Brandon's First derive
February 25, 2018, by Brandon
I started pretty much on the corner of Orchard and Grand. It was a drizzly Saturday evening and it was right about that time between when the afternoon crowd fades and the night crowd hasn’t quite rallied yet. So there was a strange sort of calm that usually one doesn’t get around LES. Then again, this part is farther off from the more lively areas, on the other side of Sara Roosevelt Park. It’s closer to Chinatown but on Orchard and Grand, it doesn’t quite yet have too many distinctive modes of its own besides being a hodgepodge of more character definitive places.
My first card told me to turn left so I made my way down Orchard St. Not too far down I noticed that there was a bunch of multi-colored confetti strewn across the street and it looked really picturesque on that rainy night. The grimy nature of damp LES contrasted with those colorful pieces of tissue papers drew me in.
For some reason, it reminded of the Velvet Underground song “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, which in a way could be related to our class as we listened to “Rock and Roll” that one day. For what it’s worth, not unlike other people, moments in this city usually illicit responses that manifest themselves often into songs. Given Velvet Underground’s deep ties to the city, I’m not surprised this came to mind. There’s something particularly elucidating about that song with the sight of the confetti on the ground, drowned in a dirty puddle. I won’t claim that I try to find significance in things that are not there but sometimes it’s good to linger on certain sentiments. In New York, it’s seems that parties come in succession and its a ceaseless parade of one barreling through only to be snuffed out to be forgotten by the next. In that, the confetti on the pavement is just another reminder of the things that are simeoulataneouslqy forever ingrained in the city and things that are swept away into the past without recognition.
Having lingered too long on that, I walked on and pulled my next card. This card told me to find the nearest green space and head towards it. I knew my options were fairly limited and nothing would be too green. So between going to Seward and Sara Roosevelt Park, I chose the latter. I made my way down Hester, and crossing Allen, the rain started to pick up again. It’s a fairly sparse area, at least considering the density and fervor of most other parts of the Lower East Side. Towards the end of Hester St., where there are one of those rare curved street edges, unlike the constant linear cuts of most streets, that leads you towards the park. At the corner outside of an Asian convenience store, with the usual bright yellow awning with red lettering, there were a few pay-for children’s mini-rides that are usually a staple of large supermarkets. They each had some theme music playing and it was quite the sight and sound during that night.
I reached the park and made my way up Forsyth. Sara Roosevelt Park is a strange diced up little rectangle that houses a surprising lot for its skinny size. There’s soccer fields and basketball courts that draw a crowd late into the night. There are even the rare public restaurants that I’ve never been really desperate or brave enough to venture into, but they’re there nonetheless. Sara Roosevelt Park, more than anything, to me has always represented a designation for the division of one part of LES from another. Since it stretches from Houston all the way down to Canal, it does so in a few manners. You have the New Museum on one side and the Tenement museum on the other. To the southwest you have cramped Asian supermarkets, economy bus lines, and some of the best cheap and humble eating you could find in the city. To the northwest you have the more gentrified area that houses one of the most active night scenes in Manhattan, with a plethora of bars, clubs, and trendy dining. I hung out for a moment thinking about this before making my way towards where Grand St. cuts through. There I pulled another card and was told by a lovely lady to head somewhere for a beer.
In no position to deny such a request as the rain picked up, I knew there were only mainly Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants in the direct area so I made my way towards Delancey where I knew my options would be better. It was still that strange time in the night where daytime people were heading home and nighttime people hadn’t quite made it out yet, and the stragglers like me were stuck in the space in-between. I eventually found my way back to Orchard, on the other side of Delancey and ended up in a place called Lucky Jack’s for my requisite beer. Already, a wildly different scene from where I started my derive, the crowd was a mix of young and hip and old long time neighborhood folk.
After finishing at Lucky Jack’s, I made my way back outside and found the rain had let off mostly. There I was told by the app to get someone to take a picture of me but the first person I asked drunkenly laughed me off and carried on down the street so I figured I’d settle for a selfie.
The next card I got told me to “find a low point” and I really had no idea what that meant so I carried on. The next few cards, from following a person on their phone to finding stoplights, kept me wandering around the northwest corner of LES for a while. By that point, the night folk had started to make their way onto the streets and the general energy of the night was lifting. Around that point the app told me to ask a stranger for the time, who when asked by me, saw me clearly holding my phone out and on was rightfully confused but obliged me nonetheless. The last few cards, finding a takeout restaurant and following a woman with long hair, brought me surprisingly close to where I needed to end up, the Delancey/Essex subway. So I took that as a sign and ended my derive there. What struck me most about this derive was that it honestly felt to me like any other night, minus asking strangers random requests. I love walking around LES late at night when I have nothing else to do and I wandered in a way that I typically would. Maybe that’s the point, though.