Round the corner from the campus, a huge old bank building has finally emerged from an elaborate chrysalis to reveal itself as a ‘Burger Mac’ joint of Babylonian dimensions. Just what’s needed at ‘The Junction,’ the 5-road star-shaped meeting point (Flatbush Ave, Nostrand Ave and others) that the building abuts? Maybe. Maybe not. The MacDonalds right next to it across the road was a friendly night-time place once upon a time – it used to host all-night regulars, sleeping bums and the like, before the fast food joint cleaned up its act. Will Burger Mac be their new refuge?
Downtown
The Last Shopper?
At Columbus Circle for my Wednesday breakfast with Linda, I encounter a lady with long white hair bent forward almost to her waist, mumbling, incoherent, and rejected by local cafeterias. Upstairs, a model of the downtown development around the new Freedom Tower looks perilous, transparent toy-sized plexiglass buildings with a vulnerable look.
Wheelchair lady
In the subway I meet another distressed but determined lady, traveling backwards in her wheelchair. I know she is headed towards a sudden slope, quite a long and relatively steep one, since I go this way twice each week and sometimes more. I stay close to her, thinking she may well know that the slope is approaching – but she doesn’t, and as the passageway turns into a descent her wheelchair veers wildly to one side, where a helpful guy catches her. I take over and pilot her down the slope – holding the wheelchair back from running away with us both – and along the tunnel to my own little exit leading to stairs and my train. By then she’s in command. She says she gets more traction going backwards. I watch her go, backing into the future as we all do.
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