Owh New York New York...RENT trail 09! - Thank You Jonathan Larson!
As I sit here alone in my house wearing the t-shirt I abought at Hair and about to change into the RENT shirt I bought on the corner of 46th street and 8th avenue, I am reminded of how much - already - I miss New York.
It truly is strange how you can feel less alone in a huge, gridded city full of strangers, than in your own hometown!
So, as I wallow in my own self deprecation, I feel I maybe want to share another day - or at least another few eisodes of a day - in New York City!
And this time, it's gonna be my pilgramage to the East Village, and I will share with you what occured on my first solo-flight journeys round the city on a sunny Monday while my cousin was at work!
As any real RENThead will know, in the back of the official RENT book is a double-page spread showing the East Village and a portion of the West Village, and on it are marked 10 places of interest that featured either in the musical or in Jonathans' life!
Unfortunaely, when trying to use a photocopy of this map as guidance to the REAL East and West villages, you see it is increddibly hard to follow...but I managed it anyway!
When my cousin first dropped me off right at the south tip of Manhattan and told me how to get to Broadway so I could find my bearings, I must admit I was raaather nervous! All of a sudden I was alone in a city I didn'tknow, nor had ever been to, that was not onlyfamous for its landmarks and tourism, but for preying on said tourists who go around it!
So I walked up Broadway...a looong way up Broadway to be precise, hot, hungry and scared - not having the courage to actually go in anywhere and order some food, until I got to my like 10th Starbucks on the road and thought fuckit - quite frankly I need a break!
So I sat down with my blueberry scone and soya latte (WHY DO THEY USE VANILLA SOY!? If I wanted vanilla I would have asked for a fucking shot of it!!! WTF!?) and compared both the black and white photocopied map from the RENT book and the map that might actually help me find my way around!
At this point I must admit, I was still rather nervous...unsire whether the East Village would be what I hoped it would be, or what I feared it might be! But I sucked it up and found the road I needed to go down, and began my journey.
I have to say, the moment I put my ipod in and Jonathan Larsons' genius mix of music and lyrics started flowing through my brain, the whole atmosphere of the day changed, and I was ready to finally undertake my pilgrimage of RENT!
The moment I found myself in the REAL East Village I was overwhelmed by its sense of history - not American history like the Statue of Liberty can give, or architectural greatness like the Empire State Building - but its history of humanit, of hardship, of good old fashioned fun, but most of all, of creation!
The first RENT landmark I saw on my trail today was the Community Garden on 6th Street and Avenue B! (I'd kind of walked past where "Friends in Deed" - ie the basis for the "life support" section of RENT - was without actually seeing whether or not it was still there, and then proceeded to get a little bit confused as to my direction, but had finally reached the avenues of the East Village!)
Behind the bars was a mass of greenery, overgrown and falling over, with teracotta pots and garden wiring peeking through every now and then. It was the true Bohemia of gardens! A mishmash of nature and stone. But unfortunately, there as no giant Christmas tree sculpture that I could see, which is the reason it is mentioned in RENT!
Next up was Tompkins Square Park, the staging of the riot at the end of Act 1 and notorious for episodes like that occuring.
It is a cultural and social hub, with children playing in the play area with their parents, elderly people sitting round the chess tables waiting for their friends to join them, and men doing pull-ups on bars and playing basketbal in the corner!
It was here I really started to feel like a part of the action. As I walked past a black man relaxing on a bench just said to me, "you're a beautiful lady - God bless you," with a genuine smile as I walked past. It just seemed like a place of great community and togetherness, and my worries began to eb away even more!
After walking round most of the outside of the park - as I had no idea which end I'd come out of - and ofcourse it was the furthest one away! - I found the corner where the Life Cafe stood! I had been in there previously and had the Huevos Rancheros so I'd experienced that RENT elation as we had sat by the RENT wall with my cousin on the Jonathan Larson bench - and I had signed the "RENThead register Volume 4!" but it was still cool to see it on the day of my great pilgrimage! It also helped give me a bearing of where the hell I was!!!
Next up was the 11th Street vacant lot - staging of Maureen's protest! As I walked down the street I tried to imagine where the lot much once have been, imagining the street as it once was.
You will not BELIEVE my shock then when I looked across the road and there before me, was an old, overgrown ABANDONED FUCKING LOT! - I mean I can't possibly say for sure if this is the one mentioned in RENT, but think about it - it was one of the only abandoned lots I saw in the East Village, it had clearly been left like that a long time, and it was right slap bang in the middle of 11th street!!!
