One week after I rant about Normal Bob Smith and his wacky Union Square characters, of course there's an entire article about him in the New York Times. His "weird, God-denouncing, slightly creepy, generally unprofessional, completely bizarre website" must have some kind of charisma seeing that if you Google search the word "Jesus," it's "the second-highest ranked [website], after Wikipedia's Jesus page,"as quoted in the article. That's actually a pretty big deal. I owe you one, Mr. Bob Smith.
What is otherwise a weird, God-denouncing, slightly creepy, generally unprofessional, completely bizarre website, has created this surprisingly interesting sociological analysis of Union Square and different personalities that dwell in the park. It looks a lot like a map of your high school cafeteria during lunch time, with the Fundies next to the steps, the Gravers next to the George Washington statue, the Models sitting in the back corner.
It's brilliant.
I was first introduced to this pictorial set-up of the Union Square universe when a fellow bystander of the park scooted next to me on the steps and handed me a wrinkled, very much tarnished postcard version of the website. On the back side of the postcard are drawings of one representative from every clique, which can also be found online. Immediately, you can tell that theses caricatures are no exaggerations. I recognize the sketch of an old man holding a sign that reads, "What's the best nation?" in the same unshaved beard and dirty gray T-shirt that you can see him wearing on any given day. I know what's on the other side of that side: "Donation."
It's kind of an inside joke for all of us who walk through Union Square daily for school, work, or just for fun. It's insane how accurate everything appears to be and we recognize them because in the end, these "strangers" are in fact, not strangers at all but the real community of Union Square. For us, they are Union Square. For us, they have been entertainment, eye-candy, stories to tell our friends over dinner.
Click here for the website. I can't believe no one's thought of this before.
There are more rare books in Manhattan than in the entire country combined. Proud to be a part of this is the Fales Library, located on the third floor of NYU's Bobst Library. The Fales Collection is home to literary artifacts that capture the cultural values of New York City -works of fiction, art, performance and cuisine.
The Fales Collection included rare manuscripts in English and American literature, including the very first "novels," with over 200,000 volumes of fiction. Today, the library receives a copy of every new fiction that is published. Rare collections include the work of Robert Frost and Lewis Carroll. The Downtown Collection concentrates on Greenwich Village's performance art and punk music scene that came to life in the 1970s. The Food and Cookery Collection, which continues to expand today, archives the world of food, concentrating on New York City's food culture.
Last Thursday, my journalism class, famous for its trips to local "unknowns," ventured to Fales Library for first-hand exposure to New York City’s rarities.
We first toured an exhibit displaying the different kinds of art that emerged at the Judson Memorial Church, a historical landmark for Greenwich Village’s art scene.
Coming from a strong musical background, I was intrigued by the displays of graphic scores, which took sheet music to an entirely different level. But the most memorable part of the exhibit (as I’m sure it was to most of us there) was the video showing the first examples of installation art that took place in the basement of the Judson church where the pews were taken out in order for more performance space.
The first clip shows a performance titled “Meat Joy,” where dancers roll on the floor and prance across the screen in just undergarments, all the while rubbing raw fish and chicken onto their bare skin. One man stuffs a chicken down his underwear while another man playfully drags a girl across the floor who rubs a fish in between her legs.
The next clip shows the infamous “Flag Show” in which, once again, nude dancers with American flags tied around their neck exhibited their own definitions of “dance.” The moves are very postmodern, lack limitations and are mostly random movements.
“It’s quite beautiful,” says Marvin, our charming guide, from behind. Marvin, a bald man with pierced ears, who serves as Director of the Fales Library, would continue to narrate all the bizarre treasures that didn’t deserve to be confined in just the third floor of Bobst.
Marvin continues to explain how it was not only aesthetics of the dancers’ youth and beautiful bodies that made this so visually pleasing, but the idea of the flag being let to cover their bodies. Though the dancers were accused of desecrating the flag, Marvin thinks it was actually a very respectful action.
