Mika's First Derive
February 20, 2018, by Mika
How can you drift aimlessly through a neighborhood you know so well? My derieve started just a couple blocks south of the NYU dorm Lafayette where I lived for a year and a half. Whether for academic reasons or just general boredom I’ve spent plenty of time wondering the southern tip of Manhattan just before Wall Street. To put myself in a different state of mind I decided to do my derieve at night and suddenly the hustling and bustling 21st century New York City I knew faded away and a gilded city, Victorian in its pomp and circumstance, rose from the steam bubbling underground.
Debord claims a derieve encourages “playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects” and I couldn’t help but construct a world out of my imagination around my wanderings. I began in Thomas Paine Park, something that felt peculiar considering that earlier in the day I was at Fort Greene Park where there’s a historical monument for the Revolution. I was instructed to sit in that park for two minutes and as my mind started drifting back centuries I looked up and noticed that I couldn’t see the top of any skyscrapers around me. There was a thick canopy of fog blanketing the sky that reminded me of the cover of Vampire Weekend’s last album Modern Vampires of the City which features the New York skyline engulfed in fog. Their music has a classical influence that complimented the pre-21st century vibes my derive sent me on and became an internal soundtrack as I made my way. 
The app told me to walk towards a stoplight so I continued south and then it told me to find a good place to hide a dead body. This card was interesting because I then began to notice that while the streets were pretty empty, there were still plenty of police officers walking around. Granted I was around a lot of important municipal buildings but walking around the city at night came with this eerie feeling that I was always being watched. 
The sheer might of the skyscrapers around me made me feel small, like a miniature porcelain figure. This psychological reaction was also inspired by the gilded Victorian aesthetic of the parks around City Hall. 
For a moment, as I crossed through a small park with a fountain in the center and old time gas light looking lamps, I could see folks strolling through with me. The women in their large corseted dresses and the men in dinner coats twisting their moustaches. I also couldn’t help but notice the trunks of what might have been glorious evergreen trees but now like sparse and dilapidated set against the backdrop of the towering skyscrapers. 
My next card told me to head towards a sound and take a picture of it. I followed the hissing of a sewer grate to capture the steam bubbling underneath. 
I looked at Broadway ahead of me to see the night air blossoming with steam pouring out from underground. That coupled with the constant feeling of being surveyd gave me the sense that my peaceful Victorian day dream could be dashed at any moment, that the city could light up with trouble at any second. I neared closer to the area around the World Trade Center and noticed the architecture was becoming less and less modern. 
This is when I passed the famous St. Paul’s Chapel of Trinity Church. 
Their gate was open and I was able to walk amongst the tombs in their graveyard. There was a bell there given to the church by the city of London one year after 9/11, creating a concoction of emotion that wrapped tragedy,
fate,fear, and grief all into one. 
The derive journey made me feel little and I felt it was time to go home. As I headed to the Chamber Street station I made one last stop at the United States Posted Service where the silver gilded revolving door seemed like the perfect last stop for my journey through time in this space. 
That was until I entered the station and continued feeling surveyed because of the hundreds of pairs of mosaic eyes throughout the underground stop. I guess I wasn’t the only one feeling watched. 