West Side

Chelsea, Manhattan

My walk took me from 8th avenue and 30th street to the river and back again across the avenues and down the streets til I was below 14th street. The strees were full of the life of New York industry: cabs were being repainted, sanitation trucks were being cleaned, storage units were being filled. Fenders crashed in scrap yards. Thick necked men with sandpaper tongues took lunch breaks on the corner and laughed with snorts.

They could never afford to go to the night clubs that seem to be on every other block. The clubs that lose their mystique that can only be believed after midnight, if believed at all. The sun shows their rumpled exterior still garish after a long night with no sleep and too much makeup.

In the mid-20s, the neighborhood shifted suddenly to building after building devoted to gallery spaces. Fine featured older women in black surveyed collections of black paintings, of magical photos, of disturbing psycho-sexual collages and wondered if 72 inches was too much for above the mantle.