Showing posts with label brooklyn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brooklyn. Show all posts

Bedford Stuyvesant




















Bed-Stuy, the 'hood that became home for the month. I seem to remember things back to front -- that last day, a heat wave was just setting itself upon the city. It was grey around the edges and that sticky, inescapable kind of heat that really makes you sweat. One last 40 minute pilgrimage to Manhattan for one last breakfast at Buvette then back 'home' to clear the room, pack our bags, scour the house for scattered belongings, and say goodbye. Goodbye to that new home with it's new smells that had quickly became old and familiar.  A reluctant & purposefully quick goodbye with my beautiful new friend who had become family as we invaded her home. A storm set in as I called a taxi and took off alone, shutting the door behind me and trying not to acknowledge the sadness I could feel in the corner of my eyes as I remembered back to the beginning, that very first day in this unfamiliar hood I was now calling home. 

go on

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I'm about to loose my shiatsu at the way that either Photoshop, Photobucket or Blogspot is messing with my nice warm contrasty images and swapping them with flat, green toned blobs of mess.

Without any further ado I will continue with the documentation of my whirlwind few NYC days, and then maybe even revisit the spectacular afternoon I spent photographing Whistler/Blackcombe peaks, I can't have walked home crying in pain because of my hypothermic toes for nothing, right?

Wait one more further ado...
ETA: I have just been given a geography lesson and learnt that Brooklyn isn't another 'suburb' as I believed it was in my head, it's actually a burrow or something like that and Williamsburg is simply within that. Perhaps when I say we went from W'burg to Brooklyn I mean Bushwick? Ugh. I don't even know but yes I feel like a dick and thought rather than retracing my words and trying to make sense I would just like to preface any geographical reference in my writings with a big clueless note to make you aware that I am aware of my shortcomings

Have I mentioned how much I loved being over the bridge away from Manhattan that Sunday? To the greater world I feel like Williamsburg & Brooklyn had either been embraced, or perhaps more so written off, as a hispsters playground (probably much like Surry Hills or Darlinghurst would be in Sydney to a lesser extent - and come on where do we all find ourselves drawn to when it's time to meet for a coffee, a drink, a stroll, a quick vintage scour?) but found all that really means is that a newer established or transformed area (thanks urban sprawl) can leave the 'cool' room to breathe and space to be discovered rather than shoved down our beady & ever hungry throats and eyes. I loved the wider streets, the slower pace at which I walked, the lack of high rise, the smaller stores. I lost that sickening feeling of over consumption that had washed over me as I walked into the department-store-sized stand alone stores of Broadway earlier that morning.

The flowers on the corners are my favourite. I would like to strike off the record that I asked if the leaves are bred to be all shades of deep purple, aqua, blue etc. Erm no Rachel, I'm pretty sure they're dyed. Right, yeah, obviously.

If it hadn't been for the few too many people in Catbird creating some bump and grind space issues I'm sure I would have spent half my day undoing each and everyone of the cabinets, taking pictures and writing my wish list. Literally though, a few people in the teeny tiny gem packed store is all it takes to make or break your viewing pleasure, but that's what I loved. Speaking of love, if my love ever happens to want to buy me a special ring I am directing him here. I did buy myself a little something which makes me happy every time I look down and see it's delicate silver, arrow self looped around my finger. I'll show you someday.
From here some time was spent browsing a store where the perfect Acne jeans are the same price as back home so put back on the shelf (sad face) and a certain casual, cotton, free spirited, Isabel Marant peasant blouse made me want to pack up and transform my whole life wardrobe. The day was just so lovely that I didn't even mind when we windled time away in a vintage mecca looking for the perfect raglan tee and came out empty handed. Don't you sometimes get genuinly upset & angsty when what you are looking for is so simple but just not presenting itself to you?

My apetite was raging a little by now so we hopped on the Subway with Hannah promising me brownstones and bagels in her part of Brooklyn before the Superbowl kicked off. The bagel place was shut which is why, when & how the above classic pizza joint presented itself as the perfect pre dinner, post shopping snack. Let me tell you, my bagel craving sadness passed pretty quickly.

I have written too much so I will not spend time closing this nicely and narratively. Until next time......


x



Photos: Rachel Kara