by
NARR:
Factory smoke stacks are usually not beloved.
But I happen to live down the street from a set of stacks I just adore. Stacks that no longer spew soot, of course.
They simply stand there, dormantÖ.making a giant four poster bed out of the top of a barely usedÖ.three-story brick buildingÖ.which used to be the old Schwartz Chemical Factory. Which used to be the old Pennsylvania Railroad electricity plant. But whenever I fly home into LaGuardia Airport, as we cruise up the Hudson and bank right, I can see them from the air. And they reassure me that my block is still thereÖ. that everything is as it should be.
Architects McKimÖMeadÖand White designed the imposing brick building in the eraís grand Renaissance Revival style. Back thenÖin 1915Ömy waterfront neighborhoodÖLong Island CityÖ. chugged and puffed with industry.
People thrived in between, too. Italian immigrants moved into the walk-ups along blocks like mineÖfifty first avenueÖandÖalthough things have been changingÖmany of their descendants are still here.
On my blockÖthereís VinnyÖwho, on mild summer nights, holds court on the stoop next door. And thereís Tony, who always offers to help me take the groceries in. I worried when I moved in six years ago that Iíd stick out like a Swedish meatball atop a pile of spaghetti. After allÖIím no Italian Catholic. Iím a blonde Midwesterner. But my neighbors welcomed me. And VinnyÖnow in his eightiesÖ.still watches over me as I come and goÖpraising my recycling practices and asking about my love life.
But this week, rounding the block on my way home, I noticed a set of shadowy newcomers I wasnít sure I could welcome. Instead of the seeing the stacksÖclear and solid against the twilightÖI saw something fuzzyÖout of focus. As I got closer, I noticed loose gauzy black drapes encasing each stackÖThenÖ I saw a ring of scaffolding inside. Ö I noticed one stack was missing its top. And that the second was even shorter, like a kaleidoscope frozen in mid-collapse. Scaffolding climbed the height of the third. And inside the gauze wrapper on the fourth I could see workersÖtiny and highÖdismantling the stack one steel panel at a time.
I hurried home to find out what was going on. I went online and discovered a neighborhood chat room roiling with opinion. Newcomers to the neighborhood were saying ìgood riddance.î Old timers argued the stacks are part of the neighborhoodís industrial past. They accused newcomers of being detached in their fancy new high rise apartment buildings. Newcomers accused old timers of being out of step with the march of development. Words were exchanged. Things got ugly.
I donít know where I fall on the ìold timerîÖînewcomerî spectrumÖBut I come down on the side of the stacks.
They may not make for convenient real estate developmentÖ.which is about to transform this old industrial waterfront into a shiny city of windowsÖ.But as the stacks soar hundreds of feet into the air they anchor this place to something it risks forgettingÖthey say, Iím where you came from. Erase me, and you lose one more link to that past.
Back announce:
Commentator Kristin Espeland says she does *not*advocate pollution