Tag Archives: Roger Smith

taking the subway in 1914

 

‘Hunker Explores New York’s York’s Subway’ – NY Times 9-13-1914

‘Huneker Explores New York’s Subway’ – NY Times 9-13-1914

 

Posted here (see above):

“Huneker Nervously Explores New York’s Subway”

By James Huneker

The New York Times Magazine

September 13, 1914

James Huneker (1857-1921) was an literary, theater, and arts critic for the New York Sun.

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

   April 2023

the subway

 

L train, 11:35 a.m., April 18, 2023

Non-New Yorkers may think it is something that only people who have to take it endure … that it is unpleasant to take the subway.

Mostly I find it’s the opposite.

I thought about this while taking the L train from Brooklyn to Manhattan yesterday.

The subways are often not that crowded. I tend to be in a thoughtful mood (all of this is true of the buses, as well); enjoy the people, who by a large majority are polite and usually pleasing in appearance.

There are always a lot of young people, by which I mean mostly 20s and 30s. A large number of them are reading their cell phones or engaged in lively conversations. Some are reading books in which they usually seem engrossed.

I often catch up on the news on my phone or on Facebook posts.

And, sometimes I am lost in thought. The subway is peaceful enough to permit this.

I don’t have to worry going home if I have had a couple of beers, and I don’t have to deal with driving.

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

   April 19, 2023

the ferry, again!

 

I feel the ship’s motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes fanning me,

— Walt Whitman, “A Song of Joys”

 

I myself felt the delicious cool breezes blowing on me as I crossed and recrossed the harbor on the Staten Island Ferry last evening.

A great end to a splendid day.

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

  March 25, 2023

 

“in minute particulars”

I thought of this post today when I met a homeless woman in a subway station.

 

It seemed applicable to NYC as one experiences it,

 

It’s on my rogersgleanings.com site:

“in minute particulars”

 

— Roger W. Smith

 

   March 14, 2023

Staten Island beach walks

 

Sea-cabbage; salt hay; sea-rushes; ooze–sea-ooze; gluten–sea-gluten; sea­-scum; spawn; surf; beach; salt-perfume; mud; sound of walking barefoot ankle in the edge of the water by the sea. — Walt Whitman: Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, Volume IV: Notes, edited by Edward F. Grier (New York University Press 1984), pg. 1309

 

photographs of Midland Beach, Staten Island, by Roger W. Smith

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

   February 2023

 

 

 

 

 

Walt Whitman, “Brooklyn Parks”

 

Walt Whitman, ‘Brooklyn Parks’

 

Posted here (Word document above):

Walt Whitman. “BROOKLYN PARKS”

Brooklyn Daily Times, April 17, 1858

What intrigues me is Whitman’s mention of “a Park on the heights, over Montague ferry!,” whereby he refers to the neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights, from which there is a splendid view of Manhattan.

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

   January 2023

 

Brooklyn Heights; photo by Roger W. Smith

Brooklyn Heights; photo by Roger W. Smith

 

 

Walt Whitman, “Philosophy of Ferries”

 

Walt Whitman, ‘Philosophy of Ferries’

 

Posted here (Word document above):

Walt Whitman “Philosophy of Ferries,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 11, 1947

IN The Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman; Much of Which Has Been But Recently Discovered, with Various Early Manuscripts; Now First Published; Collected and Edited by Emory Holloway, Volume One, pp. 168-171 (Gloucester, Mass. Peter Smith, 1972)

 

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Things haven’t changed much since Whitman’s day.

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

   January 2023

 

photo by Roger W. Smith

 

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See also my post

the ferry

the ferry