Helen

Let me see if I remember this correctly:

• N train to Queensboro Plaza
• 7 Train to Court Square
• G train to Bedford/Nostrand
• A or C to Jay Street
• F train to Church Avenue
• Shuttle Bus to Bay Avenue.

Yes, I think that list comprises all the stops I made in getting to Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, a destination not without its merits but lacking in that walkaway feeling of uplift and discovery. It was almost 2 hours getting there. The return trip was nearly identical though much quicker, with a transfer at Hoyt instead of something else, which I can’t remember now. I spent quite a bit more time on the trains than at the day’s destination, which as I said, proved to be kind of a dud. I do like that modern style of sandblasted tombstone that seems to be especially abundant at the Jewish cemeteries. In fact the more I discover of Jewish culture and its accoutrements the more interesting I find it. That style of monument at Washington Cemetery was mostly found along the paved walkways, while the older more traditionally crammed-in markers huddled in the inner sections of the grounds.

My real interest in this cemetery was intended to be Helen. Helen Levitt, among the great street photographers of the 20th century. Until I did some research this morning I had no idea how beautiful she was. According to some shit I read on the Internet Helen is buried at Washington Cemetery. But I actually called Washington before I visited today to ask for her plot number. The woman who answered said there was no one by that name at the cemetery, or rather there was no one there by that name who died on March 29, 2009, at the age of 95. She looked twice to see if anyone by that name at Washington died anywhere in the month of March but she said she found nothing. I jokingly told the woman “Well, I read it on the Internet”, to which she familiarly responded that there’s a lot of garbage information out there. The source in question is FindaGrave.com, which I’ve known to be filled with bogus information, but somehow I suspect this listing is actually correct and the woman at the cemetery either messed up her lookup or maybe she thought I said Ellen Levitt, or maybe Helen went by another birth name, or who knows what… Numerous sources get her date of death more or less the same, within a few days, and always in March, 2009. But only Findagrave claims that she is buried at Washington Cemetery. It is odd that such a famous individual has no tombstone photo on said Findagrave site, where the owners and contributors are nothing short of infatuated with photographing burial locations of the famous and notorious.

Washington Cemetery has nothing on Mt. Zion as far as size and beauty, not that it should necessarily be considered a competition. The place just seemed kind of there, rather small and chopped into three separate grounds by McDonald Avenue and Bay Parkway, surrounded quite closely by National Wholesale Liquidators and a gas station.

The neighborhood around Washington Cemetery is low-key, even a little dumpy. I spotted one abandoned payphone enclosure on 18th Avenue, a few working phones in the numerous subway stations through which I passed, and one old Telephone Exchange Name formatted phone number on an old sign. So not a total waste! hah. I might try for Washington Cemetery again if I can get a better lead on Helen Levitt’s location, if she is even there. Jews have started being creamted but I doubt if she was on the leading edge of that trend. Then again who knows… I saw a few markers at Washington that represented people who were buried elsewhere.

Last week, at Woodlawn Cemetery, I told my friend Alan a story about the first time I ever entered a community mausoleum, which is basically just a glorified morgue. This mausoleum also served as a columbarium, where cremation urns were displayed in glass-enclosed niches. This was at St. Michael’s Cemetery in Astoria, where some of the urns were really pretty cool.

I spotted one niche where there was a photo of a smiling young-looking kid, probably in his early 20s. Behind his picture was another photo of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center. I figured this kid must have died in one of those Towers on 9/11. I looked for his cremation urn. There was none. A sourness took hold in me thinking that he was one of those cremated that day, for all the world to see.

I ended up walking from Bay Parkway all the way to Church Avenue, where a Bangladeshi street festival was roaring at full tilt. I eschew street fairs of all types but a live Bangladeshi band playing there was pretty hot. I looked for a nearby payphone so I could call it in but none was to be found. Wind was blowing like a motherfucker and it felt certain to start pouring rain at any moment but it never did. I also made it over to Ocean Parkway, which looked surprisingly familiar to me having passed through that stretch of road as a passenger in a car one time many years ago. It’s strange the things you remember.

Church Avenue is not far from Carroll Gardens. I had to find a bathroom and I have a friend in CG but he has not responded to any of my attempts at communuication for months, so I didn’t want to expect him to break his perfect record on account of a bathroom emergency, especially since I would have had no time or desire to hang around and chat like we have in the past. He’s busy with his executive life, and the time I spent with him last year revealed more and more to me that he really just hates people. If I was surrounded by the sycophants that he is I guess I might feel the same. It is depressing to remember what a big-hearted, good-humored guy he used to be. I think it was Bruce Springsteen who said that he had never worked a regular day job in his life but had seen all too clearly what it can do to a person.

…

I have read the synopsis to Elektra enough times now that I think I amready to watch it from start to finish. A cursory stroll through the opening minutes included the somewhat surprising (to me) presence of a completely nude woman on stage. I guess the opera is considered scandalous for a reason. She looked cute, but does she sing? I wonder how much full frontal nudity is found elsewhere on Amazon Prime, which I recently discovered has a shit ton of opera.  Going home from this hipster coffee shop to play at that piano.