FLOATING THE APPLE RETURNS HOME TO PIER 84

After a five-year hiatus Floating the Apple is back on Pier 84.
This time home is not old cargo containers on a crumbling pier. Home is a large boathouse on a new Pier 84, the gem of the Hudson River Park,
a network of pier parks stretching from Battery Park City to 59th Street.

FTA, a non-profit co-founded by Mike Davis, has called Pier 84, located at 44th Street and 12th Avenue between the Circle Line
and Intrepid Museum http://www.intrepidmuseum.org/ home from since 1992.

Unlike the volatile currents of the Hudson, FTA's mission has remained steady: promote community boating and access to the Hudson which Davis calls "our greatest open space."

FTA has succeeded on both counts. FTA has built 20 boats. In the past FTA used loaned storefronts on busy midtown streets as workshops. The new building, an 80 by 40 feet space, is a workshop and storage facility. Davis hopes to establish a maritime library.

Students from the Navy Jr. ROTC program at Graphic Arts High School on West 49th Street build and repair boats while earning school credits. They learn carpentry, boat design, maritime history and ecological science and rowing skills. City-As-School had a similar program with FTA, at the Pier 40 boathouse near Houston Street.

"Several generations of people have had no connection to this magnificent river. We live on an island but we were landlocked," Davis said. "We couldn't even see the water. Huge pier sheds blocked our view.”

Davis speaks with a deep, firm voice. Medium build, with a round, rugged, sea-tanned face with long bushy white eyebrows and a high forehead, Davis resembles a New England ship captain.
"When you are on the river you deal nature's realm, wind, current and weather. You don't quibble with the rules," he said.
Anthony Geathers, a 17-year-old student at Graphic Arts, said "I learn teamwork, responsibility and how to handle a boat. It's exciting.”

Davis, an anthropologist, got his idea for community boating after visiting Istanbul with the University of Chicago. Rowing on the Bosporus, a narrow strait that separates Istanbul's European and Asian sections, is extremely popular. "This was one of my great experiences. Istanbul and New York were built to be seen from the water," he said.

Returning home he researched local history and discovered New York had its own rowing tradition. Used for commerce, transportation, sport and policing Whitehalls populated the both the city's waters.

Whitehalls www.whitehallrow.com/legacy_html/history.php are built for speed, yet sturdy enough to handle wakes and strong currents. They are also rigged for sailing.
Maritime historians believe the boat's originated in England and came here in the early 1800's. Whitehall boatman got their name from the ferry station near the fireboat pier. Renowned for their exploits the boatmen operated from a cove built by the city to thank them for rescuing passengers from a ferryboat fire. People used the boat to go to work.

Whitehalls plowed the Hudson until the end of World to protect the port against thieves and saboteurs. The boat fueled competitive racing. On a cold December day in 1824 over 50,000 people, crammed the Hudson waterfront to watch the Whitehall boatmen defeat the legendary Thames men from England.

This summer FTA offered free rowing Thursday through Sunday from 3 p.m. to sunset. In late August FTA staged its annual evacuation from Brooklyn, a re-enactment of the dramatic rescue of 9,000 men of George Washington's Revolutionary army. Fall events are planned.

"We welcome all who want to learn about boating and the river. I want to get as many people out on the water as possible." Davis said.
“But free community boating can only succeed with a strong core of volunteers and we need help”.

Editor’s Note: Mike Davis died November 2, 2008.
*PHOTO by Merecedes Fanchin: Mike Davis and students rowing on the Hudson off Pier 40 in lower Manhattan

44th STREET STRAYCAT SERENADE

I entered cyberspace as alley cat. It is an odd sobriquet for someone who grew up on West 44th Street in midtown Manhattan. My block is home to the Actor’s Studio,
and the New Dramatists in the once tough Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, home of the murderous Irish gang, the Westies.

City slicker, Broadway shuffle, forty-deuce, floozy, over-the-pan (our version of stick ball), stoop ball, knickers, (my grammar school, Holy Cross, made us wear them until the second grade) would have made sense. Friends laughed when I made my Internet debut as alley cat. Some thought I gave them a link to a porn site or a Chelsea boy hustle club.

Many assumed I liked cats. I never had one. I had hamsters, turtles, parakeets, a rabbit, a chick, (my mother baked it, by accident, in a hat box. A twelve-year-old friend told her to place a heating pad under the box to keep the chick warm) a dog, goldfishes and a large snapping turtle my mother made me toss in the rowboat lake at Central Park.

