Peter's Derive
March 21, 2018, by Peter
This second derive brought me on a journey through a few spaces that were formally very important to my life. The temperature is moderate, but snow is in the forecast, and the streets are quite bare. I look on as all the shop workers look bored in their mostly empty stores. I moved out of the city back home to Long Island in November, so it’s rare that I’m ever out this late on such an unpleasant night, the kind where you wouldn’t want to go out. This kind of cold makes it hard for me to feel anything, I feel like I’m in a slightly chilled room, but wrapped up in my jacket and everything, so I just really feel a little wind and droplets of snow on my face. Not too bad, but just enough discomfort to feel unpleasant.
I start at 8th street and Broadway, the location of my former subway stop, where I arrived in Manhattan for two and a half years. Here I would arrive after a grueling 30 minutes on the R Train from my old apartment in Astoria, and oftentimes would need to immediately hustle across the street to NYU Bookstore, the site of my old work-study job. Tonight the store is closed. I can just look in and see the new layout, which from the conversations I’ve had with people who still work there, is “the worst”. I continue onward west, zig-zagging through The Village and some of the wealthiest real estate in Manhattan.
I find myself in front of my old dorm, Rubin Hall on 5th Avenue. I lived here between 2014 and 2015 as a freshman, the only year I lived in a dorm. I peek inside looking at the current guard, who I do not recognize. A chilly night like today reminds me of rushing back to this very location after going out to buy a cake without gloves, vexed with the task of holding in straight and keeping my hands warm simultaneously.
I continue following the derive app, but sometimes wish to ignore its prompts. It asks me to get coffee. Too late in the day for that. Immediately after it wants me to grab a local beer. Really not in the mood for that. It asks me to follow the mountains. I suppose that would mean just go north to the Adirondacks. Or maybe west to the Poconos? It asks me to find a phone booth. This is the closest thing I can find:
Continuing throughout the Village I feel a bit alienated. I am sure that I am one of the very few people out who does not live in New York City. I am reminded of this fact as the app asks me to listen to noise, and I notice how quiet it has gotten! I focus in on one passing car blasting some kind of reggae subgenre, but other than that not much is going on. This is supposed to be New York, one of the biggest cities in the world. I’m used to crowds, as I am part of the bridge and tunnel crowd at this point, and only seem to come in during rush hours.
This walk through my old haunts has made me realize that I’m a little less in touch with the city than I have used to be. At any given time people like me, who don’t actually live in the city are there, taking space, except in extreme moments like this, where there are very few of us, just a spare worker or a college kid up late doing homework like myself. I think that people who live within the city might forget how many daily visitors are surrounding them, and also forget the great privilege they have to live in a place many people only dream of.
I finish up on my reflections, finding myself back on the R Train at Union Square, only this time heading to Penn Station instead of Astoria.
