Lighthouse

 

There's a lighthouse on the north side of Roosevelt Island here in NYC in the middle of the massive, dangerous East River. It was built in 1872 and designed by James Renwick, Jr.  

 

There are legends about the lighthouse that say a patient from a nearby Lunatic Asylum built a stone fort on the site fearing a British invasion. The fort was later demolished to make way for the lighthouse. To commemorate the story of the patient’s involvement there is an inscription near the lighthouse that reads: “All ye who do pass by may pray for his soul when he dies”.  

 

In the long distant past when my longtime partner died and he was unceremoniously cremated, I had his remains for a while and during that time his soul was restless. Things would go missing; tragedy struck my life, and nothing was right. I knew it was time for him to rest. While alive he liked to fish and enjoyed rivers and oceans.  

 

As a final farewell I wrote prayers and took my daughters to the lighthouse. The three of us had our own ceremony and released his ashes in the East River. From that moment on peace returned, and his restless soul was in repose. All unusual activities stopped and never returned. 

 

All we have left are memories and a lighthouse on the north side of Roosevelt Island in NYC in the middle of the massive, dangerous East River.

Georgia

THE GUILTY PLEASURES OF A LITERARY CORNUCOPIA OF CATALOGS AND RELATED LITERARY COLLECTIBLES

 

Book Row existed from the 1890s to the 1960s on fourth Avenue between Union Square and Astor Place.

By the 1960s skyrocketing rents had whittled away at the inhabitants of book Row until a few financially strapped survivors were able to limp away from the exorbitant rents to set up their stores elsewhere, while others dissolved into literary obscurity. I would have liked to visit those stores that did not make the cut. One of the survivors was the Strand Bookstore which landed at Broadway and E. 12th St. in the East village. Today it is the only survivor from Book Row. One of the survival techniques used by the Strand was a long series of wheeled book wagons which are parked perpendicular to the perimeter of the store surrounding it and supplying the casual passerby, of meager means, with an extremely wide diversity of reading materials, and all at very low prices.

There are many old books, some practically falling apart, which no self-respecting bookworm would choose to inhabit. There are old periodicals and catalogues of every description and subject. I once purchased an auction catalog published by Sotheby’s, at the Strand, for $.50, an extreme bargain compared to the cost of participating in the actual auction while still owning the objects of your fancy in a sense, although not in possession of the physical objects.

The spending of a few intended minutes can turn into hours as your arms become heavy with the accumulation of literary treasures that you cannot pass up, all the while moving around your fellow shoppers in a choreographed dance through the narrow aisles, while trying not to drop your selections. Eventually, you must enter the store to pay for your newly acquired treasures, wherein the passive- aggressive strategy of the Strand pays off, as you are overwhelmed by the size of the literary world that you have been unwittingly lured into like the webs of Shelob in the Lord of the Rings , laid out for Frodo and Company under Mordor, or the Sirens of Anthemoessa Island in the Odyssey luring the sailors to their ruin. In this case, it is a positive experience and you will be enriched by this experience far beyond the few dollars spent on your purchases.

Jim-August 1, 2026