In my first apartment I unknowingly had a five-foot snake. The green, yellow, black serpent belonged to the previous tenant who left in a hurry. He owed six months rent, plus the cops wanted to ask him about his son’s “side business” as what else, a cat burglar.

One night the tenant left and took all his belongings. Well, almost everything. He left his pet snake behind. The serpent used to slither around the apartment freely. It disappeared a week before the dude departed and nestled itself behind the refrigerator near the motor. Two weeks later it emerged from its hiding place and startled my friend and super of my building, Francis, as he replaced my living room window. What happened next, you may ask? Alligators are not the only things floating in the city’s sewers.

Let’s return to the name game. I picked alley cat because as a kid I enjoyed watching the cartoon cats - Felix, Sylvester and Krazy Kat. (Years later I loved Broadway’s Victoria, the fetching white feline in the musical Cats. The beautiful, talented Cynthia Onrubia, a neighbor from long ago, originated the role on Broadway.

I liked Top Cat more than any other cartoon. Sassy, smartalecky Bowery Boy with whiskers and tail, Top Cat schemed his way around town and usually outsmarted Officer Dibble. Top Cat made me laugh. He also tweaked my imagination about the world that existed behind the six-story apartment building where I lived. For a seven-year-old boy this world contained mystery and an element of fear.

Many nights long piercing wails, similar to the cries of hungry, sick babies, sliced through the glass panes of my bedroom window. I woke up terrified. Scared and shivering I buried myself deeper under the covers. I knew babies did not live in the basement. Or did they? Hard to imagine these frightening human-like cries or caterwauling came from the alley cats living in the backyards of my block.

Huck Finn had the Mississippi. I had my backyard, a world far different from the busy, noisy streets out front. Not as long as Huck’s River, my backyard extended from Ninth to Tenth Avenues and stretched 21 buildings, including The Actor's Studio and The New Dramatists, two churches originally built for the Presbyterian and Lutheran faiths respectively.

Back then the city’s streets had no trees and flowers, a sharp contrast from today. In a thirty-block stretch we had only one green, leafy, shady oasis, DeWitt Clinton Park.
Hell’s Kitchen, and 44th street in particular, had many trees. They grew tall and lush hidden behind the century old brownstones and apartment buildings on my block. These trees often soared four, five and six stories high.

Ailanthus, the Tree of Heaven, the Poverty Tree, Frances Nolan’s tree in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, grew everywhere. It popped from the sides of buildings, cracks in the ground, from basements, and sewer gratings. It had big leaves and long branches, some extending the width of buildings.

One day I finally found the courage to leave the comfort of my building. I descended the rickety wooden stairwell connecting my building’s lobby to the courtyard and walked thirty feet to the catacomb-like passageway that led to the backyard. When I exited the walkway I discovered a magical place filled with these trees. I found sun-drenched gardens, waist high grass and shrubs and wild sunflowers. In this new playground I climbed old wooden fences and scaled ragged rock walls, some dating back to the 1850’s, which separated the yards.

Behind one building, my current home, my friends and I used to time our climbs or jumps from the six-foot high wall as we ran from one end of the yard to the other side ever fearful of the monster who lived inside the basement, an aging Doberman Pinscher. Once when the super spotted us climbing the fence, he yelled in frustration “Next time I’ll let my dog loose you brats. He eats boys like you.”

Even with this threat we knew this place belonged to us. Boys ruled. No parents to yell at us. No cars racing up the block to run us down. No traffic lights to limit our crossings. No one could stop us; not this super or the old man, who lived in a building in mid-block, the one we called the mad man, the deaf mute, with the large peach-sized lump on his head and a gimpy leg who always tried to whack us with his stick as we ran past him. He could not stop us. Nor could the drunken, chain-smoking, toothless, man who spewed cuss words in between his hacking cough while tossing cigarette butts from his second floor window as he constantly let go with cup-full globs of phlegm scraped up from his mucous clogged lungs. No one stopped us, no one except Big Red.

Red belonged on the Serengeti and not in a city backyard. A domestic cat discarded by his owner Red was a big cat in a little cat’s world. Long haired rusty colored, twice the size of any cat I had ever seen, Red led a colony of 20-30 throwaways.

