Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts: Desire Paths ~ Closing One, Opening Another

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Desire Paths ~ Closing One, Opening Another

Houston & Ave B - March 11, 2012

I was 10 or 11, my father and I were sitting on our 83rd Street stoop after playing catch with a football. Our conversation bounced around.

"Broadway is the oldest street in New York City." Dad announced.

"How old is it?"

"No one knows, but it goes back to the Indians."

"How do you know?"

"It's a desire path."

"Huh?'

"It started out as a desire path. A path an animal or human makes out of desire to get from one point to another as easily as possible."

I love the term, "desire path." It can apply to many things with the expanded definition of getting most interestingly from one place to another. When I walk the city this is on my mind.

Houston & Ave B - February 10, 2015

Three years ago, I took the sunny shot above at the corner of Houston Street and Ave B. Late Tuesday afternoon, I mosied up Houston Street and through part of the West Village early for my last Stoops to Nuts show at Cornelia Street Cafe. In my second shot here is the same location at Houston and Avenue B - Construction - like most of Houston Street from one end to the other. At some point soon, Houston will be a canyon of tall sleek "why are you here?" buildings. Change is inevitable. Ignoring that yesterday, I kept my eye out for pleasant surprises and old inanimate friends. With the sun descending it was easy to find a few scenes that were easy on the eye.

Tuesday's "Stoops to Nuts ~ Bottom of the 9th on Cornelia St." An amazing show to end the series. Thank you, Barbara Aliprantis, Phillip Giambri, Jim Hawkins, Adam Wade and Sherryl Marshall and her fantastic group, Fred Walcott, Charles Giordano, Deborah Berg and Elise Morris. Thank you, to all my friends who came out to celebrate five years of Stoops to Nuts at the Cafe. Thank you, Angelo Verga, Joshua Rebell and Robin Hirsch for letting us play in your yard. Thank you to the Cafe's gang who always welcome me like family. Tuesday's show was as good as it gets. I'm content. Time to create a new desire path.

Fred Walcott, Charles Giordano, Sherryl Marshall, Deborah Berg & Elise Morris

Most of the outdoor photographs in this album from Tuesday show were taken on Bedford and Downing Streets. The building lit up at sunset is One Fifth Avenue.

My NYC memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood," is on sale at Logos Bookstore and online.