Which waterfront are you talking about?

On Sunday, Sara Gordon and I went on a hike, walking along the river from Mass Ave to LaSalle Park, and on to the Marina, where we spent some time with the fish. Then we wandered through some weird condo communities--although that is probably not the right word for what they are--singing Woody Guthrie, and into downtown where we walked through a fence, cut under the overpass, and headed north and west, to home.

There's been a lot of fuss about the waterfront lately. Some people want this thing, some people want the other thing. Bass Pro wants in and that's its own kettle of fish. The word revitalization gets thrown around a lot (gets thrown around on Grant St. too). I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement. There are a few gravely spots that could be greener, and I'd never say no to a few more trees--but revitalization? Revitalization? Come on! There were easily five hundred people at the waterfront around 6 pm on Sunday. Easily 500, but probably more. Laughing, shouting, playing, running, walking, playing tag, grilling. Doing people-at-the-waterfront activities. It's a river. We live on a drained swamp. Of course people are going to go there.

We do need to protect what is already ours from Bass Pro and from any further condo-ization. We need to hold what is rightfully ours away from any of the greedies upstairs. But we do not need to revitalize. We already are. And this argument reaches right into the core of urban planning itself. Do we need to protect what is ours from that corrupt mascot, money? Yes. Beyond that, nothing needs to be done. People will put what they need where they need it, and they invest where they are. Academics, posturers, politicians: take a walk (not a drive) around the west side. There are countless churches, temples, and other sanctuaries...in houses. The west side says, "Everything can go in a house!" Nobody is going to build their church or garden across town. They are going to get together and put it where they live. I have walked on rainy nights, and heard, from the yellow glow of houses, voices rising up in languages I don't know, and tambourines, and guitars, and instruments I don't know--voices that laugh and sing and sway the night, and people like me stop in the street to listen. They're thanking god--in whatever version of that story--and I'm thanking them. A little help is good, but usually there is too much meddling.

It's an odd process--the one by which a simple thing is made complicated. The river is the calmest, loveliest place of the city. It is my medicine. I go to the river to remember what I am doing, and to forget (I make sure to go there at least once a week). But the waterfront is already segregated. Along the path Sara and I took, it was like this: quiet, private (hidden boat docks), then public (kids jumping into the water), then private again (gated 'communities' without gates), mostly quiet--a murmur of AC units and ceiling fans. Then noisy: there was a condo party going on. At the Marina it is public and private. How? Shanghai Reds versus picnic tables.

When I was trekking through Belfast this past March, I kept finding myself walking along a mesh fence. At points it was as tall as a short building. It is an old fence that remains, but it is  anything but symbolic for the people who still live, and cry, and somehow manage to sing and play behind it. There were playgrounds behind it, on the other side of where I was walking, and the shouts of the children were not ordinary shouts; they were cries of war. As they should be: what does it do to anyone's mind--child or adult--to live behind a fence? For any human or animal to be put in a cage creates daily pain, and that stuff gets inside bodies. The message is: You cannot go where I am; stay. The trauma of that lives in our muscles, in our cells. Take Belfast, take Palestine, take domestic abuse. There is claustrophobia first, then terrorism--terrorism directed outward or inward. In Belfast, I was amazed at how difficult it was to find an entrance/exit to the fence. I walked along it for at least a half an hour, but maybe longer, before I found a place to slip through--and that was all it was--not a gate, just a place to slip through.

I thought of this as we passed through Buffalo's hidden monastery of wealth. There was no fence or physical barrier keeping us from entering or exiting, yet we were walking straight into a secret. A tar path led us straight from LaSalle Park into an enclave of suburbia in downtown Buffalo. But there were signs that read Private. A cop car drove by us, slowly. That's a loaded image in Buffalo. A cop car. Who sees one, and doesn't get a tick inside? Who even lives here, we asked each other? Are these summer-in-the-city condos? Who are these strange people, and what is inside their bodies? (The answer is a sort of ultimate kind of fear). And then, although their wall, their fence, their keep the outside-outside partition was semi-fluid and self-imposed, I felt so sorry for them. How horrible for anyone to be so stuck. And how sad it must be to live on the edge of a beautiful river, and be afraid to share it.

These were my Sunday reflections in a nutshell. I'll say this: if you always pass through your city in a car, you don't see it. Not all the way. It's not all your fault. It's actually impossible because you are going so fast, and you are inside walls, and you have other important things to concentrate on (like not hitting that jerk)! A bike ride is good, and sometimes a walk is even better, but either way, go visit your city. Take a vacation day and gift yourself a cultural education.

While "Rude boy" blared above, from an air conditioned apartment in the sky, this is what Sara and I sang, as we walked away:

"As I was walkin'--I saw a sign there
And that sign said, 'No tresspassin'
But on the other side, it didn't say nothin'
Now that side was made for you and me!"