To the Soon-Displaced Citizens of W. 253rd

            This week will be the last week, then our little corner of the world will be no longer. This is an invitation to a gathering no one will soon forget, one that will engrain this beautiful, swaying street onto our hearts long after it becomes unrecognizable, flattened.

            As everyone is aware, New York University got approval to break ground for the Urban Expansion School. The goal of this academic discipline is to find innovative ways of protecting communities while also keeping businesses poised to withstand future generations. To stem the tide of turnovered erasure and preserve just enough of its original flair. Seems odd, though, that their mission to protect neighborhoods begins by razing one to the ground while the morning joggers and yogis of E. 253rd continue about their daily lives unscathed. It’s supposedly irrelevant they come here to do their grocery shopping, desiring produce that smells of the land and not corporate food coloring, except no one wants to save this borough. Not really. Sure, the Easties marched alongside us for several days. But then the holiday weekend was over. The crowds thinned. They knew in their bones this was a lost cause.

            By 4:00 p.m. next Monday, there will be no more apartment buildings. No more bodega on the corner with dusty jars of aged pigs’ feet. No more Sister Maggie giving children their morning blessing as they walk to school. No more actual farmers’ markets. Not the kind where kale peddlers from Redding hawk their second-rate produce, but from local growers with peach trees in their backyards, green beans coiling fire escapes, tomatoes hanging off terrace balconies, dipping so low someone tall enough could pluck one like heavenly manna. No more elderly Imelda and her broken vibrato, where she tries to reach notes she can no longer strain to achieve due to a hard life of cabernet and Marlboros. A far cry from her once-sterling career at the New York Opera. Her daily attempts of Casta Diva served as a raspy wake-up call for everyone to get to work, and we hurried back to listen to her coughy sunset renditions of the Magic Flute—always abandoned by the second movement. She would never be discouraged when outsiders told the old crow to shut her beak. She would only caw louder, replacing lyrics with on-tempo hexes from the old country. And who could forget the infamous Santeria priestess Valeria McCoy, whose all too regular and very public arguments with her ex-husband Pig Slop O’Malley always culminated in summoning the vengeful Oyá Yàńsà to come strike O’Malley dead? How their daughter, Janice, would scream for both of them to just stop. And when Janice got older, she would call her upon Ogún to silence her mother because she was tired of hearing her say that it was a phase. Janice routinely said the day Valeria got put away might’ve been the best day of her life. Decades upon decades of such things will be no more.

            We will have no more of Pacho’s trash art depicting various avian species poking out from his third-story window; metallic birds ready to take flight from their perch on his windowsill. And of course, no more of Monty’s homemade ice pops spiked with vodka. He’d always say on cue, Monty’s got some cool goodies on this hot day, even during the winter when radiators strained and squealed on the first frost. Anyone craving that tangy bite of alcohol to numb the chill would throw their voices into the cold and see Monty’s cart sashay in the blizzard like an abominable street cleaner. This, and so much more, will be gone.

            This forgotten region of the Big Apple—discarded fragment of the stem—will live on in the hearts of those who resided here. All one must do is follow the currents flowing through each and every 253rder and remember they are carrying echoes of unspoken tradition. A character, a personality dating back epochs. This aura of resilience and pragmatism stretches beyond the subway rails, the bridges webbing over the rushing Hudson. It will be sad to say goodbye, but there is more to life than W. 253rd. That said, let there be a day of dancing, of staring into the void while holding hands as we step into the black, smiling because we’ll be together. Follow these instructions, and such a day will commence. Of course, there is no guarantee that next Monday will transpire as foretold because like every day when we step out into the wild, ever-growing frenzy of this calescent metropolis, you’re just going to have to take a chance.

            Note: While there may be the temptation to hold onto this document for posterity, delete this once the instructions have been committed to memory. There are secrets beneath these streets that outsiders will only endeavor to convert into commodifiable sideshows.

            The forecast for next Monday predicts a historic heatwave reaching 103 degrees Fahrenheit, which will be just hot enough for this block party to go off without a hitch (more on that later). If the temperature gets below 101 before the crucial moment, the event will be canceled. The strings of Fate and climate must harmonize, otherwise, folks will need to exit their homes, pack up their U-Hauls, load their trunks, and ride 95 South or take the turnpike West; in that case be sure to send us postcards along the way. But if Channel 5’s forecast is correct, this storied stretch of concrete wilderness will have a fitting end.

