Astoria is HUGE: something I could have figured out sooner with a simple look at a subway map (the end of the N line to the East River), but instead had imposed on me in 80-degree temperatures that made a 2-hour wander through about half of it feel like the Long March.
I approach from Long Island City, a longish walk through auto repair shops and edges of the BQE, into west Steinway Street's Housing Supply Row: lumber, bedding, rugs. Then out of nowhere, the first human store: BRIDAL BOOT CAMP, as if once you've built your dwelling (somewhere amid the low-rise buildings that peep from the side streets) your next step, obviously, is the glitzy wedding.
Eventually a more commercial strip develops. At first just that disheartening mix of working-class chains we all love/hate/depend on: PAYLESS. RITE AID. SALVATION ARMY THRIFT STORE. 99 CENT SHOP. as well as the inevitable STARBUCKS. Eventually some older shops peek out, idiosyncratic second-hand clothing and family diners, some with Italian or Greek names. Though at the check cashing/Western Union outlets, the Arabic and Sanskrit embedded within the logos betray the origins of more current residents, as does CROATIA TRAVEL, with its current deals on JFK SPLIT/JFK ZAGREB.
Similarly, on the block where the Italian Heritage Association is located, restaurants next door to PASTA FINA and the like chime their dissonance: TASTE OF BEIRUT, MEDITERRANEAN CAFE.
Finally Steinway gives over almost completely to the Little Egypt/Lebanon effect, with old men in white pants looking skeptically at me over their small cups of coffee and young girls on bicycles in full headscarf. I make a note to come back tomorrow, though I have to turn around if I want at least to see Broadway before I go back to Columbia. The heat is, after an hour, beginning to get to me (not a small thing when you have MS, though for me not as bad as most), so I know I won't be able to walk quickly.
On the way to the latter, I glance over at side streets, to relieve the eyes from retail. And that's how I discover 30th Avenue, with its smaller cafes and families on the street, the Bosnian newspaper and simple diner with a hand-lettered sign: "Balkan Food," and amid it all a stalwart Irish bar, the Quays, complete with loud, heavily accented owner taking a smoke out back.
Then it's finally time for Broadway: I walk in the direction of a senior center, and as I did the neighborhood became more definitively Greek, thrift shops named OLYMPUS and SIPA diner and real estate offices with Greek as well as English notices. I get so absorbed that I don't notice how much more numb my paresthetic feet have become, or that my long red skirt is about to be caught under my sandal.
Those who know me know what comes next: I caught my fall well, I thought, and my long skirt didn' fly up. I did issue a loud, involuntary yelp that brought folks running, and I ended up having to reassure <i>them</i> that yes, I was all right. I even told one of them I fall all the time (which I likely shouldn't have done, but maalesh).
Still, it was my signal that it was time to turn around, now that I had a tentative plan for this morning. I'm going to start where I ended, at the Greek diners, waiting strategically for the hour when commuters are done hurrying their way through. Then I'll see if I can stop by the senior center, and walk back to Steinway along 30th, ending with the old Egyptian men if I can,
And I'll try to be inspired by the wonderful session we had last night at the school with David Isay of NPR, who played us clips of some of his amazing radio documentaries, like this one about people who work in Texas' execution chamber, or this one that came about when two young men in the Chicago housing projects were given tape recorders and told to record their lives. Isay''s message to us was relatively simple: "People are hungry to talk." Ordinary people are dying to tell their stories -- most of the time, no one ever asks, he said.
I'll report back later tonight and let you know what kind of stories I heard, on the way to turning it into a soft news story. I think I've set myself up for the kind of all-nighter I hate, but we'll see!
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