Just Stop
Essay and painting by Robert Beck
It was clear that you couldn’t cross Amsterdam there. The street was blocked with concrete barriers along the far side, and you wouldn’t make it all the way. If you had to go east on 80th, you needed to walk across the street to your left and then navigate Amsterdam from that corner, but you couldn’t do it from where you were. Pretty simple.
It makes sense that there was a fence in place to stop people who weren’t looking that far ahead, but I was surprised that a person with a sign was stationed at the corner too, away from the construction. Maybe she was there to stop cars if needed, but every time I walked past, she was facing the sidewalk with her sign turned to stop, keeping pedestrians from walking out into the avenue with their heads up their phones into Amsterdam traffic and no avenue of escape. That’s what it takes sometimes. A fence, somebody with a dayglo vest, and a big red sign.
Not that people wouldn’t try anyway. It’s not hard to imagine some don’t-tell-ME-I can’t-go-there individual ignoring the flagger, sprinting across the avenue, having his options disappear, and leaping over the concrete barrier onto the front page of the Rag. UWS Man Jumps Into Excavation Pit While Avoiding Traffic.
When construction begins, it becomes a free-for-all for pedestrians caught by surprise. Until a prescriptive plan of movement is presented, New Yorkers default to an everyone-for-themselves strategy, a fundamental part of which is inertia: keeping in motion. They are very skilled at it. If Newton had lived on the UWS, he would have formulated his laws of motion much sooner. He might even have given us a couple more, such as #4: The hand flashing red is as good as green (∆r[c]=g[c]), and #5: Any gap that exists can and should be filled (U->g[p]). He did allow for people ignoring signs, though: (U->s=xx)
I don’t like to encounter construction when I’m trying to get somewhere, but when what they are doing seems difficult and complex, I‘ll stop and watch. I have a lot of respect for the workers. Have you ever seen how much is going on under the sidewalks and streets? They have to find the broken thing to fix while avoiding all that other stuff so they don’t make things worse. All of it is heavy or hard, and it’s hot or it’s cold, or it’s snowing. I’ve waited tables, been a hand on a farm, and run a small business—no small tasks—but excavation work would kill me.
Sure, construction is a pain in the commute, and boy, it can be noisy. Yet it’s one of those necessary annoyances. After all, we need those utilities, and when they stop functioning, we want them back, running, NOW. You hope the problem doesn’t require excavation, but it’s really good to have it if you do. Even better with flaggers.
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See more of Robert Beck’s work and visit his UWS studio at www.robertbeck.net. Let him know if you have a connection to an archetypical UWS place or event that would make a good West Side Canvas subject. Thank you!
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Love the flaggers— especially the ones who smile.
This is a lovely painting, especially given the pedestrian (sorry) subject matter.
And almost calm and contemplative without the noise of backup beeping!
Another great essay and painting. I passed by this spot a few times and also wondered at the idea that, with such an obvious barrier, it was necessary to have a person with a sign. But with all the “phone walkers,” it’s clear this is essential.
That street has the UWS’s best doorman, Garry Johnson, at 186 West 80th! Knows everyone and everything about the block!
Same with the doorman’s up at 100 West 80 Street, they know every dog and every dog owner ‘passed and present’ by their first and last names. When people cook at home, they make extras for all the doorman’s to snack on. They greet everybody on the block in the morning and in the evening when they return.
When the residence people on the block of West 80 Street when they come home after a hard day at work once they turn that corner on West 80 Street and they look at the gardens and the most beautiful trees on the Upper West Side their face turns into a face of relief and they can put their day behind them walking into a peaceful and quietness on this most beautiful garden block on the Upper West Side.
It looks like you painted that through an automobile windshield during a heavy downpour!