Even in the spaces between my destinations I began to notice throwbacks to the days of RENT - the graffiti art on random street corners, the abandoned rusting supermarket trolley left by a signpost that I could just SEE the tramp by shouting "who the fuck do you think you are!?" at Mark, the higgledy piggledy buildings all completely different to the next but somehow fitting together so perfectly - and the fire escapes on either side of the road, like the opening of the film version!
Next on the list, was the New York Theatre Workshop! - but I believe I went through St Marks first. This is wher I REALLY started feeling at home! Despite the fact I was COMPLETELY lost, a woman actually came and asked if I knew anywhere you could buy chea handbags - the kind of thing only a frequenter or a native would know! - I said no I didn't an that rined the pretence a bit, bu what the hel!
I even got stopped by a guy working for one of those charities who recruit donators off the street! IM NOT EVEN AMERICAN! The fight for free and easily available healthcare and pro-choice ethic of much of the New York City inhabitants does not afect me yet!
But it was cool and we actually got talking for quite a while! He asked me out for coffee on the Wednesday! which unfortunately I couldn't go to as I was seeing family back in Mahopac, but I now have him on facebook! (I think he might have a girlfriend though. Hmm...)
So anyway - The TYTW. When I saw the sign for the workshop, my breath hitched in my throat. This was it! The place which started it all! The place that gave Jonathan Larson the platform and the support he needed to create his masterpiece - and while doing that, completely change the face of New York theatre forever! - It was emotional standing in the place which holds so much theatre history! Thinking "this is where Jonathan came and went every day, this is where Idina got her first big break - this is where it all got refined and recreated! This is where history occured!!!"
It was just a really potent emotional response that I felt, raw and real.
But I was to move on...and after walking past the shop that ued to be CBGB's and spending a little time in Maccy D's with a cold cup of coke and emptying my near to bursting bladder (looooovely) - also figuring out my next route - I was off to the West Village to find the Moondance Diner, and the Holy Grail - Jonathan's apartment building!
Unfortunately the Moondance Diner is no longer there. A lot of that area is being rebuilt and so it has been taken down. I knew it had closed down, but I still hoped it might at least still be stading! But alas it was not, so I moved on to finding Greenwich Street!
I FOUND IT! I bloody found it! And as I walked along it - again I imagined Jonathan Larson coming and going, and I tried to find a building that looked similar to the tiny little grey picture on my scruffy photocopied map!
The moment I saw it - like with the Theatre Workshop - my heart skipped a beat. It was so unmistakably the building on my map! No matter how many times I checked and compared, it became nothing but more and more clear that this was the building Jonathan created his legacy in!
This was the most emotional part of my journey, seeing where a life lived, but a place where a life that deserved so much more, was cut to a short end. He lived there, with his hopes and dreams...and he died there, surrounded by the show that would change his life forever - had he lived to see it go on!
A tear escaped my eyes, a couple of tears as I thought about where I was and everything I had seen, what I hd yest to see that he never would...the fact that I never actually got to see his legacy on a Broadway stage. Because as much as I had an AMAZING time, it was with a tinge of sadness that I looked around Times Square that first time, trying to find that RENT billboard that wasn't there.
But as if on cue, "La Vie Boheme" came on, and I| couldn't help but smile as I listened to Jonathan's celebration of all things Bohemian, and all things ALIVE! And I left the street having had one of the most fulfilling emotional experiences of my life!
Next was finding Broadway, taking my first ever New York subway and finding the main theatre district! (I also saw Tisch School of the Arts! *yearns* - GO IDINA!) and I found the Nederlander!
Which was dark.
Which was sad.
I never like to see a dark theatre - it makes me sad anyway...But seein the Nederlander with nothing in it, the stage door all boarded up and nothing on display - was particularly sad! It felt like in the end, what had RENT closed for?
Nothing - a production of "Guys and Dolls" that finnished its run early due to poor sales!!!
But hey - I guess I missed my shot. THANK GOD for the DVD of the final performance!!!
So yeah - this has been a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong post, I apologise! But it was really a day I want to savor and be able to share!
I did more, but this took up most of my day, and I think this is the thing that really made my trip what it was. I'm sure I will post again soon, but until then...I'm gonna go watch RENT to cheer myself up!
So remember...
"Forget Regret - or life is yours to miss.
No other road - no other way.