            The night before, stay home. Sleep on the floor in bare apartments, feel the cool wood. Say to the hard hats combing the street during their final inspection a desire to stay just one more night. One more night to say goodbye to this now-quiet avenue where the rest of the city bounces off rusty red buildings hanging above smoky dive bars, a Persian hookah lounge, numerous takeout windows, and a boarded-up wig shop that only sold neon pastels. Representatives of the demolition committee will surely allow this to happen for they assume the role of paternal displacers. An attitude all too similar with this area’s police force. For when they plunge that detonator, it will resemble the gentle, disappointed whack from a metal baton that reverberates and rumbles, shakes the island, making the rail riders and bike couriers pause and gaze at the dust billowing into the sky.

            Let there be an evening of silence. No reason to call out into the chasm of night and question why it had to be our street, our home. This was a long time coming, foreseen in the elections of a governor and mayor looking to repopulate a city; paper-thin individuals making decisions on a foundation of sand and Long Island saltwater bubbling through the sewer grates. Far too expensive to reinvigorate a city than simply create a new one with a new citizenry altogether. They just want to fill their coffers and pray the city outlasts their tenure. In the quiet, maybe there will be a moment in every 253rder’s heart. One that will bring clarity for why they came to love such a neighborhood in the first place, because there are no more distractions like fights with landlords and aloof supers, quarrels with neighbors regarding the volume of techno-ukulele mashups at four in the morning, broken plates of couples volleying accusations of infidelity. Nothing more to divert. Monday afternoon, when it is all said and done, there will only be memories. Hopefully, good ones stay at the forefront. Visions of hot nights, ice cubes riding along beaded skin, cooling off naked, too tired for sex bodies—laughing delirious. Memories of cutting class, frolicking through the alleyways, jumping over fences and garbage bins while running from Sister Maggie. These are the moments that made W. 253d what it is, not the scribes of sanitated academia and financial aid offices that snuff out the graffiti, the music, the clatter.

            Sleep well. Let the vibrations of Manhattan sedate the anxiety of the unknown dawn. The following morning at 5:00 a.m., Monty will walk down the street, blowing a whistle, banging symbols, and honking clown horns rigged to his cart. This is the cue to jump out of bed. Get dressed and make the outfit outlandish. That flannel vest and boxer hat—wear it. Those wing-shaped Nikes stolen from a second-hand store that don’t match any outfit ever conceived—wear them. Wear those zirconium earrings resembling robotic pigtails. Let any inhibition of dress or accessory be left behind with the other unnecessary belongings. Do not say goodbye a second time before filing into the street because it will not amount to anything. It never does. Put whatever belongings fit inside a backpack and walk out.

            Building by building, walk-up by walk-up, Monty will choreograph our slow trudge to the event. Hundreds, if not thousands, will follow his trail of arhythmic percussions. Construction crews will already be underway, laying wires, rigging explosives, placing blast shields at either end of the street. They will feign ignorance to this lunatic funeral procession—one last walk before the big fall. Remember, they are powerless, for they are only performing the tasks their jobs require. As a peace offering, children can gift them potted plants and popcorns of cherry blossoms and dogwood that survived the choking concrete for generations. Doing so will let them know, with love, what delicate thing they are about to undo, what they’re about to send back to the primordial and create the largest vacant lot on Manhattan Island, resemblant to when the Lenape foraged nuts and hunted small game.

            Move along, move along. Take in one last view as the sun rises and peaks through the lower levels of skyscrapers rubbing against each other, backlighting the interns and rat-race professionals trying to get ahead of the sweaty summer commute. Reminisce each personal landmark. Verbalize the past. Remember the time Janice McCoy climbed out of Chen Wei Johnson’s window because Chen Wei’s husband came home early from work. How everyone saw Janice’s naked body, holding tight to the fourth-story ledge, kicking away perverted pigeons. Remember when Marcos, Daniel, Rippa, and Quentin all got twisted on Monty’s ice pops and stemmy marijuana and thought it a good idea to serenade Regan Sanford’s mother. What a summer evening that was. Every window open. Curtains flapped to the wind. She poked her head out wearing a nightgown, sweaty, hair a mess. That raggle-tag quartet sang doo-wop covers in flaky goth band t-shirts. She rested her elbows on the ledge and listened. Everyone heard them, not that they were any good—like cats in heat—but the boldness of it…And need we forget the abandoned community center next to Big Bao, where the AC shut off during the Prom of ‘96, and high schoolers went into the street and danced under streetlight starlight? Remember these moments, then let the memories rest. They are not needed where we’re going because we only need each other.

