How to Walk in New York: Advice for Visitors

Spring has settled on the City.  The wisteria on the brownstones in the Village has bloomed and faded, the trees in the parks are in full leaf, and the tourist density is reaching critical mass.  Like almost all New Yorkers, I am happy to welcome the 50 million people per year who come from all over the world to vacation in our fascinating city.  On those rare occasions when I find their sheer numbers become irritating, I think about the $35 billion they add to the municipal coffers.

A hard place to keep my cool with them is on the midtown sidewalks. Eastside, Westside, all around the town, the sidewalks of New York are thronged.  And all those bodies slow things down so very much.

New York is a city in a hurry.  As far as I can tell, it has been since the 17th century.  New Yorkers want to MOVE.  We have places to go, people to see, stuff to get done.

What visitors do not understand is that, unlike in any other sizable American metropolis, for New Yorkers walking is a major form of transportation. Almost no one who lives here even owns a car, much less has one waiting in a driveway.  We have great public transportation, but we also use our feet.  For a distance of mile or two, except in the foulest weather, we hoof it.

This means that the sidewalks are major thoroughfares for us.  On foot, rushing to a dentist appointment, going to meet Auntie Doris for lunch, or trying to make curtain time at the Shubert Theater—we expect to traverse a north-south block in about 45 seconds.  The longer east-west blocks should take about a minute and a half.

We are so intent on getting places in a hurry, we have strategies for taking the road of least resistance, crossing streets the second lights allow and jogging across to make it before they change.  We calculate the best way.  For instance, if traveling northwest starting from O on this chart, a New Yorker will try, in the shortest time, to land up at X, because then he can go north or west without being blocked by a red light.  If the destination is further north than west, he will keep progressing north until he hits a red light and then change directions.  We all learn this, and we pretty much all do it.

We like to be kind and welcoming to visitors.  We really want them to have a good time.  We will even give advice readily unless we are about to be late for the beginning of the opera.  But it makes us all a bit nuts when people just do not know how to be courteous to us, by letting us walk without obstruction.

To help visitors who do not ordinarily walk anywhere except in the mall or the forest, I offer the following rules followed by all New Yorkers:

·         If there are more than three of you, never walk more than three abreast.

·         If you have to stop on the sidewalk, don’t stop in the middle; move to the curb or near the buildings so as not to block the flow of traffic.  This applies especially when pausing to take photos or to consult maps or guide books.

·         Never pause at the curb end of a crosswalk or in the street.

·         Even if you are English, Japanese, or South African, KEEP TO YOUR RIGHT.  Your instinctive keeping to the left will result in a silly dance with the oncoming New Yorkers.

A few corollaries:

On the subway: 

·         Never pause for conversation before the turnstiles.

·         When the train pulls in, stand aside to let people out before trying to push in.

·         Once in the car, move away from the door unless you are getting off at the next stop.

·         The pole is there to help us keep from falling, not for pole dancing.  Don’t hug it if the car is crowded.  Just hold it with one hand so others can hang on too. 

While you are at it, look at the hands holding that pole.  They are all the colors human skin comes in.  Look around the car.  You are in a city where 150 languages are spoken.  The full panoply of humanity surrounds you when you are riding with New Yorkers, and we all get along.  Together we create the richness and fascination that makes our city the place you wanted to come to—to see, to breathe in its culture, to wonder at its energy, to be entertained.  New York is WOW experience.

Shout when you say, “WOW!”  Just don’t stop in your tracks when you do it.   

  

Annamaria Alfieri

How I Got my Vocation

When I was 13-years-old and away at a Catholic boarding school among the potato fields on the North Shore of Long Island, I would read (under the covers after lights-out) the novels of Leslie Charteris, detailing the adventures of Simon Templar, a/k/a The Saint, scourge of the Ungodly. Half-a-Century later, I don’t remember the plots but I remember that the Saint’s right hand man was Hoppy Uniatz and that it was okay (not a Mortal Sin) to kill bad men, “the Ungodly,” as the Saint did regularly to those who needed it. As I fell asleep in my top bunk in the dormitory, I remember thinking, I could do that. That’s how I considered “crime” for the first time and set my future course.

The school, St. Anthony’s Juniorate, prepared high-school age boys to enter the Novitiate, the next step to becoming a member of the Friars Minor, an Order of Teaching Brothers founded by St. Francis of Assisi in Italy in 1212. St. Francis loved animals, the poor, Christ and St. Clare, a nun (not necessarily in that order). How I got there, I went to St. Anthony of Padua Grammar School in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for eight years. I got in early, age 5-1/2, because my grandmother was the Cleaning Lady at the school. (They owed her, they didn’t pay much.) I didn’t meet a Franciscan Brother face-to-face until Fifth Grade; before that, I had lay teachers (middle-aged ladies) and nuns from the Order of St. Joseph. That I never understood: how a bunch of nuns got named after St. Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus sure, but a guy, still and all.