NO DAY BUT TODAY!"
xxx
THANK YOU JONATHAN LARSON!!! - Forever remembered - forever missed.
It truly is strange how you can feel less alone in a huge, gridded city full of strangers, than in your own hometown!
So, as I wallow in my own self deprecation, I feel I maybe want to share another day - or at least another few eisodes of a day - in New York City!
And this time, it's gonna be my pilgramage to the East Village, and I will share with you what occured on my first solo-flight journeys round the city on a sunny Monday while my cousin was at work!
As any real RENThead will know, in the back of the official RENT book is a double-page spread showing the East Village and a portion of the West Village, and on it are marked 10 places of interest that featured either in the musical or in Jonathans' life!
Unfortunaely, when trying to use a photocopy of this map as guidance to the REAL East and West villages, you see it is increddibly hard to follow...but I managed it anyway!
When my cousin first dropped me off right at the south tip of Manhattan and told me how to get to Broadway so I could find my bearings, I must admit I was raaather nervous! All of a sudden I was alone in a city I didn'tknow, nor had ever been to, that was not onlyfamous for its landmarks and tourism, but for preying on said tourists who go around it!
So I walked up Broadway...a looong way up Broadway to be precise, hot, hungry and scared - not having the courage to actually go in anywhere and order some food, until I got to my like 10th Starbucks on the road and thought fuckit - quite frankly I need a break!
So I sat down with my blueberry scone and soya latte (WHY DO THEY USE VANILLA SOY!? If I wanted vanilla I would have asked for a fucking shot of it!!! WTF!?) and compared both the black and white photocopied map from the RENT book and the map that might actually help me find my way around!
At this point I must admit, I was still rather nervous...unsire whether the East Village would be what I hoped it would be, or what I feared it might be! But I sucked it up and found the road I needed to go down, and began my journey.
I have to say, the moment I put my ipod in and Jonathan Larsons' genius mix of music and lyrics started flowing through my brain, the whole atmosphere of the day changed, and I was ready to finally undertake my pilgrimage of RENT!
The moment I found myself in the REAL East Village I was overwhelmed by its sense of history - not American history like the Statue of Liberty can give, or architectural greatness like the Empire State Building - but its history of humanit, of hardship, of good old fashioned fun, but most of all, of creation!
The first RENT landmark I saw on my trail today was the Community Garden on 6th Street and Avenue B! (I'd kind of walked past where "Friends in Deed" - ie the basis for the "life support" section of RENT - was without actually seeing whether or not it was still there, and then proceeded to get a little bit confused as to my direction, but had finally reached the avenues of the East Village!)
Behind the bars was a mass of greenery, overgrown and falling over, with teracotta pots and garden wiring peeking through every now and then. It was the true Bohemia of gardens! A mishmash of nature and stone. But unfortunately, there as no giant Christmas tree sculpture that I could see, which is the reason it is mentioned in RENT!
Next up was Tompkins Square Park, the staging of the riot at the end of Act 1 and notorious for episodes like that occuring.
It is a cultural and social hub, with children playing in the play area with their parents, elderly people sitting round the chess tables waiting for their friends to join them, and men doing pull-ups on bars and playing basketbal in the corner!
It was here I really started to feel like a part of the action. As I walked past a black man relaxing on a bench just said to me, "you're a beautiful lady - God bless you," with a genuine smile as I walked past. It just seemed like a place of great community and togetherness, and my worries began to eb away even more!
After walking round most of the outside of the park - as I had no idea which end I'd come out of - and ofcourse it was the furthest one away! - I found the corner where the Life Cafe stood! I had been in there previously and had the Huevos Rancheros so I'd experienced that RENT elation as we had sat by the RENT wall with my cousin on the Jonathan Larson bench - and I had signed the "RENThead register Volume 4!" but it was still cool to see it on the day of my great pilgrimage! It also helped give me a bearing of where the hell I was!!!
Next up was the 11th Street vacant lot - staging of Maureen's protest! As I walked down the street I tried to imagine where the lot much once have been, imagining the street as it once was.
You will not BELIEVE my shock then when I looked across the road and there before me, was an old, overgrown ABANDONED FUCKING LOT! - I mean I can't possibly say for sure if this is the one mentioned in RENT, but think about it - it was one of the only abandoned lots I saw in the East Village, it had clearly been left like that a long time, and it was right slap bang in the middle of 11th street!!!