They all belonged to Red. At least a dozen red colored cats lived in the backyard. Even years after his last sighting, cats with red streaks mixed with their black-gray charcoal colored fur lived on. You knew Red made his mark. Whenever we spotted Red our adventure ended for that day. Red had a tough, mean streak and he scared us.

One summer evening, I watched from the safety of my bedroom window, as a German Shepherd entered the courtyard - a fifty-by-fifty foot space between two buildings, named the Alton, my home, and the Lorraine. About ten cats slept on the wooden staircase. Others rested on metal storage containers, an old refrigerator and trashcans. All the cats scattered quickly when the crazed dog appeared.

Red stayed in his corner, the place where he had humped many a scraggy looking cat and virgin cast-offs. It was the same corner where a few years before the organ grinder and his monkey would sing and dance performing for pennies and nickels tossed down to them by the woman hanging their wash from clothes lines crisscrossing the courtyard from the apartments above.

Trapped between a wall and the garbage chute, Red had no room to run. Before the shepherd pounced on him, Red arched his back, his fur stiffened. As the dog moved closer Red hissed loudly, bared his teeth and swatted his big paw at the dog’s face. With one quick powerful stroke he ripped opened the shepherd’s nose. The dog’s fury disappeared. He whimpered loudly then turned and ran chased by Big Red. The cat earned his place in block lore.

I am no longer an alley cat. I have graduated from email to web searching to the blogosphere. Now I have my own bog and dallied about with many names. I liked streetwalker. It is a perfect fit for me. I have walked all over my city and a few others, but a Filipino office worker already snatched it. His blog www.manilastreetwalker has great photos of Manila and his travels abroad.

So I remain a cat but I have renamed myself stray cat. Alley cat is provincial, territorial. Stray cats roam the streets searching for something different, just like Top Cat. It is a reflection of me, a stray cat in the big city. Hopefully I can skillfully capture and write about what I find and learn from my wanderings and share these things with you.

This blog is not just about my block or Hell’s Kitchen. You will read stories about New York City and points beyond. I shall report, interview and write about people, places, neighborhoods, buildings, urban issues, new developments and the social and historical fabric of this city – things that interest me and hopefully will interest you too.

Please drop in whenever you have a chance. Comments and insights are encouraged. Photos by Straycat

A PASSION FOR FINE TASTE AND SOCIAL AWARENESS

Perhaps it's the red storefront with large picture postcard windows filled with eye-catching merchandise. Possibly it’s the fragrant scent and the eclectic mix of music that embraces one upon entering this homey setting filled with many colorful and splendid items.

One thing is certain Domus; a home/lifestyle boutique is a retail experience unlike any in midtown. Domus, Latin for home, is the creation of Luisa Cerutti and Nicki Lindheimer.

"We enjoy entertaining friends. Domus is an extension of our home," Cerutti said.

Cerutti, from northern Italy, and Lindheimer, a Californian, got the idea for Domus after visiting a boutique in Connecticut. Intrigued by the concept they thought about opening their own store but the economy soured after 9/11.

Cerutti, who worked in fashion, and Lindheimer, a chef, left successful careers and gambled. Their efforts paid off. O, The Oprah Magazine, Country Living and In Style have featured their products. Lucky Magazine placed Domus on its list of 100 city boutiques and praised its “reasonably priced decor and hostessing accoutrements."

Their mission is twofold: share their passion for good taste and improve conditions for marginalized people through fair trade. They do this by traveling to places with rich traditions of art and crafts and buy directly from cooperatives.

Domus prefers handcrafted to mass produced goods.
They are one of twenty shops in the U.S. to sell Arghand soaps from Afghanistan. Creamy, rich in natural oils these long-lasting, hand-molded soaps resemble polished stones. Sarah Chayes, a former NPR correspondent, and author of The Punishment of Virture, started the Arghand co-op to help the local economy. When Oprah featured these soaps and mentioned Domus on her tv show orders orders flowed in for weeks.

Domus carries La Chamba cookware from Colombia. Baking dishes, plates, pots, soup bowls and tureens all made from black clay, burnished and suitable for stove, oven and microwave.

From Kenya they sell stuffed animals made by a six-year-old women’s cooperative. The village has built a clinic, school, and offer literacy classes with the monies earned.

"This is empowering. We help the people who need it most." Cerutti said.

At Christmas they sold ornate glass ornaments from a co-op in India. These women support families and avoid working long hours in sweat shops for far less money.

