immersion in the expansive life of the city. That day has stayed with me, a reminder that no matter how long I live in this city, I’m never too old for new experiences.