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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Other Matters: Grand Central Observer

June 19, 2009 by Doug Ramsey

At Grand Central Station, I plop into a chair in a semi-circle of what look like overstuffed maroon leather armchairs, a hard plop; the chair is molded plastic. One of New York’s great free shows is underway in the lower concourse, with a cast of thousands. It’s the evening commute to the northern suburbs. Many of the commuters are running. The picture doesn’t do justice to the activity and energy of the place.

“Attention, please. The 5:36 express for Tarrytown, leaving on Track 6 in one minute.”

A young woman runs by in Dolce and Gabbana jeans. I can tell that they are Dolce and Gabbana because a shiny silver badge on the waist band announces the fact. Hey, if you’re going to wear 400-dollar pants, why keep it a secret? Her lower body is clad in high fashion and she looks great, but there’s discomfort in her expression. Those tight jeans were meant for striking poses, not running. If she could afford 400 bucks for pants, she could take a limo to Scarsdale. One in five people (ratio not scientifically confirmed) is on a cell phone. Many of them are running.

“I just called to tell you I can’t talk. I’m running for the train.”

“I missed the 5:10. I’ll be 20 minutes late. Pick me up. ‘Bye. Gotta run.”

An old woman in short grey hair, a boxy grey suit and mannish brown shoes walks by with a three-year-old boy by the hand. The boy’s other hand is in the hand of a girl of about six. Surrounded by the streaming crowd, the children look bewildered, fearful. The woman is forging ahead, determined and grim. Grandmother? Governess? Kidnapper?

A number of the young women are wearing shower shoes, as they used to be known. Later, they were called zoris. Now, the acceptable term is flip-flops. As the girls run, the footwear neither flips nor flops. The sound is flap, flap, flap, flap, flap. I wonder if they wore those things all day at work or shopping in Manhattan. Wouldn’t their feet get dirty? A drastically short woman in tight capri pants and four-inch heels speeds by. She has what my father used to call a hitch in her getalong, and her sound is clack, de-clack, clack, de-clack, echoing through the concourse.

Five people standing together at the top of the ramp in front of the Oyster Bar break into applause. I look for what inspired them. Nothing is evident, but they look delighted. It probably wasn’t the extremely tall Hassidic gentleman strolling toward his track with dignity, a tall black hat and a briefcase the size of a small trunk. I wonder if he’s from the diamond district, carrying a load of samples to a wealthy client in Bronxville.

A sign of the times: I see elderly men in suits–more than a dozen in a few minutes–clutching briefcases, wearing their weariness on their faces, slumping toward their trains. Did they expect still to be working at their ages, still catching trains?

A young man slips into the big maroon chair next to mine. His afro is stuffed into an enormous knit cap puffed into the shape of turban. His gold ear ring is fashioned to look like a small horseshoe. He eats a half-pint of yogurt or cottage cheese, then promptly falls asleep. His head slowly leans until it is parallel to his right shoulder. The clack de-clacking, flap-flapping, departure announcements and general hubbub do not interrupt his nap. As I leave, I hope he doesn’t miss his train.

The woman to my left gets up at the same moment I do. I say to her, “It was a great show, wasn’t it?” She looks startled, then laughs and says, “Yeah…if that’s what you want to call it.”

I do.

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Comments

  1. Marla Kleman says

    June 19, 2009 at 5:46 pm

    Thank you Doug! I felt as though I was sitting right next to you observing a small portion of a normal day in NYC!

  2. Gordon Sapsed says

    June 20, 2009 at 2:06 pm

    Oddly enough an hour ago I was watching the ‘Benjamin Button’ film ( on DVD) and wondered if they filmed the Clock scene in the real Grand Central Station. Earlier this week we watched, also on DVD, ‘Revolutionary Road’ which has a very stylised 1950s Grand Central Scene – surely filmed in the real place – it’s EVERYWHERE this week ……
    It made me think how I have been away from NYC for ‘too long’ – as Dave Frishberg (and Rosie Clooney) would say ‘Do You Miss New York? – I DO.
    Thank you for that evocative piece …

  3. Ned Corman says

    June 20, 2009 at 8:55 pm

    The Grand Central Observer piece was a gas!
    Keep it up, dad.

  4. rootlesscosmo says

    June 21, 2009 at 9:29 pm

    That was fun–thanks!
    shower shoes, as they used to be known. Later, they were called zoris. Now, the acceptable term is flip-flops.
    A friend who grew up in LA in the 50’s says they were called “go-aheads” in local lingo, because it was tricky to keep them on while backing up.

  5. Isaac Beekman says

    June 21, 2009 at 10:54 pm

    I appreciate your post, and from my perspective as a performing artist, appreciate the question about whether or not “it was a show”. Someone once sent me a picture of some deer jumping in a forest and asked if I thought it was dance. I said that it was. That dance occurs all over. Where it occurs regularly – people buy tickets.

  6. Kristin Korb says

    June 22, 2009 at 10:04 am

    I love the piece! I was in NYC a few weeks ago but I didn’t make it to that part of the “show”. Thanks for bringing a smile to my face.

  7. iconic'n' ironic says

    October 29, 2010 at 9:45 am

    Good work, Sherlock! Have you got any idea how many jeans with Dolce and Gabbana shiny silver badges on the waist band are made every month in illegal factories in China?
    I wasn’t thinking. I should have tackled her, removed her jeans, inspected the inside label and demanded a certificate of authenticity.—DR

  8. Mimi says

    December 21, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    Nicely written, I could really envisage the scene and the characters that you describe. What an eclectic mix of people!

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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