Thursday, May 27, 2010

Found Object: Email

Dear Tom,

Thank you for your interest in LT (Literary Traveller). However, we feel this idea/article/proposal does not fit our editorial needs.

On a separate note, we feel that the concept of the article was strong, but didn't feel that NYC was evoked enough to inspire our readers. We didn't see how Nin's view was different than an average passerby's view.

Jennifer
Network Editorial Director

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Strolling Through Anais Nin's Greenwich Village

"I rented a furnished apartment on Washington Square West. The Village has character, atmosphere. The houses are old, the shops small. In the square old Italians play chess on stone tables. There are trees, patios, back yards... I love the ginko trees, the studio windows, the small theatres, Bleeker street with its vegetable carts, fish shops, cheese shops. It is human. People stroll about."

I spent the morning drifting through pages of Anais Nin's diary, volume number three, and am now standing in Greenwich Village amid a bustle of students, waiting for Max to arrive. Today he receives an ultimatum, either he still has a job or he must move back to Paris.

A wave of construction noise floods this section of the street, washing up upon the shores of the cafes and bars that line its edges. They are constructing new apartment blocks close by, squeezing them nervously amongst the existing and fragile buildings, buildings that seem drenched in memory. They must have seen so much.

New York does this every so often, buildings and businesses die away, the city heals its old wounds and moves on. Two months ago cafe Esperanto stood two blocks away, one of the Village's few truly all night cafe's, now the windows are boarded up. Somehow New York's bricks feel more transitory than its population. Perhaps when the builders move away, the village will settle back into its old routine, its old undulating rhythms. Has much changed since Nin was here? Yes, here and there, but not so drastically. The carts have gone from Bleeker street, Washington Square Park has been remodeled a little but its spirit remains. It is human. People stroll about.

I see Max turning a corner two blocks ahead of me. He walks quickly, his hands in his pockets, his head up, his face half shadowed by the brim of his hat. As he draws closer his expression gives nothing away. We shake hands and he dissolves into laughter, shrugging his shoulders. "It's ok, I think I'm done with advertising anyway." He says.

Anais Nin had arrived from Paris, like many artists, escaping a Europe thrown into the turmoil of World War Two. This was a key moment in history, the handing over of a baton, art shifting its focus from Paris to the tempestuous upstart that was New York. A world she had known was slipping through her fingers, another wrestling to be born. In May of 1940 she wrote:

"Dark, tragic days... Desperate at the news. Paris encircled."

The Paris of the thirties must have seemed so far away.

We strolled North along Thompson Street. A calm hush ran along its length as we discussed our futures. From each building signs swung announcing apartments for rent. "What will you do now?" I asked. "I'll wait a while I guess, and if nothing turns up I'll return to Paris." Max replied. Everything felt as if it were turned upon its head.

At the end of Thompson street is Washington Square Park, the center of the village or if not the center, at least its heart. In the spring its walkways are cool and shaded. A large arch stands on its northern side through which 5th Avenue can be seen racing toward the Empire State building. As we walked, a pianist wheeled his piano beneath the shade of a tree. He settled, tested his fingers against the air and then began to play. A crowd drew around him. The fountain was running, casting water into the sky, the wind spraying it toward crowds of children who screamed delightedly and run back and forth. People sat and sang and played chess. In the summer they will play films here against a screen beneath the arch.

"Beautiful autumn days." Nin wrote, "I love the Village... MacDougal Street is Colorful. The Mews, and MacDougal Alley, with beautiful small houses of another era, cobbled streets and old street lamps... I sat on a bench in Washington Square and wrote the story of Artaud."

It is difficult to feel down for too long in the village I think. Walking north, we pass beneath the Arch. Here is Washington Mews. Still part of another era and existing just as Nin would have known it then. A small cobbled street running between 5th Ave and University Place. Stepping onto the cobbles is as if passing into another world, another time. Small ivy covered cottages and ancient street lamps defy the imposing modern apartment blocks that stand beside them. Did Henry Miller ever come here I wonder? This street feels so reminiscent of the 'Villa Seurat' he would imortalize as 'Villa Borghese'. Once, at the Villa Seurat I crept up to the window to catch a glimpse of the world Henry had once inhabited and despite not knowing who these walls belonged to, I couldn't help doing the same here. As I peered inside I saw rows and rows of books nestled upon thick wooden bookshelves. Wonderful, just as I would want it! Many of the buildings here are now part of New York University. The cottages a the far end of the Mews, facing University Place are now part of the University's School of Languages.

