My friend Angela posted a link to a listicle about things New Yorkers who are older than 40 have done.
I’m older than 40, and I’ve done most of them, except for go to Max Fish. It seems.
But No. 11 on the list references the spectacular desolation of lower Manhattan back in the 60s and 70s. I loved walking around that neighborhood in those days, and then I heard this Jonathan Richman song, which gets it completely right.
I like the words, the music is a bit…Roy Orbison on ‘ludes. One lonely financial zone night we were wandering around and came to the World Trade Center. Not another soul in sight. Smack in the middle of the plaza was an enormous ape. Yup, the filmmakers just left it there and it was indeed King Kong. Jessica Lange was nowhere around. ‘Twas beauty killed the beast they say. I wish our phones had cameras, someone must have said.
One night I was in a marathon poker game on the upper west side. We finished with the sun coming up, maybe 5:30 am, and decided to cab it downtown. Bleary eyed, maybe happy, maybe sad, at 34th Street I looked out the window to see this giant thing hanging on the top of the Empire State Building. A blow up King Kong, indeed waiting for Jessica Lange. We made the cabbie wait while we got out and admired it, but no selfies to testify.