As the snow melts, there are some surprising things that float to the surface, such as this bike Stephen and I saw on Sunday.
Unfortunately, in my experience, everything you’ve heard about Washington Heights being a ‘cesspool’ is pretty much true in terms of litter on the streets; this is exacerbated by the snow, even when it lasts just a few days.
I think one of the reasons people in the neighborhood — who are generally not in the highest income brackets — are so inclined to litter is because it’s a way to claim a piece of Manhattan; to deface or destroy something, i.e., to throw trash at it, is essentially to own it on a certain level. (This applies to noise as well, which is why loud stereos are such a plague.) Society requires a certain consideration to function, and if you believe you’re on the short end of the stick — whether this belief is accurate or not — there’s little point in being polite and respecting the rules; thus, throwing your shit all over the place becomes (even if this is rarely acknowledged as such) a political act, a way to protest the unfairness of society and our place in it. I think this is why the litter of Washington Heights seems to resonate with an anger and chaos — perhaps even anarchy — that’s not present in more typically unkempt neighborhoods, where people are just lazy or ambivalent; there’s nothing lazy about the trash on the streets of Washington Heights: it basically screams ‘fuck you’ to anyone who passes by and takes the time to consider it.
Yesterday morning when the sun was out, I decided to focus for a few seconds on the mountain range of snow, and how it reflected the amber light.
Here it was still possible to see the beauty of the snow, the way it had transformed the city into something completely different for a few days.
This morning, however, there was very little snow left, so that the streets were dominated by the fuck-you garbage.
In a way, the neighborhood — when it is teeming with trash like this — is redolent of a disaster area, which in a way is closer to the truth, when you consider the combination of poverty and despair and governmental disdain that have marked Washington Heights for the better part of a century.
But I’m far less critical than I used to be about the garbage, and can even observe it with a certain admiration to the extent that it symbolizes my own discontent with society.
And while I’m less inclined to violent gestures than I might have been at a different point in my life, I can appreciate the desire to rip things up — in this case the subway advertisements — and throw them against the wall, as if to finally make a stand, however futile, against the onslaught of conformity, the relentless pressure — and often, necessity — to lead a life that doesn’t feel like your own.
