Grace

Christian Cooper, New York birdwatcher and victim of the scourge of racism in America, had the good grace to express a certain measured forgiveness: “I’m not excusing the racism,” he said. “But I don’t know if her life needed to be torn apart.” As the springtime birds flitted around him, one could imagine a touch of Saint Francis in this Christian.

Golden Hill

Golden Hill: A Novel of Old New York is being touted as Francis Spufford's first novel. I'll call it his second, because Red Plenty is clearly historical fiction in my book. Golden Hill is set in New York City in late 1746. It's a vibrant small city on the make, with plenty of wheeler dealers and political tensions... the kind of place where an outsider with ambitious plans should be plenty wary of sticking his nose where it doesn't belong.

Enter our hero, Richard Smith, newly arrived from London with a check for a thousand pounds sterling (quite a small fortune) that he needs to cash in order to conduct some unknown business in town. Unknown, that is, until nearly the end of the novel, when we learn of Smith's mission. In the meantime, there is friendship, theatre, imprisonment, love, death, sex, and scandal. Oh, and currency, in multitudes of denominations and discounts.

Golden Hill is definitely a good yarn, if not in the same league as the genre-busting minor masterpiece Red Plenty. Spufford is an ambitious, clever writer; here he seeks to replicate some of the style of 18th-century literature... with mixed success. The rococo opening sentence, run-on and crammed with interjections, reads just about right to my ear. But Spufford can't always keep it up. The lengthy letter from jail in the book's middle didn't quite work for me. Some plot contrivances are a little pat. And the story seems to rush to its conclusion.

All that said, it's mostly a very good tale well told. The book imagines a quite believable pre-revolutionary Manhattan, with political, religious, and ethnic divisions lurking just beneath the surface; the main characters are well drawn and appealing. A chilly Christmas in Old New York may be just what you need for beach reading this summer.

Bridges

The graceful Brooklyn Bridge, in the distance, needs no defenders. The muscular Manhattan, in the foreground, is pretty nifty, with the rumble of the "subways" passing back and forth overhead.  Yeah, you're in New York.

Reasons to love New York

In his NYT obit for Adam Yauch, Jon Pareles writes, "The Beastie Boys became an institution — one that could have arisen only amid the artistic, social and accidental connections of New York City." From everything I know about U.S. culture, this rings true to me. We have few truly essential cities in this country, and New York tops the list. Well, after Palo Alto, of course.

Noblesse oblige... sans irony

Three cheers for Bloomberg and Soros. They say the devil is in the details, but jobs, and somebody actually giving a shit, have to be a good start. Especially when Washington is single-mindedly intent on making matters worse.

And still more NYC blogging

Laura examines a Rothko at the MOMA. Nice paintings for sure, although my own tastes in abstract expressionism have gravitated toward Barnett Newman. These strange deceptively simple works still speak in a way that is very rare in art.

More NYC blogging

Alexi enjoys an iced green tea at Canteen 82 (83?), purveyors of a mighty fine xiaolongbao. It's very gratifying to have an adventurous foody as offspring!

The High Line

I had read about The High Line in the New York Times, and based on the review I expected it to be pretty cool, but seeing it in person exceeded every expectation. It was the highlight of my recent one-week trip to NY.









The designers of the High Line took an old elevated railway in Chelsea and converted it to a trail through an urban prairie garden. Everything about it works. The High Line manages to look simultaneously overgrown and anarchic and, well, simply lovely, like a cottage garden flowing above the city streets. Walking along, your eyes and ears are continually drawn from the plantings and your fellow strollers to the sights and sounds of the city around you (and the city views are spectacular here), but since you are in a sense floating above it all, there is a curious sensation of being both a part and apart.

The view from the street...


















You might suppose that flowers and greenery would only call attention to blight and ugliness. I incline toward finding beauty in urban industrial decay anyway, but I think most people will find that the High Line makes everything around it look better.

Go and see!

(Thanks to LMK for some of the photos.)