By
noeleenm on November 21st, 2006
If I’m ever going to tell stories about a changing Ireland again, I’d better finally finish with my photos of New York…
Mostly these were taken in Central Park, all 843 acres of it tranquil in October colours. The photos include two statues that set me off on the trail of a Polish King – and Alaskan huskies.Â
First, though, a bronze cougar crouching menacingly over a trail, seals being fed in New York Zoo, and Turtle Pond, a place where even music is banned in this varied Park – a ‘quiet place’.
 
 
These next three sent me home to demand news from Wojtek of this Polish king, and to the internet for the story behind Balto, the husky…
 
 
Getting news of Jagiello turned out to be easy. He was the Lithuanian King who, by marrying the young Polish Queen (she was eleven at the time of the marriage!), united those two countries and brought Poland into what was considered to be its Golden Age. I found this interesting because of Grazine and Ratsa from Lithuania, and Magda and Wojtek from Poland, all of whom lived/live in our house.
But the story of the incredible race by teams of huskies across Alaska carrying antitoxin to the town of Nome, stricken with diphtheria in 1925, turned out to be even more fascinating than the inscription on the statue. Balto, the dog who led the final team into the town, became a popular hero – and rightly so, as were each of the 100 plus dogs and twenty drivers who carried the life-saving medicine for 674 miles in less than five and a half days in conditions so cold that planes couldn’t fly in it.
But http://www.njsdc.com/history.html tells the story of the dog who was the greatest hero of all during that incredible mercy run. Balto ran the last fifty miles, but ten year old Togo had led the team for 340 miles - just over half the entire journey, and was left permanently lame as a result. His name doesn’t even appear on the inscription.
Bravo, Togo!
Now, Turtle Pond from another viewpoint, the fountain, and the boat lake in Central Park…
 
…Fifth Avenue reflected in the huge mirror at Rockefeller Square, a door near the square with figures representing the workers’ guilds of America, and Rockefeller Square.
 
 
The explanation of the motto above the workers’ guilds emblems on the door – ‘Dieu et mon droit’ is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieu_et_mon_droit and there’s a far better photograph of the same door at travel.webshots.com while at aviewoncities.com you’ll find a some interesting background on the Rockefeller Center.
Below, the UN building in New York, a demonstration on the opposite pavement, and an old church near Ground Zero…
And, finally, the endlessly fascinating juxtaposition of building to sky, building to bulding to sky, and my two shopaholic friends outside Macy’s store…
Because my camera battery ran out, I’ve no pictures of Washingston Square in Greenwich Village, where we spent a magical Sunday afternoon, listening to sixties music played by people who just wandered along, took out their instruments and joined in the sessions; watched street entertainers juggle and listened to a brass band; and found two real vegetarian restaurants within a door’s space of each other. I’d strongly recommend a visit to it though - it’s my kind of place…
Posted in Friends, Holidays, Ireland, USA | No Comments »
By
noeleenm on November 10th, 2006
One of the great things about visiting New York is that you can visit so many other ‘countries’ within that city – like Chinatown…
 
 
 
