It feels like our intersection hosts an exchange program for characters from the West Side Highway, Port Authority Bus Terminal, Midtown, and that weird zone between the end of Hell’s Kitchen, but not quite yet the Upper West side. This is where we’ve perched and watched and eaten and existed and lived for years, in our pre-war five story walk-up on arguably one of the loudest intersections in Hell’s Kitchen.
We bought binoculars during the pandemic to bird-watch, but instead used them to watch people. There’s been conspiracy theorists screaming into the night and a man in a wheelchair who sits outside of Starbucks every day with a ‘fuck trump’ top hat. There’s been unhoused needing help in the cold (and we always do call for help, dutiful citizens, binoculars in hand) and an elderly man who walks around in a robe, captain’s hat, and sunglasses each morning for his daily cup of coffee. Oh, and there was even this guy during the pandemic who sat outside a closed up corner restaurant and threw construction materials into the intersection; ( we lovingly called him “brick-man”).
This isn’t unique, the whole people watching thing; it’s just a part of living in New York. The list goes on, and I intend to write about it; on how it impacts my art, my brain, and outlook on humanity as we move into whatever version of the future we’re in.
Since 2020, my memory and sense of time and space has been, uh, utterly fucked. And no matter how many new journals I buy to “lock in” on gratitude or reflection; I type better. Journals and paper are for doodling and ripping up and creating day-of grocery lists and for glue and pictures. Typing for myself for the sake of typing, brings back a bit more joy to flipping open a laptop or tablet. It offers an alternative to immediately clicking into the inbox of emails, AI slop tools that no one asked for, layoff updates, and once-in-a-lifetime news events. This blog is giving me a nostalgic, but less toxic Xanga.com experience.
So anyway, there’s this lady who lives around the block who wanders the streets with unleashed dogs. We don’t have a name for her, but she has a thick Russian accent, is barely 5 ft tall, and has the thickest coke bottle glasses you’ve ever seen. We think one of her dogs is named “Gregor” or “Gregory” (a very tall should-be-white standard poodle, but is giving more of a musty tan) and “Sasha” (a tiny rat terrier or chihuahua who wears a pink coat in the winter).
This woman, and her dogs, came up to me and my husband a few years back near Pier 99 and told us we were the most beautiful couple she’s ever seen. We made a quick glance over the amount of scarves she was wearing at one time in the summer and immediately knew something was a tad off. We politely said thank you and attempted a nonchalant exit, but she then quickly proceeded to read us poetry about 6 inches from our faces, all while her loose dogs surrounded us. There was no escape. We sat with her for about 30 minutes, talking about her daughter who is expecting, how she was already drunk on an unknown amount of vodka that day, and how the police were “out to get her” because of her unleashed dogs running around Columbus Circle traffic. And then poof, she released on, seemingly pivoting to another adventure. And just like that our short Russian angel was not to be seen again for another year.
The next time we saw her and her gang, it was at the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle. Yes, the one in the basement; Gregor and Sasha running loose by the lox. What I loved most about this is that all my fellow shoppers didn’t bat an eye. Not one eye batted over this (dirty, but well loved) giant standard poodle and little terrier loose in a grocery store in the seafood section.
Since then we’ve seen her walking around more often, usually shouting at her herd of animals, and interacting with the public in a similar way she did with us on that bench a year ago. She even stormed into a local bar we were at, kissed my cheek, and said she’d go lesbian for me. She then immediately got kicked out of the bar for demanding vodka shots (it was a wine bar) and, of course, the loose dogs running around.
I see her out and about with Sasha and Gregor and it makes me love Manhattan. Yesterday, I saw she now has a third dog in the mix, though I believe it’s a dog-sitting situation because the new one is on a leash. Gregor has a new scarf. And I like knowing that.
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