Domus has table runners, blankets and decorative merino wool pillows with vibrant colors from a Peru cooperative. Four men work nine months to weave one blanket. "We have seen them work. They use only natural materials: flowers, tree bark, leaves, insects and flowers," Cerutti said.

Domus is a treasure chest of wonderful ideas. They sell elegant but moderately priced silk blend shawls from a family in China, and finely-crafted stone boxes, ideal for jewelry and keys, from Vietnam.

They have Vosges chocolates from New York, single-sliced pies from Beatrice Bakery, Treleela teas, beautiful letterpress greeting cards, classic Italian throws made of merino wool or washable acrylic, Voluspa candles, picture frames constructed from broken doors designed by a California artist, stationery, music CD's, sweaters, blankets, cotton organic hoodies and shoes for tots, and much more.

Finding an affordable space and good location proved difficult. It took Domus three months to locate their current landlord and even longer to finalize a lease. They worked around the clock for weeks, up until the night before their 2002 opening, painting, hauling bags of debris, reconfiguring the store, laying new floors, ordering and stocking shelves. “That first day we wondered if anyone would show up,” Lindheimer said.

Each year at the West 44th Street garage sale, Domus, with help from neighbors, raise thousands of dollars for charity. This year they raised over $6,250 dollars for the Global Medical Relief Fund which arranges transportation to the U.S. for children from war ravaged countries in need of prosthetic limbs and medical help.

When asked about doing business in Clinton, Cerutti said, “This a community of artists who appreciate and understand creative work. Even before we opened people offered to help us. This is where we want to be. "

Domus Unaffected Living, 413 West 44th St., 212-581-8099
(Stop by and check out Luisa and Nicki's wonderful new selections from their recent trip to India)
Photo by Straycat

EMERIL LAGASSE SHOPS HERE

In case you have not yet discovered Esposito’s, one of the city's best meat markets, hustle over to Ninth Avenue and 38th street right away.

Best shop? Says who? Chef Emeril Lagasse, owner of Emeril's and Nola's restaurants in New Orleans, is a huge fan. Lagasse referred to Esposito's as “The pork store” on his show Emeril Live, on the Food Network and said "I shop there all the time."

Located at its current site for over 70 years Esposito's first opened on Mulberry Street in Little Italy in the late 1890's. Today the keeper of Esposito’s tradition is Robert Esposito who took over from his father, Leonard, in 1992. While earning a B.S. from Embry-Riddle University, Esposito, 40, had his career plans set in stone or rather in one of the store's choice cuts of file mignon. He wanted to run the family business.

Born on West 34th Street, Esposito packed groceries, swept, and made deliveries at 11 years old. He remembers the avenue filled with clothing, house wares, and ethnic food stores. “All the merchants knew I was Esposito's kid. Back then the avenue was a special place, much more family oriented," he said.

In the nineteen sixties Clinton began to decline. Shops closed and residents moved away forced out by drugs, prostitution, and crime. The avenue reached rock bottom about fourteen years ago. Scores of drug dealers and users took over two tenements across the avenue from the store. They operated a major drug operation for months. "One day two city buses pulled up in front and the police carted about eighty people away in handcuffs," Esposito said shaking his head.

When asked how Esposito’s survived those dark days he said," We struggled. We stuck to the basics with fresh products, exceptional quality, and friendly service. I learned a lot from my grandfather, Giovanni. He had tremendous pride in his work," Esposito said. "Even is in his nineties he always stopped by to make sure things were running right.”

This philosophy has worked. Esposito's Meat Market has a strong wholesale and retail base. People who grew up feasting on Esposito's meats still return even though they live in the suburbs. "We’re getting new customers as things improve," he said. "Today people buy more often but less quantity. They buy fresh and cook the same day."

Originally a pork store Esposito’s became a full service butcher in the seventies. Sausages, made from lean cuts of premium meats, are made in their factory adjacent to the store. A thirty-six foot long display counter is packed with breakfast sausages made of sage (served at The Four Seasons restaurant), organic chicken, and hot or sweet sausage with mozzarella cheese and broccoli rabe, steaks, lamb, chicken cutlets, cold cuts, and cheeses.

The provolone cheese and parsley sausage is Esposito's signature brand. They also sell prosciutto di Parma, Louisiana style Cajun Andouille, garlic mashed sausages, salamis and cacciatorini. Esposito carries superb cuts of beef, veal, venison, quail, organic ducklings from Long Island, Buffalo burgers and hams from Gwaltney in Virginia. He has antibiotic and hormone free chickens, cold cuts, eggs, cheeses and bread. At Thanksgiving they sell 30,000 pounds of turkey.

