Native New Yorkers
view the world through the grimy lens of cynicism. Expecting and preparing for the worst possible result from
all people and situations seems to us the most sensible way to travel through
this life. And travel we do - on
busses, in taxis, on ferries, and through subway tunnels, all within close
proximity to our fellow citizens. Because
of these myriad public transportation options, most of us don’t have a personal
relationship with the internal combustion engine; after all, if God had intended
for New Yorkers to drive, He wouldn’t have provided Alfred Ely Beach the idea
for an underground pneumatic railroad back in 1869.
And the subway
works just fine, thank you. More
or less, anyway. Okay, it’s
sweltering in the summer, stifling in the winter, and crowded all the time,
but, it’s so much easier than taxis or busses. Relatively few things can go wrong. It runs on tracks from point A to point
B; it can be fast or slow or stuck in a tunnel, but it will never deviate from
its path leaving you stranded in a strange neighborhood. And for those occasions requiring
personal transportation there’s an Avis Car Rental garage on East 43rd
Street.
My grandfather owned
a car in the city which he used for both his business and to drive upstate for
weekends; my father had one, too.
Although I had learned to drive, I rarely saw the need to actually do so.
I had always commuted to school
and work in the more traditional fashion - strolling to the subway stop, passing the firehouse, chatting
with the firemen and petting the dog, picking up a newspaper and coffee, and
observing the theatre of the city’s streets along the way.
Like most New
Yorkers, I’ve seen pretty much everything life has to offer on those walks –
from the homeless man lying on a dirty plaid sofa watching tv under the
Queensboro Bridge to the bride in full white wedding regalia boarding the B
train. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I’ve seen it often, and right now it’s
blocking the entrance to the building where I need to go, dammit. And no one in New York has seen more
than its police officers.
In the early years
of our relationship, my husband Jamie’s office was in Brooklyn Heights and we
lived on the Upper West Side, just a few blocks from Engine Company 76. Jamie’s was an inconvenient and
time-consuming commute so Louis, his boss, thought a company car was in order:
that’s how a blue Mercedes C class entered our family immediately enroll ing us
in that subset of city dwellers whose lives are governed by the New York City
Department of Transportation Alternate Side Parking calendar, downloadable in
various languages including Chinese, Russian, and Haitian Creole. (Believe me; woe of apocalyptic
proportions betides the ignorant fool who leaves his car on the wrong side of
the street when a Department of Sanitation street sweeper is due.) Months passed with Jamie driving to
work and my hopping on the train, each of us pleased with the arrangement. Then came the summer Saturday that we
were invited to dinner with friends in Chappaqua, out of the city, one of those
occasions that the car was supposed to make easier.
Around noon, Jamie wandered into the
living room where I was watching a film I’d recorded. I pushed the pause button when he began to talk. “I have to go to meet Stu at Hudson
Street at 3 o’clock so why don’t we get ready early, I’ll go to the meeting
then call you when we’re through and you can meet me and we’ll head to the
Damiano’s.”
I considered the
suggestion, then shrugged, unimpressed with the idea. “What’ll I do while
you’re with Stu?”
“Go shopping in
SoHo.”
I wrinkled my
nose. “No, I don’t want to do that. It’s a schlep from Hudson to any stores I
like and I was going to wear the blue suit with high heels tonight and I hate
walking around outside in nice shoes.”
“Take the car.”
“Yeah, and park at
Hudson Street and I’ll still have to walk all the way over to West
Broadway. No, thanks.”
“No, you take the
car, park on Broadway and I’ll walk over and meet you when Stu and I’re done.”
Pause. “Me drive?”
“Yeah, you know
how.”
Exhale. “Yeah, I know I know how but I don’t
parallel park real well.”
“So learn.”
He was using that
tone, that ‘What’s wrong? Can’t rise to the challenge?’ tone that I hate but
remain unable to resist.
Two beats, then
three. I blinked. He blinked. I sighed. “Okay,
fine. I guess I’d better get in
the shower now then.”
By 2:45 pm we were
downtown. Jamie exited the car in
front of his friend’s mid-block office building and I slid behind the
wheel. Before slamming the door he
leaned in and said, “I’ll call you when I’m through and you can tell me where
you are and I’ll come find you.
Then we’ll drive to the Damiano’s.”
“Humph, I’ll
probably be in traffic court.”
“Nope, you never
get a court date the same day as the offense.” Grinning, he slammed the door
and strolled away.
