The police refused to go there, proclaiming it was like being caught in the fiery kitchen of hell.
Slap bang in the middle of the inferno is a highly experimental non-profit called The Kitchen.
It was here I met Matthew Lyon today, one of the Kitchen curators.
This has a nice ring to it, a kitchen curator, "tonight only... Crazy Lion and The Kitchen Curators..."
Today was a tight schedule, no ambling, places to see people to be.
Along my journey I bumped into Bryant Park where some old Al Pacino film was screening.
It seemed silly to watch a mediated new york whilst I sat in the center of it.
Making my way through a distinctly 70's public library I parked myself (late, of course) inside a lecture on the history of the Lower East Side.
Dr. Brown spoke incredibly slowly, maybe this was due to the collective age range of the audience being over 70.
He presented a somewhat stilted slide show of churches, synagogues and temples dating back to the 1820's.
It went a little like this:
1st the English protestants came, all aristo and with big empirical ideas, they built all the houses and churches.
2nd came the German reformed Jews, so all the English aristos moved uptown.
3rd came the Irish Catholics, so all the German reformed Jews moved uptown.
4th came the Eastern European orthodox Jews, all speaking Yiddish and without their Rabbis.
5th came the Catholic Hispanics.
6th came the Chinese.
In the end the orthodox and reformed Jews didn't mix, the Irish ended up all fighting in the civil war (they were offered $100 directly when they came of the boat, no matter if they fought for the confederates or the union). The Hispanics were generally relocated to the Bronx and Harlem and the Chinese stayed.
Then a bunch of old new yorker jews stood up and corrected Dr. Brown on his facts because they were there and they remembered 1867.
I gave all my change to a homeless man on 5th Ave. because I still don't understand the monetary system here.
I told him to take it all because I just can't work it out.
They do all types of haircuts here in New York and everyone has small dogs.
Day 4.
