The Things You See on the 8:48

Just outside the abandoned Harrison platform, directly across the street, is an old forge made of ancient flushed brick. It's so perfectly melded into the neighborhood you can well imagine the workmen walking to and from their shifts, perhaps getting off the DL&W at Harrison, going home for lunch even, all within a block or two of their job. It's a wonderful 19th and 20th century vignette, tucked into the commute. I looked up C.S. Osborne and found it's still open after 186 years (it was founded before Andrew Jackson took the Presidential oath of office), still family owned by what is now the seventh generation, continues to only sell to the trade and makes dozens of interesting tools for upholsterers and leather workers.

One of life's lessons is, take notes.

http://www.csosborne.com/index.htm

Forever Dredging

I'm forever referencing places that
  are no longer there, and haven't been in
   generations. Sometimes, snatched from history and footprints and readings and
    dead driveways and covered trolley tracks and still present retaining walls, even
     before I walked the mortal coil. But, more usually, they're signposts.
      The parking lot entrance and exit is there, across the street from where the Strand
       used to stand -- the Broadway Diner was the Villa ... Ardie Gulamerian
        and his brother built the two stories on 100 Summit Ave. as a garage
         and installed the first car radio in town there in the 20s, in their 20s...
          that was the Risen's tennis court, that the Unitarian Church school,
           that Leo McGrath's house with the basement party
           The exegesis goes, unceasing, overflooding the levee, at least one month past
            the 90-day expiration date given to me the week of  the move.
             Unfortunately for the missus.

As Archie said to Edith, perhaps best to Stifle. Try to dummy up.

Seeing Back to Front

Leaving east out of Millburn, heading out through the bend to Maplewood, I see the front of the train ahead of the curve -- reminding me of an intercity train. It's a seldom seen view, at least on a suburban run, and puts me in mind of when you could grab the Phoebe Snow out to Chicago from Brick Church and Summit, along the M&E. Sleep in your roomette or -- get really extravagant -- a double bedroom, and dine on linen.

Twenty-three hours of civilized rail, leaving Summit at 10:51am, arriving Chicago Dearborn Street at 8:15am (9:15 Summit time) the next day, in time to get in a full day's business. Or perhaps morning meetings followed by a day game at the Friendly Confines. The dining car on the trip out was open until 10:00 pm, and reopened at 6:00 the next morning.

Unfurling

Just when I wonder if I'll stop seeing new, if the well really won't run dry someday, there's something fresh to see, unremarked, untold before. Look W-SW nearing Orange Station and see the first ridge of the Watchungs unfurl and roll before you. Look, up ahead, up high, over the houses and wires, below the sky, in that intermediate space. Prosaically, promiscuously breathtaking.
 You think, how can that be?
  How is it I haven't seen them before in that way, in that light, from that angle.

Yards and Setbacks

Lighting out east from the station, I look down and out the window right and see the expansive backyards -- uniformly large lots -- of the homes on the west side of Park Avenue. One of them possibly Costanza Iadanza's. One of them certainly Leonard Melni, that one I could point to. There are few, if any, gardens, not yet anyway. It's still only mid-April, just.But no raised beds. I think of all the mowing and trimming and edging, and their wonderful size. Enough to play catch or hurl a fastball. On Caldwell and Clark and Huntley, lots are irregularly sized. I see them with adult eyes yet marvel at how they stretched, yawning, when I was a boy. Unknown, mysterious, worth exploring.

Lighting out from the station east, I stare up and out the left window. The houses on Argyle Court implanted into the hillside like Rushmore, closer to the tracks. Some with balconies or porches to scan the skyline view. Newer than the next developer's lots, on Prospect Hill, set farther back and unseen from the train. But they're there, on more land, bigger lots.Secluded and private, the very essence of the suburb, atop the second Watchung Ridge.

Next comes Friar Tuck, none seen except the outsized new construction foundation that will dominate the scene even more when finished. Was that the Johnson's old house, Mary McVicker's, that came down to make room?

Ship's Manifest

The rear of the train has been the place to be this school-holiday week. The two weeks prior (the last in March and first in April) the train was over crowded, with many standing and all seats taken by Newark or, certainly, Secaucus. But now it's out-of-school week, families are off on holiday and the passenger manifest has dwindled somewhat. You see it and feel it when the 8:48 pulls in from Chatham and Madison and points west. There's more air, and sometimes an entire 3-seat bench is empty in the rear car. This leads me up different stairs -- original Penn Station (1910-1963), with brass railing -- to the Queens-bound E each day, at the 8th Avenue end, instead of the more usual 1-2-3/N-R at the 7th Ave. side.

The 7:24 in Early April

The sky breathtakingly blue and gray and ochrous. You think, closing the sky at Hudson Yards will be a sad thing, shutting off light, shutting off beauty.

Later, in the meadows, just east of Harrison, the coach lights go out. The car is dim, and the wondrousness of the light outside enters exaggerated, pronounced, present. You're heading west to Summit, your home. And I suddenly feel again, this is temporary, I won't always be here. This will look the same -- the sky -- without me. The rear, the background is illuminated. The foreground, dark.

The Surplus and Logic of Capitalism

Harrison station on the Morris-Essex line (closed Sept. 16, 1984, along with Roseville Avenue) really ought to be reopened but, then, so too should the plants, the factories producing goods daily, around the clock. Rather than the stadia and soccer palaces used a handful of days each year. The Port Authority is sinking $173 million into renovating the Path station and 2600 residences are ultimately planned for the 27-acre Harrison Station redevelopment site (along with a hotel and 80,000 square feet of retail).

But nowadays, if you're devoted to economic development, attracting a new stadium is regarded as a lightning strike, a new strip mall of national retailers makes you lucky.