Using my walker’s
geography I tried to figure out how to pilot this monstrous vehicle back toward
Broadway. I knew that avenues run
north to south and streets are east to west but I am an Upper West Side baby;
except for attending NYU, I had little experience with southern Manhattan and
even for that I exited the subway at West Fourth Street and walked. I knew that Hudson Street met West
Broadway somewhere around Chambers Street and that it runs both north and south
so I could find the stores I wanted easily enough, providing I could get to
that point. The problem was that
all of this was in the direction opposite of where I was headed and I didn’t
have the vaguest idea how to get back to where I wanted to be.
Guided only by
rudimentary New Yorker’s geography – east are the beaches of Long Island and
west is New Jersey and everywhere else until you reach Los Angeles – I nosed
into the thick Saturday afternoon traffic, slowly, nervously, inching what I
hoped was eastward. So many
people, so many cars, so many trucks, so many One Way signs sprang before me
that in no time I was completely discombobulated. I don’t know what I did wrong but I found myself crushed in the middle of the New Jersey-bound
Canal Street traffic jam crawling toward the open, leering mouth of the Holland
Tunnel. Damn Jamie and his bright
ideas.
Even the thought of the tunnel panicked me. Obviously it began in lower Manhattan
but I had no idea where it ended.
My mind conjured images of Lucy Ricardo’s first driving lesson when,
panicked, she attempted a three-point turn in the tunnel and reportedly stopped
traffic all the way to East Orange, New Jersey. Determined not to befall the same fate, I looked nervously
for someplace, anyplace, to turn out of the stream. It wasn’t going to be easy; all of the streets seemed to be
one way, feeding into the four lane bottleneck approach to the double-tube
tunnel. My palms grew sweatier
with each street I passed. About a
block before the actual entrance I noticed another one-way sign pointing toward
Canal Street but the street itself was blocked by blue NYPD sawhorses. Rejoicing, I switched on my right turn
signal and began the laborious process of exiting to the right. I swerved around the sawhorse and saw
three New York City police officers standing by identical sawhorses at the
opposite end of the street; they were waving away all traffic attempting to
turn into the street. Hearing my
approaching engine, one broke from the cluster and sauntered toward my
car. He gestured for me to stop,
so I did; I lowered the window and waited expectantly, hopefully.
“Lady, did you see the one-way sign?”
“Yes, but I’m
lost. I was getting forced into
the tunnel traffic and I didn’t mean to go there. I don’t want to go into the
tunnel. I don’t even know where it
goes. I was trying to get over to
the left to go to West Broadway but nobody would let me over. So I turned here to go around the block
and try another way.” I smiled.
His eyes narrowed
slightly. “Lady, this is a one-way
street. You’re going the wrong way.”
“Yes, I know.”
Hadn’t I just explained that?
He flexed his
jaw. “You’re going the wrong way
on a one-way street. You have to turn around and go back”
“No, I can’t go
that way. I’ll get pushed into the tunnel.” My hope was fading.
“Look, lady,
either you turn around or I am going to write you a ticket for driving the
wrong way on a one-way street. Now turn around.”
“No, I’ll get
pushed into the tunnel. If you
have to write the ticket, then write it but I can’t go back that way. Nobody will let me over and I’ll
end up somewhere in New Jersey, I don’t even know where.” At this point all
hope was gone and panic was creeping into my voice, not for the ticket, but for
the possibility of getting lost in New Jersey.
He pushed his cap
further back on his head as he stared at me staring at him. He sighed. “Lady, what do you want me to do, stop the traffic for you?”
“Yes, please.”
His eyes
widened. My choosing to take his
sarcasm seriously meant he was now stuck, as stuck as I was. He sighed again. “All right. Turn around and follow me.”
I executed my
three-point turn successfully and followed him up the sight grade. He stepped into the first lane of
traffic and held up his right palm toward it while gesturing for me to follow
with his left. He repeated the
process through the lanes until all approaching cars had stopped; I followed
behind him an inch at a time like a tentative but obedient dog. After I had cut diagonally across
the stopped traffic I braked near
the officer. He lifted his left
arm and pointed theatrically in the direction I needed to go, then swept his
right arm across his chest, brushing past his face, then dropped his head in a
dramatic courtier’s bow. I yelled ‘thank
you’ through the closed window and accelerated slightly. As I passed him I could see the grin on
his face.
Yes, we’ve seen it
all here in New York. And there
are reasons why many of us choose not to drive.
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