Even in the spaces between my destinations I began to notice throwbacks to the days of RENT - the graffiti art on random street corners, the abandoned rusting supermarket trolley left by a signpost that I could just SEE the tramp by shouting "who the fuck do you think you are!?" at Mark, the higgledy piggledy buildings all completely different to the next but somehow fitting together so perfectly - and the fire escapes on either side of the road, like the opening of the film version!
Next on the list, was the New York Theatre Workshop! - but I believe I went through St Marks first. This is wher I REALLY started feeling at home! Despite the fact I was COMPLETELY lost, a woman actually came and asked if I knew anywhere you could buy chea handbags - the kind of thing only a frequenter or a native would know! - I said no I didn't an that rined the pretence a bit, bu what the hel!
I even got stopped by a guy working for one of those charities who recruit donators off the street! IM NOT EVEN AMERICAN! The fight for free and easily available healthcare and pro-choice ethic of much of the New York City inhabitants does not afect me yet!
But it was cool and we actually got talking for quite a while! He asked me out for coffee on the Wednesday! which unfortunately I couldn't go to as I was seeing family back in Mahopac, but I now have him on facebook! (I think he might have a girlfriend though. Hmm...)
So anyway - The TYTW. When I saw the sign for the workshop, my breath hitched in my throat. This was it! The place which started it all! The place that gave Jonathan Larson the platform and the support he needed to create his masterpiece - and while doing that, completely change the face of New York theatre forever! - It was emotional standing in the place which holds so much theatre history! Thinking "this is where Jonathan came and went every day, this is where Idina got her first big break - this is where it all got refined and recreated! This is where history occured!!!"
It was just a really potent emotional response that I felt, raw and real.
But I was to move on...and after walking past the shop that ued to be CBGB's and spending a little time in Maccy D's with a cold cup of coke and emptying my near to bursting bladder (looooovely) - also figuring out my next route - I was off to the West Village to find the Moondance Diner, and the Holy Grail - Jonathan's apartment building!
Unfortunately the Moondance Diner is no longer there. A lot of that area is being rebuilt and so it has been taken down. I knew it had closed down, but I still hoped it might at least still be stading! But alas it was not, so I moved on to finding Greenwich Street!
I FOUND IT! I bloody found it! And as I walked along it - again I imagined Jonathan Larson coming and going, and I tried to find a building that looked similar to the tiny little grey picture on my scruffy photocopied map!
The moment I saw it - like with the Theatre Workshop - my heart skipped a beat. It was so unmistakably the building on my map! No matter how many times I checked and compared, it became nothing but more and more clear that this was the building Jonathan created his legacy in!
This was the most emotional part of my journey, seeing where a life lived, but a place where a life that deserved so much more, was cut to a short end. He lived there, with his hopes and dreams...and he died there, surrounded by the show that would change his life forever - had he lived to see it go on!
A tear escaped my eyes, a couple of tears as I thought about where I was and everything I had seen, what I hd yest to see that he never would...the fact that I never actually got to see his legacy on a Broadway stage. Because as much as I had an AMAZING time, it was with a tinge of sadness that I looked around Times Square that first time, trying to find that RENT billboard that wasn't there.
But as if on cue, "La Vie Boheme" came on, and I| couldn't help but smile as I listened to Jonathan's celebration of all things Bohemian, and all things ALIVE! And I left the street having had one of the most fulfilling emotional experiences of my life!
Next was finding Broadway, taking my first ever New York subway and finding the main theatre district! (I also saw Tisch School of the Arts! *yearns* - GO IDINA!) and I found the Nederlander!
Which was dark.
Which was sad.
I never like to see a dark theatre - it makes me sad anyway...But seein the Nederlander with nothing in it, the stage door all boarded up and nothing on display - was particularly sad! It felt like in the end, what had RENT closed for?
Nothing - a production of "Guys and Dolls" that finnished its run early due to poor sales!!!
But hey - I guess I missed my shot. THANK GOD for the DVD of the final performance!!!
So yeah - this has been a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong post, I apologise! But it was really a day I want to savor and be able to share!
I did more, but this took up most of my day, and I think this is the thing that really made my trip what it was. I'm sure I will post again soon, but until then...I'm gonna go watch RENT to cheer myself up!
So remember...
"Forget Regret - or life is yours to miss.
No other road - no other way.
NO DAY BUT TODAY!"
xxx
THANK YOU JONATHAN LARSON!!! - Forever remembered - forever missed.