Chris Bickford

“The city after a busy day. The city on rainy afternoons. The city when you take a day off, or get up at the wrong hour, or get off at the wrong stop and let yourself wander down unfamiliar streets…

“The wilting city at noon. The city of buses that become beaming vaporetti on foggy mornings. The after-hours city at 2 a.m. when a cabbie stops, and a hasty jitter of underdressed girls tap the cobbled street with oversize heels and are instantly rushed into a club…The city on crisp, winter-clear mornings. The old city of splashing fire-hydrants–do children still play in the water when time stops and the heat rises and all you long for is a brief rain shower to break the spell? The city holding its breath, gauging the clouds. The city when it finally does rain. The city of long shadows. The city of bridges speckling the night.”

–Andre Aciman, from the introductory text of Jean-Michel Berts’ “The Light of New York”

I hated New York for a long time. “Hate” is probably too strong a word; I was over it; I wasn’t interested; I was turned off by the commerce, the narcissism, the stress, the slavery to fashion and “success”, the egotism, the lack of peace, the absence of living things (aside from people, pets, and rats), the overwhelming preponderance of advertising and media, media, media…

But lately I’ve begun to see the city in a different way. I’ve learned to fantasize about the city, to dream the city. I’ve learned to look at the city in little pieces…a red brick building against a blue sky; a blue-painted facade fringed with autumn leaves…figures hurrying through subway steam; a pigeon resting on a wrought-iron fence, waiting for fresh discarded pizza crusts…a couple kissing under an umbrella in the snow…tattooed hipsters hanging out on the front stoop of their building like Mick and Keith in “Waiting on a Friend”…

I’ve been talking about moving to the city–at least part-time–to “further my career”, but not until my last visit did this go from being something I felt I ought to do to something I want to do. Part of it had to do with reconnecting with some old friends, part of it had to do with spending a lot of time in the East Village. A lot of it had to do with taking the subway as little as possible. And then of course, mostly it had to do with wandering aimlessly, with a camera, not necessarily even looking for photos, or caring if I got any good ones. The magic of a great city is that if you let yourself go, you will stumble upon things you would never have otherwise seen. Or, as Doisneau writes, about another city, “No matter where you look, there’s always something brewing. You only have to wait, you have to watch for a long time before the curtain deigns to rise. So I wait, and every time the same high-flown formula trots into my mind: Paris is a theatre in which you pay for your seat with wasted time. And I’m still waiting.”

In New York, wasted time is harder to come by (and thus a much more valuable luxury), the seats are less comfortable and more expensive…but the show is always on, 24 hours a day.   In all kinds of weather.   It’s on.  No need to wait.