In the aftermath of sorry debacle known locally as ‘the Gates’ dividing lines have been drawn here. Whether or not you went to see the gates has become the most current litmus test for whether or not you are a real New Yorker. These tests come up frequently in the Big Apple.
A few months back there was front-page silliness over the plight of a couple of red tailed hawks. There were protests in the streets over these two homeless pigeon eaters; I kept wondering how the people holding signs and chanting on the sidewalk were going to react when they found that homelessness affects people too, but fortunately no one seemed eager to tell them.
I didn’t go to see the hawks or the gates and I’m proud to report that avoiding them allows me to consider myself a slightly more legitimate New Yorker, even though I live in the suburbs. I stayed away from them for a couple of reasons. First of all, the New York thing. There are certain things you just don’t do if you want to maintain any credibility in this town. Going to the soup guy from Seinfeld; gawking outside of the Today Show studio; voting. These are meaningless experiences here; the pursuits of which are allowable only in the company of visiting aunts wearing giant foam Statue of Liberty head spikes.
The other reason to avoid them was the gates themselves. They weren’t real gates in the sense that you could open them up, walk through and be someplace useful, like inside of John Malkovich or the Holiday Cocktail Lounge. They didn’t really get you anywhere. When you walked through one you simply had a better view of the next one; until the wind kicked up and it started blowing in your face. Think of ducking on under backyard clotheslines of your childhood; then multiply it by seventy five hundred.
That you could wander about like this for 23 continuous miles was inexplicably part of the general attraction. Twenty three miles? Who knew there was so much space to get mugged in Central Park? There were more than 7,500 gates in the exhibit; one for each person who actually went to Shea Stadium last year.
As you might expect, people got caught up in this thing. You could see families from Long Island and New Jersey making group outings on the weekends. Adults pushing along infants and children in strollers so the kids could get an early taste of how inane life will be if they don't move soon.
I heard that some folks set out on journeys to try and walk through as many of the gates as possible without having to double-back anywhere. This is similar to those lost souls who try to ride in the subway for as many miles as possible without ever passing the same station twice, only with the gates it was $2.00 cheaper. But 23 miles on foot is too far and although many hardy souls started out on this sojourn, as far as I could tell, none endured beyond six or seven gates before ennui and fatigue set in.
The concept of conquering all of them probably sounded appealing on some pre-mortal “because they are there” level, or on some pre-mortal-post vodka barstool. There is a big, unfortunate, first step between the concept and the act. And after that is the even more unfortunate second step which, it turns out, would be alarmingly similar to the first step. So were the gates and this was the problem.
You can't look at 7,500 identical things without your mind starting to wander. It being New York they should have had a Starbucks or a Gap at every fifth gate; maybe a couple of Ray's Pizza logos.
I shouldn't be so bitter. Perhaps some good came from the gates. For one thing, I learned that ‘saffron’ is a color, not a fabric. Nylon; rayon; saffron… it made sense to me. But, it turns out it's a color; a striking, bold color that can best be described as ‘orange’. To conjure up an image of this color think of, well, oranges. Maybe a better example is that tie-dyed tanning that Kerry seemed to apply to his face during the campaign. Except the gates were the same color on both sides.
Another benefit is that, having hosted the gates, it now seems unlikely that New Yorkers will be burdened with the Olympics. New York is not about events; we don't need the Olympics to showcase New York as a modern do-anything city. The hordes of people going gaga over the one-color outdoor drapery show should convince even the staunchest proponents that we are not a good candidate for the 2012 Games.
New York is about getting things done and making a little on the side. Indeed, the Gates were reported to have been an economic boon to the city. That's no surprise, given the influx of day-trippers mixed with $165.00-a-pop parking tickets, but about the little guy? The local papers had articles about what an economic windfall the gates were to such important tax constituents as waitresses and hansom carriage drivers; long the back-bone of the New York economy. There's no doubt that New York hansom carriage drivers and waiters and waitresses, at least the ones near Central Park, were the envy of their peers in non-gate cities like Athens and Sydney. However, real contenders aren't supposed to talk about those things anymore than real New Yorkers would actually go to them.