Urban Thoughts

I was coming home from having a coffee, and the avenue looked like a picture post card.

The weather was better because we had a good heavy rain during the night, and the humidity was not too bad. I worked, and I read the book The Island At the Center Of The World by Russell Shorto. It's about the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, at Manhattan in the 17th Century. I'm only a few chapters in, but I'm giddy with delight because I'm from that area and I've heard tantalizing pieces of the story all my life, but this makes use of a huge trove of newly-discovered manuscripts, and the author is a fine historian who also writes well.

When I think of Manhattan as a place and an entire thing, I always hear this song in my head. I sang it as a 19-year old AWOL sailor, trudging along the streets between the bus terminal and Penn Station with my duffel bag slung over my shoulder, early one warm morning, tired, looking for cheap food and liquor. The song brings that memory to mind. In those days there still were plenty of "whores on Seventh Avenue," as the song had it, and I knew all the lyrics by heart.

But this shows you West Philadelphia, not New York City; Baltimore Avenue, not Seventh.