What's the Difference Between a Person and a Building?

Wander Report 12.30.23

Tired of not writing and I don't have enough time to go deep so I'm going to experiment with pumping out these short little bullet-pointed wander reports from my rangings around the city.

• I struggle to take pictures of people. Feel like a thief. But buildings have other types of souls. Or maybe because I was raised by an architect, surrounded by polaroids of his work, that's why I'm comfortable taking shots of buildings? I'm just not as sensitive to their feelings. Anyways, in these reports there will be lots of pictures of shit people have built, but probably not many pictures of actual people. It's a flaw.

• Building a Chinatown tour for another company. Last week, me and the owner were eating sticky rice on Mott Street when we got stopped by a young couple with a baby in a stroller and a huge rolling suitcase. They were looking for a laundromat. We helped them find one (there's a coin-op on Mulberry right near the bend, down a darkened flight of stairs.) On the way over there the woman told me in Spanish, "We're from Colombia. We don't speak English and we don't speak Chinese." I wanted to ask them how they came to be doing laundry in Chinatown, but I didn't. I hope they are okay.

• NYC is roughly 1/3 native New Yorkers, 1/3 US transplants, and 1/3 international transplants. For centuries, millions of people from all over the world have struggled and strived and started new lives in this place and it's a group I'm fucking proud and grateful to be a part of. Holy shit.

• I was at 145th waiting for the A and there was a rat just chillin in his own zone and then the C pulled in and he waited on the yellow for the train to stop and the doors opened right in front him and he almost got on but then he bounced. I was rapt.

See you next time.

DF

P.S. A building is an agreement between a group of people. A person is also an agreement between a group of people, so IDK maybe they're the same thing.