Brother Dismas was our teacher in Class 5-A and the next semester in 5-B. I think he’d fought in the ring before he got his vocation, judging by how he liked to knock us around in his classroom. The dumb guys had it the worst, the more he whacked them the less they could remember about the lesson. Years later, I met one of them, Patrick, in a bar, and as we got to talking about school days, Patrick, more than a little drunk, got off his stool announcing that he was going up to the Brothers’ Residence next to the school to have a word with Dismas. I managed to dissuade Patrick and bought another round. Whether the Brothers’ House was still standing, and if it was, whether Dismas was still in it, I hadn’t a clue, but who knew? Dismas was definitely not in the same class as his namesake, the Good Thief, but it was a long time ago. And I was, at that time, a New York City Patrolman, and as such expected to keep the peace.

Besides, I had good feelings for that time of my life in St Anthony of Padua, Dismas aside. I was a religious kid, even a bit on the scrupulous side. Never missed Mass on Sundays and Holy Days and went to Confession with my class every Friday afternoon (not that I had a choice) in the Lower Church below the Main Altar upstairs. I did my best to examine my conscience, agonizing whether the impure thoughts that assailed me constantly were mortal sins, the decision turning on whether I had “entertained” them or not. Fidgeting on the hard-wood kneeler in a pew just outside the purple-shrouded Confessional in the darkened Church basement as I tried to decide, I’d break out in a sweat under my school uniform and lock eyes on the Station of the Cross affixed to the wall next to the Confessional, depicting Jesus sweating blood as He prays in the Garden of Gethsemane while His enemies hide nearby, waiting to pounce. When my turn came, I’d enter the dim Box, kneel facing Fr. O’Connor, just a silhouette behind a mesh screen—it was always red-faced Fr. O’Connor—and disgorge everything in my head as if I’d eaten a bad clam, just to be on the safe side. Once, driven by fear of eternal damnation, I dared to ask Fr. O’Connor if I was doing it wrong and that was why I was having trouble. It was he who told me, in his thick Galway accent, that I had this scrupulosity and a good thing it was. Never was able to warm to Fr. O’Connor, nor Brother Dismas for that matter, but choosing the Franciscans was the better way to go. Thing is, given my particular mind-set and having been exposed to the regular recruitment pitches of the Brothers during the four years they had me, it was foreordained that I would discover I had “a vocation”. Almost like, I owed Him.

I didn’t last but two years in the Juniorate in Smithtown, L.I. No regrets, though. It was an eye-opener living in the country for a City boy like myself. Maybe you can’t see a clear link from reading ‘Saint’ novels under the covers in Smithtown, L.I., to joining the NYPD (and it’s true I never had occasion to dispatch any bad guys)—but I see it, a dead-on connection down to becoming a criminal trials lawyer and, finally, a mystery author. Writing the novels and stories somehow imposes structure on the whole business whereas, in the event, I just put one foot in front of the other, keeping on.

When I was a rascally 20-year-old in the Army, flouting the rules in the fleshpots of Old San Juan and drawing short stints in the ‘brig’, a fellow English Language Instructor once asked me, genuinely concerned: “Don’t you ever think about goals?” I didn’t understand the question then, but would reply now that I was simply living, collecting experiences into a great compost heap of material, á la Jack London and my hero of that day, the Irish playwright Brendan Beehan. It worked out.

Robert Knightly

Kaye Barley, Mistress of Meanderings and Muses…

…Author of WHIMSEY, Friend to the Stars of Mysterydom

Kaye is known to most crime writers today, since her blog Meanderings and Muses has hosted just about every talented mystery writer in the universe. And as first Sunday blogger at Jungle Reds, she has an even larger audience now.

Charm, wit, humor and warmth—these are some of the words that describe this Southern writer from North Carolina, a state dear to my heart! With joy and gratitude I welcome Kaye as our guest today!

Thelma Straw

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Kaye, you are one of the most gracious and friendly writers I've ever encountered! To what do you attribute this wonderful quality?

Thelma, you are the kindest woman—Thank You! I'm not always so gracious, I'm afraid. My outspokeness tends to get me in some hot water from time to time. But I do try to remember to treat people the way I'd like to be treated. I have to say, though, that when I'm treated badly I'm not going to just stand by and take it without speaking up.