            At this point, be mindful of falling debris. Not from construction crews, but from Pacho, the junk artist. See, Pacho is different, to put it mildly. His art consists of metallic junk recovered from waste bins, backyards with tall grass. He constructs some variety of avian species out of these rusted, snarled heaps. Pacho never sold a single piece of work, rendering his two-bedroom, rent-controlled walk-up a deathtrap of tetanus. So, with him having no way to transport the birds, he will set them free, launching them from his window, letting his imagination take flight. Please steer clear of his window located one block from Serrano’s Calzones facing east. Walk on the other side of the street to be safe. He will be sure to join the rest of the crowd once he concludes. Monty will direct the congregation to take a left down the alleyway next to Serrano’s. At the end will be a celebrity of sorts.

            Standing there will be New York’s most trusted weatherman, Hans Mikel. Just as he presents himself in front of the Channel 5 green screen, he will be wearing his finest suit and tie—albeit sweating bullets from the extreme heat that fogs his thick-framed glasses. For those unfamiliar, Hans grew up on this block. Throughout boyhood, he studied the clouds on rooftops. Instead of composing symphonies and dramas in the sky, he differentiated between stratus and cumulo, the position of the sun, guesstimating temperatures throughout the day until his building bought him an industrial thermometer. Often people saw him baking in the sun or frozen to the roof. They would call up and ask what in the world he was doing. He’d say he was trying to figure out what’s going to happen next. His curious ever-gazing into the sun resulted in having to wear those signature heavy-framed spectacles. He will be holding a buffalo chicken calzone in one hand and his decades-old thermometer in the other. He will be the gatekeeper.

            When everyone is ready to proceed, he will hold up the thermometer like a trident. When the mercury reaches 103 degrees, we will have entered the next phase. Bubbling out of the window unit above will be this gooey, fungal substance. On the hottest of days, this sludge—green, botulistic—rides down the walls throughout W. 253rd. During summer nights, buildings look to be bleeding bioluminescent jelly normally found at the bottom of the ocean. Only at such a temperature does it reveal itself. A purging of some kind. What this substance is, no one knows. No origin or elemental properties. All that can be known of this mysterious seepage is that it creates this luminous tail curving itself along the cracks and indentations of brick and shingle. An amorphous, illuminating organism coming up from the fault lines of Manhattan. One that hid from industry, neighborhood revamps, the Great Stampede of the Central Park horses, a substance that skulked, adapted, survived, finding kinship with this now doomed neighborhood. This mucus also reveals secret passages throughout W. 253rd. Doorways to buildings within buildings, arches leading to forgotten halls, and chamber rooms of a time long past. A shadow city untouched by the erosion of the world. We will be going through one such passageway.

            Hans, tracing the wall like a wand with his thermometer will direct the sludge to jut and turn and become rectangular in the wall of Serrano’s Calzones. The silhouette of a doorframe, as if drawn with chalk, will appear. Hans will then push it open. A false wall to a passageway. As soon as the final attendant goes through the entrance. Hans will close the wall behind him and return to his office at Channel 5.

            Attendees will then gather in a pitch-black chamber. In this vast, open space, people can hear the echo of breathing. Do not be alarmed. Some will be transported to the trauma of the ’74 Blackout when the city burned. Outsiders ran into the streets, climbed streetlights, and toppled those impotent torches—shattered. Storefront windows reduced to gaping absences of snowy glass. 253rders came together to stop the onslaught of vandals and corrupt Pinkerton cops looking to take advantage. Neighbors barricaded both ends of the street. Even Imelda in her curlers brandished a mace can to anyone who dared approach her. A great battle was ready to commence, but Valeria McCoy arrived on the scene holding a chicken with a slit throat twitching red in the night. Her voice carried this terrestrial baritone that rested at the heart of the city. She declared that any outsider who came further would be tormented for all eternity until the unmaking of Time and its subsequent reality. Every invader took this warning at face value and slinked away before the power came back on. A devastating but formative memory. Let it be felt again, but then no more. Do not be afraid of this dark space. It is merely a holding area.

            A row of ceiling lights will turn on and guide the partygoers to a freestanding metal spiral staircase seemingly held up by invisible hands. Then, there will be music. Not any run-of-the-mill tunes, but a genre that’s traversed many spheres of influence within and without the audial realm: post-modern jazz. Predated by chaos, post-modern jazz takes the elements of flailing madness usually saved for the smash finale of a raucous concert and instead sustains that note throughout the whole show. Without a set beat, the horn section travels blindly through the dark as if gyrating to nightmare. W. 253rd is the unsung impetus of the genre’s development. Some believe it merely came from hopped-up horn-blowers and base twiddlers drowning out their insomnia. On the contrary, they decided not only to master their instruments but tear down an institution with sporadic wails, thumping tremors. The likes of Bing Bango Fierstein and Pig Slop O’Malley revolutionized the sound but failed to record it, leaving nothing but shattered melodies on the backs of diner menus, bar napkins, philharmonic set lists. Music inspired by riots, the clang of a lug nut on a broken fire hydrant spouting refreshing chill. The groan of pipes on that first winter morning.

