a divide
A BUTCHER'S #71
A BUTCHER’S hook/look (Cockney rhyming slang)
obstacle course
Dividing lanes on East Houston St - some city thinking, or not.
dividing history
A bit of delving. It's always a little surreal to be reminded that the built up New York wasn't always like this. Of course you know this, but it’s different to actually picture it - and that where I’m walking used to be farmland. Around this neighborhood, some street names give you clues - Orchard St or Canal St on the Lower East Side give fairly clear indications of their origin.
Just down the road there’s Division Street - this one was the property line dividing two farms. On one side, James De Lancey, an acting colonial governor and British loyalist. On the other, Henry Rutgers, a captain in the Revolutionary Army. Their families had a long history of lawsuits and animosity, along with their own different opinions on the country’s future… they were not friends.
Of course, in the Revolutionary War, one of these two had to be on the losing side - James De Lancey lost everything, he was exiled, his farm confiscated and sold off.
That square on the De Lancey farm was an open space with an orchard (hence the name of the street). Post war and paved over, it was where some of the first tenement buildings were built and to become the mostly densely populated area in the world. Think of all those photos from the 1890s, packed with people and full of street vendors.
It’s interesting to see the two different grid layouts meet along the dividing line between the farms.
a different picture
Downtown neighborhoods around here are always undergoing change - and odd combos can present themselves. Here, a Chinese restaurant with Peking ducks hanging in the window is juxtaposed with an art gallery. Worlds collide.
in your face
an early postcard collage of mine from 1988
a directive
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” - Yogi Berra
I had to be quick to get the camera out when I came up behind this existential choice - straight ahead and dependable or a left turn, the path the god trusting dump truck.
Thanks to Anna for proofreading, input & feedback - she needs one of those green visor hats!
Love the postcards!