Esposito’s business clients include restaurants, the Food Network, Martha Stewart Living Magazine and local firehouses. Robert has appeared on the Food Network's Iron Chef and the shop was featured on food writer Molly O'Neill's, PBS special about great New York City markets.

Esposito's offers more than just a great piece of meat. You get a glimpse of old New York as well.

Giovanni Esposito & Sons Meat Shop; 500 Ninth Avenue @38th Street. Hours 8 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. Mon-Sat. (212) 279-3298.
Photo by Straycat

PHIL LADUCA: INNOVATIVE DANCER TAPS NICHE WITH HOOFERS

Phil LaDuca has taken many steps in his twenty-six year career. As a performer he has danced on Broadway for Agnes de Mille in Brigadoon, and played the understudy for the Gene Kelly role in Singin' in the Rain.

He has toured nationally and internationally with Richard Harris in Camelot and Ann Reinking with the American Dance Machine. As a choreographer and teacher he has worked all over the world. But when LaDuca wanted a "venue" for his latest production he settled in Clinton. This time instead of wearing dance shoes LaDuca sells and designs them.

In the wake of September 11th, LaDuca, a gutsy twenty-year Clinton resident who hails from Chicago, opened his store, LaDuca Shoes, on Ninth Avenue near 40th street, on a gritty block south of the bus terminal.

Success did not come easy for LaDuca. It took plenty of footwork, He trudged from stage door to stage door selling his shoes out of a large canvas bag.

"Dancers have supported me. I am where I am today because of them," LaDuca said. "I started from scratch. I had no partners. I put up $20,000 of my own money."

His clientele reads like a "Who’s Who" of show business - Chita Rivera, Eddie Murphy, Michael Crawford, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger, Uma Thurman, and Meryl Streep along with the casts of Broadway hits Mamma Mia, Spring Awakening, and Hairspray, and the film Chicago.

His decision to design shoes happened fairly quickly. After teaching a ballroom workshop in Germany a dancer asked LaDuca "Why don't you design a dance shoe." He replied " I am a dancer and not a designer but the thought lingered.

"Dancers are athletes. They run, jump, dance on tables, do somersaults and everything you can imagine. Their feet take severe abuse and pounding. I understood the need for a flexible but sturdy shoe," he said. He took his etchings to Italy in search of a factory to make his shoes.

Amy York, a Radio City Rockette, and a customer, as are many of her co-dancers said, "They're soft, light. You can point your feet so effortlessly."

LaDuca, who designs the shoes at his store, is constantly on the phone with Italy cajoling them to stick to his specifications. "They are expert shoe makers but I taught them how to make shoes for dancers."

The owners and workers are third generation. The factory produces only 250 pairs of shoes a day for all its clients, of which LaDuca is the biggest. Twenty-three people work on each shoe which is made of soft, Italian leather.

“Craftsmanship is very much part of their heritage. They take great pride in their work,” he said.

LaDuca likes the diversity and history of Clinton. Many theater posters, signed celebrity photos, and shoes decorate his shop, but a gold framed black and white photo is the first thing LaDuca showed a visitor. Dated 1978, it shows LaDuca 's shop, when it was the Castelli Meat Market and Groceria.

"Castelli's son gave it to me. Their family owned this store for generations before they moved." LaDuca said. "He told me the area was in decline then and many Italian shops closed. Now it's good to see one come back." LaDuca is proud he is that one.

•••LaDuca Shoes has moved. The new address is 319 West 47th Street. Phone  (212) 586-2079)

Happy Holidays, New York

Holidays are joyous times. They are a time to celebrate and share good times with family and friends. Along with all that is great and beautiful, spiritual and creative in this city, I add one more new creation.

Although my words and efforts are humble I hope all who stumble upon this page will find something to make them smile, make them dream, or remember a time they had, or will have, here in old, yet forever vibrant New York. I've had a longtime adventure with this fine city, my hometown.

This blog is my chance to go public and open the doors to my city and report and share with you what I see and what I know. I hope you enjoy your visit. Stop in again.

Suzanne Barlow initiated this blog and wrote the First Post. More importantly, she expanded my world to realize the importance of blogging and encouraged and inspired me to become the newest kid on the blogosphere block. I am grateful for this and all that she has offered and shared.