            Further up, the music gets louder, a terror reaching its conclusion like a sleeper about to fall back onto a sweaty mattress and awaken. Each step gets closer to the seizing drums snaring—begging—straining to stop so they can relax. Please refrain from speaking in order to breathe in the contents of the cavernous minds from where such dreams came. Do not comment on the enjoyability of the music. It will play on just like every 253rder should go on. Go up the stairs and across the footbridge. Continue to the end, and on a platform, you will see a row of foldout tables where light snacks will be provided.

            In front of a wooden door will be a man many recognize. Akako McFranken, Best Produce winner at the May Day Festival six years running and owner of the corner bodega. He is known for selling ugly foods. These days, people are so accustomed to a bruiseless banana or an unperforated apple, but Mr. McFranken sees value in these discarded imperfections. He supplied the neighborhood with plenty of produce when the harvest was sparse. Each person will take part in the ritual of eating from his lumpy final crop. If someone is truly a 253rder, they will not bother to question whether it is edible. A papaya is a papaya. Shape, color, markings, they do not matter. Let the juices get between the teeth, soaked in the gums. Tear away at the uneven skin and allow the mouth to convert from the aesthetic deceits of this city’s corporate overlords and health guidelines. Those who refuse will be directed to an auxiliary exit and thrown into the turmoil of E. 42nd, where the warbling hustle of the city’s murmured heart—blood pumping in and out of the railways—will expunge their memories entirely, gone, creating a silent, nagging absence, leaving them to wander the streets alone. Once finished, those remaining will go through the door and up a staircase lit by emergency lights, bathing everyone in red. The music will fade but soon return.

            Guests will shuffle through a space similar to a doctor’s waiting room. Some will be able to make out different shapes in the dim buzz-buzzing light. Desks, lounge chairs, rat-chewed shag carpet, piles of curling magazines collecting cobwebs, generic wall art that provided calm in a past life but now invoke this staring dread. Dogs throwing dice, kittens hanging from tree branches. 253rders of sharp recall will recognize that this place is New York City’s first endocrinology center, which collapsed in 1990 yet remained whole underground. Uncertain if the rotund clientele had anything to do with the collapse. In any case, we must move on. Mind not the bones of the unlucky large. Forward.

            After brief darkness, the Hall of Memories. In this passageway are mounted Victorian sconce candles with light reflecting off aged sheen oak floorboards that creak with every step. In between each candle is a golden scallop-framed iteration of W. 253rd. Guests will observe penciled sketches, broadsides of ungodly Pilgrims with chattel in tow while examining Lenape women shucking corn from stalks. Further down are these glorified landscapes depicting epic battles between native and settler, brush strokes making these white faces match with the clouds, those of a supposed heavenly rite to settle this Manhattan Island. First Peoples conversely portrayed in communion with the earth, the mud, the mud people of Scriptural reference. Folk who laid with Cain and the desirous Ham. People who taught these pock-laden invaders how to feed themselves mutilated in art. Atrocity. Madness. It is a dirty upbringing, but it is ours.

            Observe the stone wall holding up these sconces and golden frames. It is the actual bedrock of Manhattan, withstanding the cool erosion of the sea churning beneath the surface. Put an ear to the wall and hear the echoes of past resettlements, tectonic plates trying to tear away the foundation and open something new and fiery, yet always failing in the process.

            Moving on from these centuries-old depictions will be recognizable photographs. Imelda in full operatic regalia—the grainy black and white photo not doing her outfit justice: Madame Butterfly with frills and tassels and see-through netting showing a healthy, curvaceous bust proudly crowned with a smile. Her mouth open, throat pulsing, reaching into herself to drag out that beautiful note everyone wanted to hear. What grace. Those who remember refer to that day as the day people could feel sound. At her hips is young Pacho, trying not to smile so he can appear stylish in an oversized fedora. Young Janice McCoy with short-cropped hair whispering a sordid joke into the furtive Chen Wei’s raven-haired ear. And Monty holding an ice cream cone.

