On a daily neighborhood soodle a while back I saw this single golden sandal on a stoop on W112th Street.
I wondered about the backstory. Was it lost or abandoned and was it missed? And I took a photograph.
Sue did the same.
Sometime later that child’s shoe was transformed.
You can check out Sue’s additional transformations at Prufrock’sDilemma and Prufrock’s Dilemma The Golden Shoe
Every now and again – in another kind of change – one of my posts from the distant past rides again and appears in my most-read-this-week list. Sometimes you can hazard a guess why (the hits are all from the same area and you think: some class in must be studying a particular poem or book.) And other times it just seems quite random. So it is with the recent hits on my post about Kafka’s parable of the leopards which is about how change happens in schools. That’s from over a decade ago and from what now seems like a separate universe.
The day after Thanksgiving – like mushrooms after a night of heavy rain – the Christmas trees appear on the streets of New York. And the shelters and sheds for the sellers become more elaborate.
This line-up is on Broadway just north of Straus Park – the little pocket park triangle in memory of Isidor and Ada Straus who went down with the Titanic 1912.
Lovely and pleasant were they in their lives
And in their death they were not divided
II Samuel 1:23
Here it is decked out for the season.
This is Sakura Park just north of W122st. between Claremont Avenue and Riverside Park. Riverside Church is to the south in the background.
The park owes its name to the more than 2,000 cherry trees delivered to parks in New York City from Japan in 1912.
Sakura means “cherry blossom” in Japanese and the cherry trees were to be presented as a gift from the Committee of Japanese Residents of New York as part of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in 1909.
The steamer carrying the original shipment from Japan sank. A new shipment arrived in 1912 and the trees were planted in Riverside and Sakura Parks.
No sakura on these trees this December.
It’s good to live in a neighborhood where people park cars like this on the street.
And these leaves in an unfiltered unedited photo taken on a damp afternoon when the light was fading.
The featured image is a detail from: The shoe becomes a window into Rings End, Dublin (1935) by Harry Kernoff (1900-1974) by Prufrock’s Dilemma
what a gorgeous post, thank you! Soodle and stoop in one sentence was enough but then the photographs and bits of history too . . .
Thanks Jane. I was going to use my favorite new word – stickybeaking – again but didn’t want to wear it out!
I clicked Like (several times) but it didn’t ‘take.’
Come on, WordPress — give me a break!
Thanks for all the effort mistermuse!
Wondering whether this is an Ipad issue.
‘Soodle’ was a new word for me. Is it commonly used in America?
Hi Katrina – It’s just me being a bit pretentious and using an archaic word that I can across in John Clare and W.H.Auden.
I wrote about “soodle” here: https://www.josieholford.com/a-new-year-soodle/
It seems the perfect word for a certain kind of idle strolling.
Cheers – Josie
Love the avenue of Sakura trees, even at this time of year, and love the way Sue incorporated that little shoe into various other works of art. Wouldn’t it be something if the child who lost the shoe were to see one of those paintings one day? These are the kinds of coincidences that make living in a big city intimate and magical.
Josna Rege´s last blog post ..522. Turns of Phrase
What an intriguing idea! A clever person could make a great short story out of that.
My attention, already drawn to your discursive account, was arrested by the mention of Mary Fedden’s art. A native of Bristol, my former home town, I wonder if she was related to Marguerite Fedden, author and historian of that city, whose various writings included Bristol Vignettes, a copy of which I used to own and pore over as a school student interested in local history. Along such lines I’m afraid my mental rambles increasingly take me, until I end up staring at a cul-de-sac… As just now.
It looks like they are related. Constance Marguerite Fedden (1875-1962) was the daughter of Nelson Fedden and Annie Allen. Mary’s father – Harry V. Fedden – was the son of Henry Fedden who was Nelson’s brother. Is that a great aunt?
In any event – what interesting people they both were.
I love this: the warmth , the nostalgia, the whimsy — and those gorgeous photos 🙂
Thanks John.
I love reading this post with photos of a favorite neighborhood (I have friends who live on W. 111th and Broadway whom I visit at least once a year). I remember discovering Straus Park many years ago… I will make sure to find Sakura Park when I visit next spring (and on the topic of cherry trees, a bunch of them in the Boston area have been blooming (?!?) in the past couple of weeks).
Straus Park is steps away from W111th Street – a nice little oasis on a warm day with shade, plantings and a pool. Great little piece of NY history. And Sakura Park is another little peaceful pocket of the city.
Another blog post in the offing? I can think of many instances where the actuality is far worse than the thought. But I don’t want to be downer at the festive season.
“I don’t want to be downer at the festive season” – Heaven forfend! Have another mince pie. Fortify thyself even if you are in the antipodes and sweating from the heat.
But, maybe, in January – when we are again allowed to be realistic and truthful – you might share some thoughts?
Defininely.I’ll be in a bad mood by them after the excesses of the festive season.
The shoe is delightful and the use made of it in Prufrock’s blog equally so. I love accompanying you on your walks around New York. It is such a surprising place. That view from above Morningside Park is the New York I didn’t know existed but only found when I went there.
Thanks Gerts. Most generous. Your comment brings this line to mind; “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. Meaning – in this instance – that everything is interesting. Even an idle stroll in a grubby city on a winter day once you think about it and bring meaning to what you see.
But then I wonder: “Is Hamlet right about that? Is there nothing that is unequivocally and materially bad regardless of what any of us think about it?”
Oh, dear! Now I’m off again.