Blog Assignment # 6: Author's Note on Assignment # 2 - Writing on a place

excerpt from "New Union Square"

I leave the L train, a flood of people leave with me, the most of them are dreadful hipsters, new york’s latest pest problem, The scurry out to head back to their nest – New Union Square. I call it New Union Square, for one reason, it’s not what it used to be.
Usually when I leave my house and my father will ask be where I’m off to, my response is usually union square or 14th street; he followed my response with a suspicious look. I knew that look, I would just assure him, “no, don’t worry.” My father thinks that union square is the same from what it was in the 70s: a hangout for countercultures, beatniks and rebels, poets and artists, commies and hippies, slackers and burn outs; he mostly remembers the drug dealers, muggers, hustlers, con-men, working girls and “fags”, though. “Pop, it’s nothing that no more, man.” Unfortunately.
Coming from Brooklyn, boarding the second car of the train, i end up right on 14th street itself when i get to my stop, Union Squre; up the stairs, past the underground newspaper stand and up the stairs till i see the light of day, lighting a cigarette, i notice all the people, the smiles on their faces and shopping bags in their hands, the quirky fashions sported by them, talking of parties in williamsburg and the east village, of chiq bars and places they’ve seen on on Lx New York. I loathe coming here.

-inspiration: one of my favorite places to hang out has gotta be union square, from union/14 you can down east to the village, down for soho or chinatown, or up to chelsea, but i rarely do; it is also a place a that i hate deeply. I used to read about all the stuff that went on there in the old days, political rallies and demonstrations, poetry reading and art shows, nihilistic hipsters and down trodden hustlers, hookers who'd give ya a lay for 20 dollars, primo dime bags of tea, or scag, etc. Now there's the farmer's food market!
Union square is very different from what it once was, now its infested with shoe stores, and lights fill the night sky with their names; go their to shop, not to cop, get laid or husle a buck or two. Like i mentioned in the peice, my father still thinks its that way; Bullshit, you can't cop with a sawt team bumrushing yo' ass, there hasn't been a hooker their since god knows when, and there are way to many puercos around to do anything. I always wished i could have been there, but like most of the people i know, i was born in the wrong damn year.
-what did i learn from writing this piece?
Well, i realized how much of a miserable, misanthropic, sadist i am to keep going back to a place i hate. all jokes aside, i did something in the piece that i call time mash ups, or juxtapositions, or "time warps, where things from different decades and era are put together for a artistic affect or to compliment or comment on each other. i've been thinking of doing this for a story i've yet to write but have thought about extensively, its a wild story of a 1940s hipster in love with a chinatown hooker set in the post war era, with pop culture and historical mash ups of the turn of the century to like 50s new york.
-writing: like most of the things i write, i write by hand; i've mentioned before that i don't trust the keyboard to keep up with by thoughts, and i feel i can catch more by longhand.