He discusses the theme of “destabilizing expectations” that was created within performance art pieces like these. It was a critique of conventional dancing like ballet, of physical gender roles, of the Vietnam War, of society, all in one performance. He refers back to the “Meat Joy” clip in which the commentary nature of the work is much more explicit. “Women aren’t supposed to have a fish in their vagina,” he laughs.
We are next given what Marvin calls “a dog and pony show” of the Downtown Collection that has relics from New York's brand of the punk movement that took over Greenwich Village in the seventies, eighties and nineties after the Judson. Pieces of the archive include issues from “Punk Magazine,” which was responsible for using the word “punk” to represent the artistic movement. The term was originally associated with men that were associated with prostitutes, and, later, men who “put themselves at the bottom” in prison. The magazine sculpted the word to have a meaning that "glorified the loser" but the meaning essentially became too complicated even for them. Other artifacts include photos of a younger Billy Idol, Mick Jacker, Iggy, and other big names in the music scene.
Marvin’s love and obsession for “punk,” as a word, a culture, a musical genre and a community, was what got him to this dream job. He was originally a Comparative Literature major who developed a specific interest into a career. “You can take a desolate childhood and turn it into a career,” he says with a laughter that has been present throughout our trip.
The room holding the Downtown Collection looks like any old conference room, and definitely does not do the collection justice. Inside the white envelopes and brown boxes, that we dare not touch or even stare at for too long so to not break its fragility, are all kinds of colorful personalities, an entire culture that we can now only look at through photos and journals and call it “history.”
The Fales Collection first started as a collection of "pop entertainment"; as a much more humble, but still impressive compilation of books by Dickens and Irving.In the 1950s, it was first offered to Harvard, the alma mater of the Fales family, but Harvard declined because it was a collection of fiction. It shows that even Harvard can make mistakes.
All in one week, Union Square hosted a protest, a social experiment, and the promotion for a new network series. In addition to protests, experiments and promotions, there is one more thing Union Square can’t get enough of: parties. Union Square Café and Old Town Bar’s urinals both celebrated Nov. 1 birthdays. Unfortunately the street vendors decided to skipout on the party to sleep –inside their halal carts. And also typical for Union Square, Hyatt starts the rebuilding of an unfinished hotel on 13th Street.
The Rider Rebellion Campaign, along with Al Sharpton, led a rally for better transit, discussing issues like fare hikes, service cuts. Read here.
If you go to the Union Square subway station right now, you can find a USB flash drive planted in the brick walls. This is part of a new social experiment where anyone can plug in their laptops and upload or drop off files to the flash drive. Read here.
Only at Union Square could someone capture a picture like this. A photo entry in the New York Times’ chess blog shows a zombie intensely involved in one of the many chess games that go on at the park. Read here.
Birthday #1: Union Square Café turns 25! Who knew the restaurant was such a popular place for publishers? Read here.
Birthday #2: Old Town Bar’s urinals turn 100! The party included a letter from Mayor Bloomberg to congratulate the last of the “low-splashing” toilets. Read here.
Food cart vendors have started to sleep inside their carts so that they can get the best spots. Does that mean the guy at the halal truck had a sleepover with the chicken and rice I bought today? Read here.
The unfinished hotel on 13th Street and 4th Avenue is set to be the newest Hyatt hotel. Features include a rooftop lounge, private terraces, and a Greenmarket-inspired restaurant! Read here.
On Tuesday evening, as the clock struck five outside the Union Square Regals, the line for a new film stretched out from Broadway to Fourth Avenue. But inside 110 E. 14th St., better known to New York University students as “U-Hall” dorms, I waited with one other person to vote for the 2010 midterm elections.
“I’m here to make sure Paladino is cut short,” said Audrey Hayes, 47, a former seminar speaker who is currently unemployed. The next voter didn’t walk in until twenty minutes later.
“I’m voting for Jimmy McMillan,” laughed Andrew Shang, 20, a student at NYU. “I was there too,” Shang said as he pointed to my Huffington Post bus wristband. He unzipped his red jacket to reveal a T-shirt from Jon Stewart’s recent rally at Washington D.C.
