St Francis of Hyde Park

Here's another London vignette...

I saw St. Francis in Hyde Park; he was slope-shouldered and solid, just like Giotto painted him.  Wearing a blue suit instead of brown robe, he stands just off the path with one hand outstretched.  A squirrel beseeches at his feet, hands and face upturned.  St. Francis pulls seeds from an orange plastic Sainsbury bag, holds out his palm and waits...A tiny bird falls like a leaf to his hand to feed and flits back up into the camouflage of foliage.  Another comes, and another, always taking turns. He leans down to the patient squirrel, answering its prayers. Young men with soccer balls, mothers with carriages, oblivious young with eyes only for their phones, and giggling teens--they all pass by him.  A child stops and turns to watch; only she can see him.  Her mother tugs her hand without glancing back and off they go.  It’s a warm Friday evening in Hyde Park.  Springsteen's lyrics ring in my ears:  it’s so hard to be a saint in the city.  But St Francis seems fine.

The 25 Bus to Ilford

One of the most wonderful things about public transportation, perhaps second only to not having to waste your eyes and attention on driving, is eavesdropping on others.  I rarely stuff my ears with buds when I’m out in the city, because I like to hear it.  I like to hear them: the countless individuals immersed in their own private lives while passing through our shared air.  A few years ago I was on Metro on my way home from Spanish class and I had the thrill of actually comprehending a conversation between two Spanish-speakers.  I was so excited I almost tipped them off that I was listening, but that didn’t seem fair. At least they weren’t talking about me. In London, where I just spent almost a month, language isn’t a barrier—well, not much of one—and eavesdropping is easy and entertaining.  So I did a lot of listening from my favorite seat in the front window on the top floor of the double-decker bus. 

Here’s one of my favorites from the 25 bus to Ilford, transcribed as accurately as possible.  The two were both from elsewhere.  She was Polish; he was Colombian.  Their conversation touched on the timely problematic of migration and globalism, and also the eternal questions of belonging:  what is it to be “English”? To be Polish? Is it something given or acquired? And, what about the hydrogen...

She:       What makes someone English? 

He:         Your behavior has changed since you came to England.
She:       Who stays the same? I’ve been here for 6 years; I’m not 15 anymore.  Am I Polish still?
He:         When someone asks you where you’re from it’s not the same as who you are.
She:       If I tell you I love Colombia it doesn’t make me Spanish.
He          (pause) So, the hydrogen.  Where did it all come from?  If all the elements were formed from hydrogen, then where did the hydrogen come from?
She:       (looking out the window as we roll down Whitechapel) That’s my dentist. He fucked up my bridge.
He:         Where did it come from? You know what I think?  The existence of hydrogen is proof of god.

The bus passed the East London Mosque stop, and then the next one was mine.  I thought about staying on a bit longer just to hear where the conversation might go.

7th Street Seranade

The guys in the brass jazz band are at the northwest corner of 7^th and F, sweaty and ready, but they’re not playing.  It feels like a double 95—degrees and percent humidity.  One guy sits on a stool at a snare; the trombone players and tuba player stand, mopping brows. It seems these guys only come out when it’s hot. They’re all looking across 7^th Street to the primo spot, right at the top of the Gallery Place Metro where a steady stream of hot humans exiled from the cool dark underground face the six o’clock heat.  Under the scrap of shade beneath the Verizon Center sign a solo guitar player wails on his electric, riffing against a recorded track.  The brass guys are watching and listening, envious or patient.

As I cross 7^th headed for the Metro one trombonist blasts a single note.  A warning shot across the street?  I slide the sunglasses off my damp face as I pass into shade.  As I step on the escalator I hear the trombone again, and then the guitar answers.  Now they’re in call and response across 7^th Street.  I should have turned and gone back up.

The Lovable City

The great Danish urbanist Jan Gehl says that a city’s primary responsibility is “to be sweet to its people.”  I think it’s our responsibility, as citizens and city shapers, to be sweet to our cities.  This blog is about the love of cities—not sappy, blind or nostalgic love—but love for the long haul, in sickness and in health, in recessions and prosperity.  Urbiphilia is an embrace of the idea of urbanity and a sustained demonstration of the value of living together in close quarters, and in so doing construct numerous wondrous places of all sizes.  And, further, that living densely—yeah, let’s use the word—is the best way to honor the natural world.

I made that word up, urbiphilia, as you may have guessed. The word is a happy hybrid.  Part comes from the Latin word urbs, urbis (f)--that’s how we say things in Latin, identify the word by its nominative, genitive, and gender-- and it refers both to “the city,” the un-capitalized ordinary noun, and to the city of Rome, literally the Capital--ized city. Add philia the Greek word for affection or devotion to something, and we’ve got a nice mongrel word, an appropriate metaphor for the mixing and fusion of cities.

My made up word pays homage to E.O. Wilson’s theory of biophilia, his hypothesis that we have deep evolutionary attractions to landscapes with certain kinds of characteristics.  The biophile, Wilson argues, has the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes. “Life,” he says, “of any kind is infinitely more interesting than almost any conceivable variety of inanimate matter.”  I think that everything Wilson says about nature can also be said about cities, including the hypothesis that we have deep, evolutionary attractions to them.  Life, not the paving of the streets or height of buildings, is what makes cities infinitely interesting. 

What makes a city worthy of being loved? It’s an important question, because it’s only such devotion that will set us on the path toward a more sustainable, equitable, and beautiful world. I am an urbiphile;  I loves cities both in general and in particular and not only in the way that an architect loves cities--for the feast of buildings that a city street offers--but for many other reasons that aren’t as easy to articulate.  But I’ll try…