Since many of your guests at your Meanderings blog are crime/mystery/thriller writers, can we look forward to your own crime novel in some future day?

Haven't I been lucky with the guests I've had at Meanderings and Muses?! Many of those guests, I'm proud to say, are friends and I feel quite lucky and blessed to have them in my life. As far as writing crime fiction, I don't know. WHIMSEY was almost a crime fiction novel, but the characters had a different idea about things and I listened when they spoke. The next book, which I'm working on now, is going to be Whimsey Book #2, so not crime fiction. But, maybe, on down the road, who knows? Maybe.

Your husband is such a marvelous photographer. Does he also have literary plans?

Don has such a great eye for photography, doesn't he?! He's an inspiration to me in many ways - his photography is one of many. He surprises me in many ways - constantly. I was surprised when he agreed to write a piece for Meanderings and Muses after his heart attack. What he wrote was heartbreaking and beautiful and brilliant and it touched a lot of people. You can read it here: www.meanderingsandmuses.com/2010/05/phone-call-no-one-ever-wants-to-get.html. He has a curiosity about life that's pretty amazing, so he tends to learn and to try a lot of different things. Writing? Who knows—I wouldn't be surprised, really.

Through you, I've become a dedicated fan of such stunningly talented writers as Earl Staggs and Bo Parker. For this, I have to say a huge Thank You! How did you get to know them?

Those guys are great, aren't they?! Wow. And both possess an amazing amount of talent. I met them both through DorothyL a lot of years ago. I'm happy that they're both friendships that have continued over the years and have grown. And I'm happy to have been able to introduce you to them.

You are becoming one of the most popular women writers of the American South. What do you advise women just starting out, who want to write fiction and get published?

I think you must have been expecting Margaret Maron here, right? Or Sarah Addison Allen?

The only advice I have to offer is this—Just Do It. Whatever "it" is. Writing, painting, photography, sculpture—whatever. Just do it. Don't wait until the time is right, or you have more time, or till the kids are grown. Suppose ten years goes by and you're still waiting for the right time? If there's something creative inside, you need to find the time to let it bloom. You'll be a better and happier person because that's your joy—and it will give back every single minute that you give it. I know that sounds like some motivation dreck to some people and I don't care. It's the truth.

As far as publishing, I made the decision to self-publish. And I did it for a number of reasons and it's working for me, but it's not for everyone. If you're interested in why I chose that route, you can read all about it right here: www.meanderingsandmuses.com/2013/01/why-ive-decided-to-self-publish.html.

Many writers in our current climate are discouraged by the difficulty in selling to a major publisher. You have recently taken the route of self-publishing with your charming novel called WHIMSEY. Can you tell us the steps you followed, how you felt about it, and any advice you wish to share with us about the growing world of self-publishing?

Thelma, honestly, the whole two years I was working on WHIMSEY, I had intended to try to publish traditionally. I did my research, I made lists of agents and editors of some of my favorite authors (the acknowledgements in books by your favorite writers is an excellent source for this type of information). But when I was finally finished and when Earl Staggs, who edited WHIMSEY, agreed that it was finally finished, the traditional route suddenly wasn't as important to me as it had been in the beginning.

What was important to me now was getting it out there. I personally think, for one thing, that starting out in the traditional way is now a young person's game and I'm not a young person and I'm not a patient person. And, truthfully, I wanted my mother to be able to read WHIMSEY and see it as a "real" book.

In addition to the blog I wrote about why I made the decision I did (see above), I've also written a piece about the self-publishing process, and you can read it here: www.meanderingsandmuses.com/2013/03/what-ive-learned-so-far-about-being.html.

How do you decide what topics to use for your two well-known blogs, Meanderings and Muses and your first Sunday blogs at Jungle Red?

That's such a good question. And honestly, I have no idea. When I first started Meanderings and Muses I knew I wanted it as a place to talk about books, but not just books. It grew to be the place where I shared some of my feelings about a wide variety of things—including Aretha Franklin's hat that she wore at President Obama's first inauguration. I've had some rants at Meanderings and Muses and it grew to become, I'm proud to say, a place where writers were proud to come spend a little time. It's no longer going to showcase as many authors as it did because I think it's had its place in the sun in that regard and it's time to just move on. And it's still trying to find its way as to where and how. Right now I'm having fun with photography and just a hodge-podge of other things, and I'm writing, which, as you well know, needs a great deal of time. There will still be writers doing guest spots there, but not as many.