In case the inscriptions aren’t clear…
Lin Ze Xu (above), 1785-1850, was “a pioneer in the fight against drugs”, his monument says, and it doesn’t exaggerate. As Imperial Commissioner he wrote a quite remarkable letter to Queen Victoria, bringing to her attention the opium smuggling by the English that was causing such major tragedy in China – “Suppose there were people from another country who carried opium for sale to England and seduced your people into buying and smoking it; certainly your honorable ruler would deeply hate it and be bitterly aroused.”
And his insistence on burning opium found on 22 British ships resulted in the Opium War – the beginning of modern Chinese history – in 1839.
The memorial arch in the heart of Chinatown says in English, and I presume in Chinese: “In memory of the Americans of Chinese ancestry who lost their lives in defense of freedom and democracy”.
And Confucius’ (551-479 BC) memorial is inscribed with his Chapter of Great Harmony (Ta Tung):
“When the Great Principle prevails the world is a great commonwealth in which rulers are selected according to their wisdom and ability. Mutual confidence is promoted and good neighbourliness is cultivated. Hence men do not regard as parents only their own parents nor do they treat as children only their own children. Provision is secured for the aged till death, employment for the able bodied and the means of growing up for the young. Helpless widows and widowers, orphans and the lonely, as well as the sick and the disabled are well cared for. Men have their respective occupations and women their homes. They do not like to see wealth lying idle yet they do not keep it for their own gratification. They despise indolence yet they do not use their energies for their own benefit. In this way, selfish schemings are repressed and robbers, thieves and other lawless men no longer exist and there is no need for people to shut their outer doors. This is the Great Harmony. (TA TUNG)”
If only…
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By
noeleenm on November 7th, 2006
When my friend, Janeth, from Ecuador came to visit, she asked to be taken to our local cemetery.
“You learn a lot about a people from their cemeteries”, she said.
While I was in New York, I visited two cemeteries. One was Ground Zero, the former World Trade Center site which became a cemetery on 9th September, 2001, when two hijacked planes were deliberately crashed into its Twin Towers by terrorists, killing 2,602 innocent people. 24 people remain missing according to Wikipedia.
On my way there, I came across another cemetery, which I’ve never seen listed in guide books. It was found in 1991, when a Federal Office building at 290 Broadway in Lr. Manhattan was being extended. Excavators discovered over 400 skeletons beneath the concrete. Further excavations revealed that it was part of a five acre site in which 10,000 – 20,000 people were buried. Around 9% of them were under the age of two. 31% were under the age of puberty. All were African slaves.
 
 
Forensic examination of the skeletons removed from the site showed that the arm sockets of children as young as six years of age were destroyed from hard labour.
I saw the posters (above) first on the railings around what still looks like a construction site. Then I went inside to the museum created within the Federal building, where I first attached myself to a group but left quickly because the stories told were so horrific that I was afraid I was going to break down openly. I was alone because I had wanted to explore Chinatown on our last morning in New York and arranged to walk across afterwards to meet my friends at Ground Zero.
Instead I wandered quietly, reading the heartbreaking story of these ‘immigrants’ who were dragged from their homeland, families split apart to be sold separately, and for whom death was a release. They were buried in unconsecrated ground because to bury them in consecrated ground would be to admit that they were human. They chose themselves to be buried facing Africa, in the hope that their souls would cross the water again after death: they wanted to go home.
Yesterday I attended the Pattern of the Graves in our local cemetery. My parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbours, are all buried there, among their own people. In New York, Irish immigrants had it tough at times, but they were white and they were Christian. They were lucky. Between the two photographs I took of the posters outside the African Burial Ground, which is being turned into a Memorial Park, I placed a photograph of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York to remind me of that.Â
I have no photographs of the inside of the museum. My hands were shaking too much there, and I was too occupied trying to hold back the tears.
The Federal Government of the United States designated the site a National Historic Landmark in 1993, and it was planned that it would be turned into a memorial garden to be completed in September, 2005. So far the memorial garden is still a building site, delayed partly it seems by the events of nine eleven. But the museum is hard-hitting, moving, mind-searingly memorable.Â
Afterwards, I was tempted not to visit Ground Zero. I didn’t know if I could face more trauma. But, by the kind of accident that brought me along the street of the African Burial Ground, I found myself approaching the former World Trade Center alongside a small church.
St. Paul’s Chapel is Episcopalian, and it’s Manhattan’s oldest public building in continuous use. The little chapel was saved from much of the fallout of nine eleven by a large sycamore tree, and became, for the eight months following the 9th September, a place of sanctuary for the workers who had to go down to hell day after day looking for bodies, or the remains of bodies.
Just outside the front door, overlooking Ground Zero, is a bronze bell presented by the people of London to the people of New York, following nine eleven. The chapel and its own small cemetery are surrounded by railings. They were covered in the days following the tragedy with flyers giving the face and details of missing loved ones. They were replaced, gradually, by memoriam cards.
Some of them have been retained, along with other memoriams of those terrible days, on a special altar in the little church, which is now part museum to that tragedy, yet wholly still a place of worship.
Around the side of the church the days following the tragedy are recalled in pictures and text. Teams of cooks, teams of doctors and nurses, teams of masseurs, teams of counsellors, teams of priests, all played their part in trying to restore health and sanity to them each time they got a break. Small beds were set up all around the little church, and along the gallery, with a soft toy on each one. Snores broke through the sound of worship, which continued throughout it all.
I arrived at St. Paul’s at around noon, and at twenty minutes past the hour a young women entered the pulpit and asked everyone to either move into the pews or else to simply stand still for the ten to fifteen minutes of prayer that has taken place at that time every day since September 11th, 2001.
It started with the church bell ringing out four sets of five peals – the traditional lament for a dead fireman. It continued with one of the classic prayers for peace, that of St. Francis of Assisi, followed by prayers for all those engaged in the work of healing and reconciliation across the world, and ended with another brief prayer for peace. It was simple, dignified, and very moving.Â
Following the bombing of Coventry Cathedral in England during World War II, someone picked up nails that had been blown out of the ruined building. With them, he built a cross. It was the beginning of the Community of the Cross of Nails, dedicated to promoting forgiveness and reconciliation. St. Paul’s Chapel in New York city became part of that community following its eight month ministry.
In Coventry the beginning of Jesus’ most well known prayer from the cross is inscribed: “Father forgive…” Only the first two words are used to witness that only Christ has the right to say “them”: for the rest of us it must be: “Father forgive us for we know not what we do…”Â
When I finally reached the high enclosure surrounding the Ground Zero of our white brothers and sisters who were slaughtered so terribly on nine eleven in this city, my mind went back to our black brothers and sisters who lived and died so terribly in the eighteenth century in this same city. And I bowed my head and prayed for all of us. “Father forgive…”
Posted in Holidays, Ireland, USA | No Comments »
By
noeleenm on November 3rd, 2006
I love New York. It’s vibrantly alive, and has been multi-cultural for so long that you can visit other countries by simply walking through the neighbourhoods where their immigrants have settled. It’s totally different from anywhere else I’ve ever known, and yet, sometimes, familiar because of its iconic landmarks.
 