"Come on" Max said, "let's get a drink"

Passing south along University Place we made our way back across the park and I wondered which of these benches Nin had rested upon to write her story of Artaud. Along the street running the length of the park's north face there is an elegant row of houses. How many other writers must have strolled through this park, must have rested on its benches, watching the world roll quietly by, dreaming stories?

On the south west corner of the park we joined MacDougal Street running south toward SoHo. Minetta Lane branches off from the street, turning to become Minetta Street, which weaves and winds its way toward 6th Avenue like a small river. These were in fact once a small stream trickling through what is now Washington Square Park to join the Hudson River. In a city of grids, it's refreshing to stumble upon streets that curve gently, there aren't so many of them.

It is on MacDougal Street that Nin spent evenings drinking and dancing in taverns. The street still hosts a large number of bars which stay open late into the night. We stop at Cafe Reggio, home of the original cappuccino says its sign, and taking seats on the terrace order two beers. Would Nin still come here to drink? I wonder as tourists dart from bars to gift stores, as taxis beep and scream their was south toward Houston street. No, perhaps not but the street was important to her for more than its bars. The Provincetown Playhouse she would have known has gone, but one or two small huddled buildings are still standing and would have been here in Nin's day. At number 144 MacDougal street, on the opposite side of the street, and along half a block from Cafe Reggio is where she rented a room to set up her own printing press. It is now part of NYU's Law School. She wrote:

"The house was so old it had settled. The windows on the street opened outward, like French casement windows. The houses across the way were also small and intimate, a little like Monmatre."

I like this idea of Nin, setting type, shunning publishing houses and striking out alone. Printing copies of 'Winter of Artifice', making mistakes, learning. It must have been soothing to find a part of the city that seemed so like the Paris she loved, a part of the city that refused the size and display of gridded streets overpowered by skyscrapers that had greeted her as she arrived and that led her to write:

"Where are the cafes with only three small tables, and tottering chairs? This is Gulliver's country. But I, who love human scale, small objects, small intimate cities, small trains, small cars, small restaurants, small concert halls, do not respond to giant scales."

Here, in the village she must have found her small cafe's, the life affirming intimacy of small scale. The cafes are still here today, walking west along West 4th Street, crossing 7th Avenue, and leaving the tourist bars of Bleeker street behind, is a world of small scale, tiny streets, beautiful two story buildings. This could be Europe, could be an echo of Europe. It is no wonder that writers and artists, scattered across the city at the outbreak of war eventually found their way here.

Max and I come to the end of our beers. He is remarkably philosophical, perhaps it is the Frenchman coming through. "If I have to go back, I have to go back. I don't mind so much." I imagine Anais and her husband running from Paris, Henry Miller fleeing to Greece. What must it mean to be forced to leave a place you love?

"And if everything falls through for you too, come with me. I can get you a job in Paris."

"What kind of job?" I ask.

"Packing lorries at my Uncle's company"

The idea of packing lorries in Paris appeals to the Rimbaud in me, the me that says "to hell with this, what is life without adventure?" But the idea of leaving New York, of leaving these streets behind feels harder than I could imagine. For all my Englishness I am strangely at home here. The winding streets of the village are my Montmatre, my Montparnasse. I have found my cafes, my 'La Coupole', my 'Le Dome'. I walk these little streets dreaming, hearing the voices of the Stonewall riots rising from the past, dancing among the birdsong. I see Bob Dylan rounding the corner of Jane Street, turning onto Bleeker with cigarette in hand. I hear Jeff Buckley tuning his guitar on the stage of the Cornelia Street Cafe.

I remember reading a poem by the English Artist Billy Childish once in which he said he felt as if he were the hero of all his favorite novels, as if he lived shoulder to shoulder with his favorite writers.

This is how I feel as Max and I pay our bill, shake hands and part ways on MacDougal Street. I am Arthur Rimbaud laboring as a construction worker in Cyprus, I am Billy Childish painting and writing in my Mother's house on the outskirts of London, and I am Anais Nin, unpacking my first printing press on MacDougal Street, positioning the letters, dabbing the rollers with ink and gazing out onto a world that feels so much like Paris.

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