Coming from a small town east of Los Angeles, the youth doesn’t get involved with politics. It was comforting to see someone my age in a dorm lobby that I wasn’t used to seeing adults in.
But even from where I’m from, there is conflict and dilemma during campaign season every year. But New York made the poli-drama a bit more provocative. Carl Paladino, the Republican nominee for New York governor came under harsh criticism after his negative comments towards the gay community. Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High party came under media spotlight after he made fiery remarks during the gubernatorial debate a couple weeks ago.
The line to the polls quadrupled as the clock approached six and voters started returning from their work. Patricia Simon, 47, a poll worker, cleared the table as a small crowd began forming. Simon had been there since 5 a.m. and expected to stay until midnight. “Just because it’s a new system we have to double check everything,” she said.
This election’s new voting system procedure uses computerized scanner over the traditional levers. “I didn’t sleep at all last night because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to wake up this morning,” said Clarisse Ghabour, 50, another poll worker, who also claimed that the new procedures made her a little nervous.
Ghabour wasn’t the only one that was feeling uneasy. I’m not a politics-junkie and I don’t follow politics as often as I should. But there’s other things that make Election Day exciting for me. Being a Union Square resident means I have to share my front yard with all of New York City. Election Day is the one day that actual Union Square residents come together. I swear there was a sense of camaraderie Tuesday night, even in the small numbers.
Being able to get your groceries from the same place that Momofuku's David Chang does for his restaurants is a pretty big deal. New York City residents can at Union Square’s Greenmarket, where celebrity chef David Chang, as well as almost every single Union Square restaurant, shops for their ingredients.
The Greenmarket, which sets up every Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 AM to 6 PM, is run by GrowNYC, a non-profit organization whose mission is to is to “improve New York City’s quality of life through environmental programs…and empower all New Yorkers to secure a clean and healthy environment for future generations,” as said in their website. Other than providing fresh, local produce through things like the Greenmarket, they also build community gardens, raise awareness about recycling, and offer educational programs for the youth.
The Greenmarket, which sells freshly picked fruits and vegetables, as well as homemade treats like pies and cakes, has been around for over thirty years. But little is known about how it was originally created to construct a direct relationship between local farmers and city residents --for the small farmers, a chance to be able to sell in large cities, and for New Yorkers, an opportunity to get to know the actual people that grew their food.
GrowNYC’s Greenmarket is today the largest outdoor farmers market network with over 200 farms selling at 51 locations all over the country.
Over 140 local growers participate in the Union Square Greenmarket, GrowNYC’s most popular market. Also being the largest Greenmarket, there’s always something entertaining going on. There are cooking demonstrations every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday and occasionally, there are books signings and food tastings. There is a pumpkin carving/decorating demonstration that is going on right now in celebration of the upcoming Halloween weekend.
You might attribute the Greenmarket as the best place for fresh produce, a cause of Union Square’s human traffic or just as a fun place to be on the weekends. Regardless, take advantage of the flagship Greenmarket, which offers all kind of goodies such as homemade apple cider, syrup, cheeses, pastries, fruits and vegetables – the list literally goes on forever with different sellers coming in all the time. It is definitely a place that is worth spending your time at. Plus, who knows which celebrity chef you’ll run into.
For more information about Union Square’s Greenmarket click here.
For a list of the possible celebrity chefs you might spot click here.
This Mohandas Gandhi statue, located inside the Gandhi Gardens on the west side of Union Square, was built in 1987. It was originally given to Tribeca, but they returned the statue back to the city, who placed it inside Union Square. Gandhi, who was a leader of nonviolent protests against Britain's occupation of India, found his home inside Union Square Park, which itself has long been associated with protests. The statue today, is often the center for protests and candlelight vigils. There is an annual ceremony that takes place inside the garden on Gandhi's birthday, October 2.
Though it is not big, well known or in plain sight like the Washington or Lincoln statue, the Gandhi statue is one that people tend to have a greater personal attachement to. People adorn the statue with scarves and shawls during the winter and flowers and wreaths during the summer.