We stayed in a hotel in Manhattan, close to one of its most famous landmarks – the Empire State Building. And, close by, on the way to the subway, there was another of those classic architectural contrasts in which this city seems to specialise.
A small redbricked church, known as ‘the Church around the Corner’, with a neat old courtyard out front, some wonderful stained glass windows, and a strong connection to the arts community in New York, is tucked comfortably into a tree-lined space, almost in the shadow of the Empire State. When we dropped in, a visiting choir was rehearsing with a young boy whose pure soprano voice would raise hairs on the back of your neck.
The first photograph above shows its spire against the skyline, with the Empire State soaring behind. The second photo was taken on the way to the United Nations building, near the East River, again showing a lovely little church, like a flower growing in a crevice in a rock, in among the skyscrapers of - I think - East 42nd Street. This trio closes with a shot I took when I left the UN building and walked down to the river, looking over at Long Island. The helicopter seemed to be involved in a search and rescue operation, judging by the fire engines that passed us, and the dark shadow at the top is an overhead motorway.
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By
noeleenm on November 2nd, 2006
I’m back…
Back from New York, after a really good holiday; back from the Oral Hearing into building on the flood plain; back from a trip to Belfast, Carrick-a-Rede Bridge and the Giant’s Causeway…
…And so much has happened that I’m going to try to ease my way back by posting photographs of New York; referring you to http://www.braywatch.com/ for news of the Oral Hearing; and posting photographs of Northern Ireland.
It seems like a thousand years since my last post on 4th October, just four weeks ago, and much has happened in our home over that time between, and during, what felt like my occasional visits there.
Magda has moved on to another house, to share with a friend from Poland. Rasa, from Lithuania, has taken her place, and has just found a new job. Maria has changed jobs, and has had her sister, Katherin, to visit for a few days, and now her friend, Tanya, is with us for another few days.
Pavel’s girlfriend, Renata, is due to arrive on 16th November for six weeks.
Wojtek continues to work by night and go to college by day, and still says he doesn’t mind because he loves the DJ and Music Production course so much. Survival is helped this week, though, by the Hallow E’en mid-term break.
Gint is talking of going to the States to work…
All of them (Maria, Katherin, Rasa, Wojtek and Gint) went to a disco in Temple Bar last Saturday night, and I’ll post photos of that, too, when I borrow them from Wojtek.
So, be patient with me, while I try to catch up…
Posted in Germany, Holidays, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, USA | No Comments »