As far as what I write at Jungle Reds, that's usually a toss-up too. I love being a part of that group of amazing women. I was surprised and honored to be invited and they've given me free reign to talk about whatever pops into my mind. It's often not until a day or two before the first Sunday of the month that I have a clue as to what I might want to say. It's a real effort, I have to tell you, to try to write anything that's going to be in keeping with the reputation Jungle Red and each of those women have.

You are now a veteran blogger. What do you think a really good blogger should aim for? What is easiest for you? Hardest?

I think a really good blogger should decide what the heart of their blog is and be true to it. If it's important to you to have an audience who will join a community you've created, you'll need to do that, I think. And time—you'll need to give it the time it deserves. That was easy for me in the beginning—I was dedicated to making Meanderings and Muses a special place. It's now hard for me because I'm now doing a lot of different things that I wasn't doing then. Back in the beginning of Meanderings and Muses I was working, but I wasn't working for "me." It was just hours out of my day in order to earn a living. Now, I'm doing the creative things I've always wanted to do and loving each of them as much as the other. Meanderings and Muses is now only one of them and I have to decide what to do about that.

We thank you for stopping by Crime Writers Chronicle today. Is there anything you'd like to share with us I have not mentioned?

Oh, Thelma, Thank You! You've taken a bit of a leap having me here and I appreciate it. I know WHIMSEY doesn't exactly fit into the normal Crime Writers Chronicle theme of things, and it means a lot to me that you all have allowed me a spot. It's been fun.

Bailing Today

Kate has computer issues today of a severity that can scarcely be believed by anyone other than another computer user. Next week she will unload her complaints on you, or not; until then you may imagine the worst day you ever had trying to work your will on the internet with the feeble tools at hand, and assume that you know what the trouble is. It's like that.

Kate Gallison

What I Learned from Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks

Meet Linda Rodriguez.  She and I share an editor.  Linda’s second Skeet Bannion novel, Every Broken Trust (St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books), just hit the stores with one reviewer (Lesa Holstine) calling it “one of the best traditional mysteries I’ve read this year.” Her first Skeet novel, Every Last Secret, won the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition, was selected by Las Comadres National Book Club, was a Barnes & Noble mystery pick, and is a finalist for the International Latino Book Award. For her books of poetry, Skin Hunger (Scapegoat Press) and Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press), Rodriguez received numerous awards and fellowships. She is president of the Borders Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, a founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, Kansas City Cherokee Community, and International Thriller Writers. She spends too much time on Twitter as @rodriguez_linda and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LindaRodriguezWrites.  She blogs about writers, writing, and the absurdities of everyday life at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

Annamaria Alfieri

 In 2009, my sister gave me Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks for a Christmas present. My sister and I had always shared our love of mysteries, and we were both huge fans of Dame Agatha.

The book was fascinating. John Curran, who compiled the notebooks and wrote the book about them, helps the reader to see how Christie’s mind worked when she was developing characters and a plot. I found it fascinating to see the notes she had made, written evidence of a writer’s mind at work in the difficult planning and plotting stages of a novel (though some of the notes deal with revision also).

I read them and watch as Christie changes her mind about who is the hero or heroine and about who is the killer. One character may audition as hero before landing in the killer spot. Another may spend a while as killer before being elevated to the protagonist’s position. Settings, titles, and murder methods can and do play musical chairs also. Christie is always seeking the combination of title, setting, killer, and hero that will meld with the perfect method of murder to make a great book.

This book is a great source of inspiration to me when I’m planning and plotting, as I am now. Not that I can use any of her ideas in my own work. They’re very much of her time—each period of time in which she wrote a book over the length of her long life. However, watching her fertile mind work, seeing all the alternates considered and rejected, watching the fantastically successful mysteries come to life always kicks my own brain into high gear.

More than inspiration, though, reading through the notebooks and glimpsing Christie’s mind in the midst of her work confirms for me that it was work. She didn’t come to any of her great, clever books by anything else. Nothing was predetermined. Christie played with combinations of the elements of a good mystery novel until she ended up with something so taut she could carry water in it, and she worked hard to make each book so watertight and startling. 

After following the course of her mind for a few of her books, I’m ready to roll up my own sleeves and go to work without expecting to hit the right characters or plot on the first try without effort. I believe it was Albert Einstein who said, “Genius is the capacity for taking infinite pains.” Christie’s notebooks illustrate this perfectly. So, now, I’m off to juggle setting, characters, motives, and murder methods myself, following in her footsteps.

What helps you in the planning stages of your books, if you’re a writer? If you’re not, how do you feel about seeing all of Dame Agatha’s sleight-of-hand revealed this way? Would you rather remain blissfully ignorant of how she managed her magic?

Linda Rodriguez