Mulberry St.
It’s a suffocating street. Everyone always says that New York City is like Chicago, just compressed. I sit on a bench, in front of the facade of an old cafe, tucked inside of Mulberry St. There’s a pungent scent of pizza grease, magnolias, and cashmere: a New York perfume. White sunshine aches down to the street, but I crave honey sunlight - the kind that feels more whole.
There are people everywhere. It’s lightly raining, but not enough to stop passersby. There’s a boy across the street sitting on the curb, eating a piece of pizza alone in a Yankees cap. I watch a girl walk past him. Her suede ankle boots clank against the Mulberry cement. A collection of trashbags, old TVs, and plastic shopping bags pour onto the sidewalk. She drops her coffee cup into the pile, and she gives me a faintly, evil gaze. I watch as she follows streams of light seeping from street-side apartments and a bodega overhead. Her daunting presence commands the street, as does the boy’s. The way they ignore Mulberry’s tainted concentration of taxi honks and child-like chatter fascinates me. A melody to me is only background to them. The people around me are all Hepburns, Joels, and Mosses. I think that makes me Marilyn. I wonder if they watched the pizza parlor behind them overflow with customers and join the line as I did. I wonder if they think I’m from here. Can they breathe? I can’t.
There’s a convenience store on the other side of Mulberry, Soho Garden. It’s lined with arrangements of blue hydrangeas, bruised gardenias, and wilting roses. I smell oak and cheap coffee. Nolita, it turns out, is a labyrinth of brownstone buildings and storefronts, but I don’t feel trapped. There’s a liberty in being a part of the crowds and crowds of strangers that consume Mulberry St. at 3 pm on a Saturday. I like that my New York pizza is the same as theirs and that when I jaywalk at the corner of Mott and Mulberry, I’m not afraid of traffic either. There is an energy here that is contagious.
A New York Minute.