            Shortly after this was taken, Janice’s mother Valeria approached the group and peeled Chen Wei off her daughter. In broad daylight, Valeria began smacking Janice under her jaw, asking who the hell did she think she was running around out here. People started to gather. Who do you think you are cutting class y pasar el rato con estos perros? Janice was able to get away after a few strikes. A police officer then arrived on the scene. Janice saw her opportunity. She called out to the officer. Said she caught this woman stealing from the bodega yesterday. Please stop her. And the officer obliged without a second thought. Of course, people tried to intervene, but as soon as the policeman unclipped his pistol, the small crowd dispersed. The Santeria priestess called out for help, and when no one came to her aid while facedown on the street, she screamed a curse in some combined tongue of the primeval and poetic. She was taken to Rikers, where she now has a congregation on her cell block. Janice lived with Chen Wei’s family until they graduated high school. A reminder that every moment of elation has its flipside. Much like this block party.

            Then, at the very end, will be one more photograph. The last photograph. The Last Block Party of W. 253rd, of Monty leading this very group to the secret entrance. At the end of the hall, knock on the door knocker and proceed through the cave. We are almost there.

            There will be faint candlelight shining through an opening at the end of this path. Navigate past the crude, unshaven marble with streaks of fire damage along the cave wall. Halfway through, music will return and reverberate—the beginnings of a bittersweet celebration.

            Once emerged from the womb of Manhattan, take in the surroundings, for it will be the last time a human being sets eyes on this ever again. Hanging above will be a chandelier stolen from a Rockefeller. Some might notice a drop-off and see rusted rail tracks leading to a flooded black tunnel at the far wall. Others will observe the cathedral-like ceilings, the flying buttresses of marble molding at each corner, faded mosaics of lions and bears lunging for each other. Some will be drawn to the torches washing the entire space in honeyed light. Others will see the elevated stage converted from a stone kiosk with a band playing all kinds of music: soul, bebop, swing. The acoustics are marvelous. Further, many will see the sludge glowing in between the cracks, veining the dark tunnel at the far wall. But most will notice the bodies—like statues—peppered about, sitting on crates of rotting wood as if resting their legs, of warming themselves by a long-dead campfire, or two figures speaking to each other, but then interrupted by a horrific realization—God’s pocket watch clicking off.

            This is an abandoned subway station. Well, W. 253rd Station never had a chance to be a station. In 1912, city planners wanted there to be two majestic entrances to New York where visitors would look up and marvel, whispering to themselves, Only here—but tragedy struck. During construction, a cave-in occurred, trapping seventy-five workers in the main concourse. Through some combination of the elements and a lack of oxygen, these workers stopped literally dead in their tracks. Now all that remains are upright skeletons, ready to continue building when called upon.

            Once the aura of W. 253rd Station settles in, dancing will commence. Dance in whatever way you choose. Does not matter the music, the lack of rhythm, or the cultural inhibitions causing the shy to wallflower. Let these dimensional shackles wither. There is no culture above to hold back any expression. No more running into neighbors on the elevator. No more kitchen table gossip or stoop loiterers. Listen to the music and simply dance. Scream if need be. Cry even. Let the sounds echo and jingle the crystals of the chandelier rocking above. Do the bachata with Monty. Start a conga line with Sister Maggie. Attempt a foxtrot with Pacho. Wish Chen Wei and Janice good luck. This is the block party. Have a time. This will all be gone by 4:00 p.m.

            But eventually, the party will have to end. By 3:15, the C-4 lining the streets, apartments, bodegas, nurseries, daycare centers, and an abandoned synagogue will be ready to go boom. Everyone will gather around the stage and have a moment of silence for the neighborhood. Let it have an opportunity to speak one more time. Listen. Really listen. Afterward, Monty will put on a recording of Handel’s Lascia ch'io pianga from Rinaldo. Imelda, dressed in a black robe, will then lip sync her own recording. With the musical outro, guests will walk through the flooded tunnel at the far wall.

            Keep moving forward. Let the music be drowned out by the current of the Hudson. The ferry awaits. March quickly and quietly. Everything that needed to be said will already be spoken. At the end of the tunnel will be the river, and on the river will be the ferry to take everyone to the other side. To the green shores of the upstate woods, where everyone will either band together or fend for themselves. Board and do not say a word. The time will be 4:00 p.m., and as the boat shoves off, do not be tempted to turn around. Do not let the last memory of W. 253rd be one of annihilation. Forward, into the brown shade and canopy green, and—maybe—there will be a meadow.

            Hope to see you soon.