Selective ignorance January 24, 2010

Growing older, I’ve learned to cultivate selective  ignorance. No longer can one rush into learning new things, new languages or take courses in biology or chemistry. The mind is less likely to encompass a mound of new knowledge–it’s hard enough to hold on to facts and figures it already knows. I’ve always wanted to learn Greek, for example, but I’ll forego it and content myself with simpler things. Like reading the daily Times, or walking back and forth on Brooklyn’s Promenade that faces the New York skyline.

Amsterdam Avenue December 19, 2009

Henry and I were married in 1959 and our first apartment was on the West Side, on 89th Street between Broadway and Riverside Drive in New York City. One block away was Amsterdam Avenue. We loved to walk along Broadway, brimming with all kinds of shops, luncheonettes, local literati (they couldn’t afford the East Side or even the Village), and marvelous Jewish types (including refugees from Nazi Germany who settled in the area), sitting on the thin stretch of  pavement dividing the street.  

For a change of scenery, we occasionally walked one block East to Amsterdam. The scene was very different. It was quiet, desolate, with a good number of empty stores, an occasional art gallery with a gutsy owner, and a sprinkling of dress shops. Something about the place left you cold, disinterested  and you felt livelier getting back to Broadway.

50 years later, after I read the piece in the NYTimes this week about the 3 murders in a room on upper Amsterdam, this blogger’s  old impressions deepened and brought new sorrow.