CASTLES
by Anne I. Naughton
CASTLE: One-and-a-half-bedroom, railroad-style, third floor-walk-up apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
WHO: Amy Barker, Graduate student in Applied Anthropology, Information Specialist for City College, Avon Lady, Contributing editor for "Face Online" web-site, Mother, Babysitter, Graduate Assistant for Anthropology Department, Misha Barker, 4 year old at City College Day Care and Daisy at St. Anthony's Church, Mitten, small black cat and Val, gray fat cat.
COMMUTE: AM: G from Greenpoint Ave. to court square for the E/F to midtown for the A/D to 125th to shoe-leather express or random bus to campus. PM: Walk down St, Nicholas to Day Care, walk to 125th for the A/C or take a random bus down 125th to the 2/3 or across to the 4/5/6. At midtown, switch for the 7 to Court Square and wait for the bus to Greenpoint or hoof it over the Polaski Bridge.
Your commute is a bit arduous, do you really hoof it over the bridge?
(Amy) It's always at least one bus and two trains. It's usually faster to walk the bridge then wait for the bus. And it's a great view.
Your bathroom is tiny, but it's teeming with sample-size beauty products.
(Amy) That's what you get for being an Avon Lady and working for a web site! The Polish pharmacies here have super-duper beauty products. It'd be even better if I could read the labels.
When I arrived, I was presented with two soaps, one for peace and one for energy; do all your guests walk away with samples?
(Amy) Pretty much. Yeah, maybe people will start visiting me now. I get press kits constantly.
I have to comment on the giant, four-legged bathtub in your kitchen/ dining room area.
(Amy) Best thing about the apartment! When I get tons and tons of dishes I just do them in there. And it's so deep that the water goes right up to Misha's nose, right Misha? (Misha) The water goes up to my nose.
On my walk up from the train, I passed a Kilbasi shop, two Polish bakers, a "European Specialties" grocery, a Polish run health food supermarket, three 25-cent kiddy rides, and a Thai restaurant. I want to describe it as gentrified with an old-world twist. By the time I make it the seven blocks to your street the area is a bit warehouse-y. How did you make it from the woods of Maine here to Northwesternmost Brooklyn? When I was 18 I moved to NY to go to art school at The School of Visual Arts and I lived at The Greystone Motel at 91st and Broadway; a crazy residential hotel that was student housing. Then I moved to 4th St between 1st and 2nd Ave. I dropped out and went to California for a few months. Then I came back and squatted in a place in Northhampton (Massachusetts). Then I went to London and squatted there and came back for good in '94 when I was pregnant. But when I was in London some friends and I drove through Europe and I ended up on a kibbutz in Israel for a few months.
Your stories are not linear; dare I ask how you ended up at City College? I know, I just don't think like that. OK: last September, Labor Day weekend, I drove down to NY for the first time in two years and my car broke down in Connecticut. (Sobbing sounds) I had to get it towed to my friend's in Hoboken (NJ). Miserable scene. My car didn't get fixed so I took a bus home. The whole time I was here everyone I met, including random strangers, kept saying to me "It's a sign, you should move back to NY". I was ready to leave Maine, trying to decide what to do with my life. I went home and my car didn't get fixed so I said, "OK, I'll go to grad school." Internet search: graduate school, anthropology, NYC and that's it. Its cheap enough, the day care's good: OK. I packed up my apartment, my kid, my cats, quit my job and moved in with my sister (in Williamsburg, Brooklyn), found this place in 10 days, moved in on January 15th and started school two days later.
Despite less than a mile of water separating it from midtown Manhattan, Greenpoint retains a near villagesque charm. This supposedly owes to two of the area's mixed blessings. For one thing, the only train is the G: considerably slower and much less reliable than the Bronx Zoo Air Tram. Then there is the matter of the legendary Greenpoint smell. Ahhh, yes. That's what my realtor didn't tell me about. Forgot to mention the garbage and sewer treatment plants. Did you know that 50% of NYC's garbage comes through Greenpoint!
This Polish enclave has a bit of a reputation for quirkiness. (Amy) Ahh, here's something my grandmother told me about today ( I've been here nine months and she's been here two days and she tells me this): from the top of Greenpoint the streets that run off of Manhattan Ave. are in alphabetical order. Isn't that neat?
Lest we confuse this alphabetizing with orderliness, let me tell you something my father told me: Greenpoint is the most dangerous place in NYC to be either a pedestrian or a driver. Thanks to insistent Jaywalkers and renegade drivers, as a pedestrian you are more likely to by hit by a car and as a driver you are more likely to be walked into by a pedestrian, bike or car than in any other area in NYC. I believe it. On Sunday's, the streets are just packed. I finally figured out that it's everyone heading to mass. I swear all of Greenpoint pours into this one Catholic Church every Sunday. The streets are mobbed with ultra-fancy Polish women.
What are some of your favorite questions students ask at the "i" (Information Desk on the first floor in NAC)? Well, I really like questions where I get to gesture, like for directions. I have stylized hand gestures for giving directions to the library. I also like to do detective work and be able to get students answers.
As an "i" woman you have a particular vantage point to view the workings/non-workings of the CCNY "system." As an anthropologist-in-the-works, what would you say about the value of and access to information here? Before I started working here, getting an answer from anyone meant running around to 40 different offices. The offices really don't know what the other offices are doing a lot of the time. Aside from the "i", it's really difficult. The big run-around can be really frustrating. What's the cause of all this lack of access to information, who benefits from it? I don't know, all I can say is that going to City College would be a lot easier if everything wasn't such a fight; things would run a lot smoother.