Riverbank, 2018: A Love Letter to the City That Raised Me
On heat, joy, race, and the unexpected moments when New York City becomes holy ground
Hey y’all - so much going on these days that I haven’t known what to post on substack, but I just found this old writing from 2018 that I wrote on Facebook and it captures a moment when I was still working at NYSPI and OntrackNY and trying to figure out where I belonged. I think it’s good to leave tracks, so here are some of mine.
The Deep End
I had an experience today that felt like the city just turned into pure magic for a little while. I swear the air felt thick when I got out of the office today, like syrupy thick, it was 93 degrees on 168th street and Broadway and everyone was glazed eyed and sweating and trying to find some shade. I thought about heading home and taking shelter but I headed for Riverbank State Park, along the breeze of the Hudson, families laid out on blankets grilling food and blasting music, kids eating mulberries from the trees, playing ball, congregating around the benches and under the shade of rustling trees. Have you ever been to Riverbank State Park? It's not a fancy place. In fact it often smells like sewage because it was built on top of a sewage treatment plant, especially when it's hot out like today. But its a literal oasis for tons of people around here, the biggest open space in the area with trees and courtyards and game courts and an olympic sized swimming pool. I myself was heading to the olympic sized swimming pool and when I got there I discovered that they close the lanes and open it up to the kids when it gets really hot.
And when I say "kids" I mean high school kids, like about 100 of them, play fighting and laughing and flirting, this amazing mess of beautiful humanity splashing around and screaming and being wild. I got in the pool and just swam around for 30 minutes, close to everyone but with enough distance to be able to breast stroke and freestyle and only periodically crash into people or be crashed into. And it was a transcendent experience. The water was so cold and refreshing, the people were so beautiful. It was an intensely sensory experience. It was so loud but a wonderful kind of loud.
I had this realization while I was swimming and I hope this comes out right cause it actually feels important: all of my most favorite experiences in New York City involve being surrounded by people of color. It's really true. I love the subway because I love the excuse of being so close to so many different kinds of people speaking so many languages and coming from so many different walks of life. I love walking through the main streets of Jackson Heights and the bustling markets Chinatown in Queens or Dykman Street in Inwood and just tripping off of all the different kinds of people.
My 2 years at social work school was one of the most meaningful experiences of my entire life because I was one of the only white folks in my class and I was surrounded by black and brown people and we spent a lot of time talking about race and class and oppression because, you know, it was social work school. It helped me feel a lot less self conscious about explicitly talking about race and social location, and it helped me get over ways that as a white person I've learned to not see lots of things that are right in front of my eyes. It gave me tools to talk about my own personal relationship to race and class and how it affects the way I think. Social work school really helped me be more social in kind of a deep way that I'll always be grateful for.
Swimming around that pool surrounded by black and brown kids speaking English and Puerto Rican and Dominican Spanish, all of us joyfully escaping the sweltering heat outside, it made me think about how timid and scared I was when I was in high school myself. I never would have been in that pool. I didn't feel comfortable in my body when I was a teenager, I felt really skinny and weak and self conscious. I hung out with punk rockers and weirdos who did drugs and had anti-social tendencies. I didn't play any team sports, I was all up in my head thinking deep thoughts and feeling alienated. And I had so many protective psychic shields that kept me from getting close to all kinds of people, but for people who were culturally different than me it was even more of a stretch.
As a middle aged guy swimming around the community pool I have so little to prove or to be scared of and it is so sweet. I just really like feeling the energy of people, I literally get high off of it, just being around it And when I say I like being around "people of color" what I actually mean is that In this social and economic environment these kids are from around Harlem and the Heights and they are a mix of the African diaspora and from the islands and working and lower classes and they are socialized really differently than I was as a middle class Jewish kid from the Upper West Side. In the part of town I'm from the kids are way more uptight. It's not our fault but it's true. I wouldn't want to be in a pool of white middle class high school kids. Maybe you'd be totally cool with it and that's fine with me. I've come to terms with my preferences and I'm comfortable with them!
Today I kept wondering if I'd be happier if I left this country for awhile and went to places where people swim in the ocean together. I was trying to imagine a beach in Brazil somewhere. I was thinking about how if I was in my 20s I'm sure I would have gone to Puerto Rico to help rebuild after the hurricane. Maybe I should go there now. I feel like this country is so fucking crazy and alienating and it would be useful to get some perspective and then come back and fight.
Anyway, so much gratitude that the city still has a bunch of magic to shine. Stay cool in that heat y'all.
—unas repuestas
In my opinion - I believe that some people think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence because they have not fully explore, cultivated awareness of and fully participated in the richness of their side yet. There are many different type of wealth and riches. Sometimes we don't realize or are fully aware of how blessed and rich we already are! We go to other places to escape to paradise when sometimes paradise and satisfaction is within and around us and we simply need to cultivate awareness of it and tap into it and drawn from it. Sometimes some people flee one place to another to escape dissatisfaction and pursue happiness when the problem is not in our surroundings but with and in us and we again eventually end up leaving our ideal place for another one.
I hear that, Angel. I've told you about my mom's friend, Charlie Rosen, the communist housing organizer in Co-op City. I remember when I was 21 and going off to Mexico to do solidarity work with the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas he told me that he always distrusted people who went to other places to fight for other people's causes when they could stay home and fight for their own. What were they running from? It was such an old man communist thing to say but I still remember it because there was some hard truth in it. I was definitely running from my past and trying to find myself in another people's struggle. But I think sometimes that some of us just do better in environments that we're not from. And some of us, like you and me, are bridge builders between worlds. We love people, and we find a lot of meaning in making connections. So forgive me if I have fantasies of going far away and swimming in the ocean with people really different than me. This country just feels so toxic and I want to be around folks who've been socialized differently so I can figure out what's even worth fighting for and which way to go. Maybe in the end we all end up just where we started but I guess that's part of the journey.
Amen my brother, Amen. Love is the goal, life is the journey. Where there is love, there is life no matter where you go. Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Sounds so much like your father and reinforced with your Mom’s values. Beautiful but at times a painful piece to read along side today’s headlines.
I’m grateful for your experience and willingness to share. You’ve always had a connection to finding beauty in those things most people take for granted. Riverbank has always been an oasis to my kids. So much to learn & explore right in your backyard. The key is to have an open heart n mind while exploring. That’s how you are able to truly experience His creation.
Find me:
