[DTM 05] Insert Broadway/Tin Pan Alley lyrics here
st_aurafina asked for New York feels, particularly Steve and Bucky-related, so.
New York is a strange place. I like it a lot more than I thought it would. On the late fall/early winter days when it's crummy, it's nasty as hell: rainy and cold and windy. The difference in temperature between when I get on the train in Brooklyn and when I get off in Manhattan shocks me every time. I don't know how to plan for the weather here. Something about the water and the weird dryness of the city has wreaked havoc on my hair, and I don't know what my new routine should be. I still can't estimate distances; I expect every train station to be at least half a mile apart, like they are in Chicago. I'm so busy at work that I don't know where anything is, and I haven't gotten to see very much that isn't on the walk between train stations, home and work. (I'm more okay with this than I expected too, though I still have a constant tug-of-war between wanting to never move again after my week and to see this new city that I'm living in. I haven't been in any of the big parks; I haven't seen the Brooklyn Bridge yet. It's strange to see all the protests, the bridge totally shut down, and know I have no reference of my own for that yet. I'm getting out more, and I'm staying for the holidays, so there shouldn't be interruptions. Either way, this is the view from my office, so that's pretty cool.)
I've written about it before, but the light is incredible when the sun is out. It's Edward Hopper light, and it infuses the colors and the air with this complete unreality. I feel so much more like I live by the sea -- like I live by the edge of the world. (I get this feeling as I cross the last big street before my apartment; it rises just enough that it cuts off your sight line quite close, and that edge-of-the-world feeling that I remember so vividly from one moment on top of a fort in San Juan, Puerto Rico, laps at me. I live in a part of Brooklyn that's not Coney Island, but it's not far. I haven't been yet, but I'm looking forward to it, tourist trap and all.)
On my commute, I do think often about how Steve and Bucky surely rode my train to and from Coney Island. There's a section that pulls up aboveground, huge and high, and it takes a big, sweeping curve four or five stories off the ground, right through the "99% docks" part of Brooklyn, Red Hook. (There's a curve like that on the Brown Line in Chicago that I always, always loved; you could see such a big sweep of the city right there, and I always looked out the window for that.) You can see the Statue of Liberty if you're sitting on the right side of the train, or if you have a clear view. (I've grown to love the Empire State Building, when it was always the Chrysler Building that had my heart. The Empire State Building is how I know I'm pointed in the right direction to get my train home, and I love seeing it lit up at night. It's much more impressive at night, I think.)
But right, Steve and Bucky. It really is that big sweep in Red Hook that puts me there, and I know that's purely fanon. I haven't had a chance to wander around DUMBO or Brooklyn Heights, or wherever it is they were supposed to have grown up. I do have feelings about Steve's first round of sadness errands, the ride on the orange train seats. I have feelings about the kind of Jew I need Bucky Barnes to be. (My neighborhood is full of men and boys who won't look at me. I also got catcalled this morning; today I was wearing ballet flats, but usually I'm in shitkicker boots.) Now that I'm here, I wonder, maybe a bit more vividly, what it would be like for them to be back, to see this city now. I didn't ever understand before, this precarious, edge-of-the-world feeling. Maybe that's more a my part of Brooklyn feeling, but they'd certainly visited. If I wrote about it, that's what I'd write -- the edge of the world, from the top of a roller coaster, or a very tall track for a train.
(All the others, plus a few openings)
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