When I first moved into New York City, nobody really told me much about
Astor Place. Frankly, I didn't even know that it was there, until a day
arose in which I needed to go shopping at K-Mart. It was on that trip that
I caught my first glimpse of what many New Yorkers refer to simply as "The
Cube." Those who wish to get technical and flaunt their advanced knowledge
of the area, however, might refer to it by its official name: "The Alamo."
Either way, both monikers refer to the same thing: that big black steel
sculpture in the middle of the intersection at Astor Place, created by
the artist Bernard Rosenthal.
On my way to K-Mart, I walked by and eyed the big square thing. I didn't
stop to give it a good look, though, because, simply, I had goods that
needed to be purchased, and also I had just met my roommate the day before
and didn't yet trust him to be alone in our room with my things. So I continued
on. When finished shopping, I stepped out of the store and again gave it
one more quick look on my way back before nearly getting hit by a car.
New York can be a busy place.
Something about that cube intrigued me, though, more so than the other
random sites of this new "Big City" that I had just moved into. Maybe it
was because the sculpture could spin on its axis (something I have never
seen before), maybe it was because the shady-looking skateboard kids sitting
around it just didn't seem to look right, or maybe it was because the cube
just seemed to sit there without any real purpose. Whatever it was, I could
feel that something about that cube was bigger than what it led itself
on to be. I asked one of the teenagers with a skateboard what he thought
about the sculpture, which brought about a smile, a shrug, and the words,
"I don't know. It's a cool place to chill out." But that can't be it.
Alas, though, when looking up information on the Alamo cube, I failed to
find any concrete information on what it meant, what the artist originally
intended for it to symbolize. Time and time again I'd come across a noncommittal
passage like, "...Popular among skateboarders trying out new moves, the
cube is a favorite meeting place for those en route to the nearby Public
Theater, Cooper Union and East Village."
But this sculpture had to mean something more to the city and people of
New York than simply serving as a focal point. It had to have some deeper
purpose than to solve the age-old question of where a separated family
of tourists should rendezvous for their 8:00 PM Blue Man Group show after
spending the day secretly buying each other "I [Heart] NY" shirts for the
upcoming holiday. There had to be a bigger reason why the cube was there,
and I took it upon myself to figure it out. So I started deconstructing
its very essence.
In the middle of an intersection, with cars bustling in all directions,
the cube stays there. Is it meant to be admired? My guess would be no,
since there aren't any benches to sit on, and the area is hardly large
enough to house any idle onlookers. (Believe me, I've tried, and it always
ends up with me having to move out of the way to avoid getting hit by the
scores of pedestrians on the move). It annoyed me, since I seemed to be
the only one in the city trying to appreciate this piece of art, while
everyone else shoved me out of the way to get to wherever they were trying
to go.
It's frustrating. Why didn't anyone seem to care? Stephanie Farqhuar laments
of the limited access of Gramercy Park in the essay "Memoirs of the City's
Unfamous," saying that "this park is indeed a haven, but only for a select
elite." While I could see how that could be irritating to Stephanie, she
should take solace in the fact that at least SOMEBODY appreciates it, albeit
a privileged few. The cube, however, is out in the open, accessible to
everyone, except nobody cares. Is taking something away the only way to
get people to appreciate it?
If the New York commuters were all of a sudden fenced off from the cube
sculpture, would there be an uproar to remove the barrier to the artwork
that nobody cares about? Would people protest the exclusion from the Alamo
cube, holding signs reading, "We have the right!"? Yes, they do have the
right: The right to passively rush by it every morning. Everybody defends
the arts and public space, but it appears to me that, for most people,
it's not the art that they care about, but the feeling that they could
appreciate the art if they wanted to... even though they don't. Andre Acimen
verbalized it quite eloquently at the beginning of his essay "Shadow Cities,"
in which he described his personal horror after discovering that Straus
Park was being demolished. Shortly thereafter, he added, "Not that Straus
Park was such a wonderful place to begin with. . . You'd think twice before
sitting, and if you did sit, you'd want to leave immediately" (493).
Then, one day, with a mind full of dark thoughts about the society's lack
of ability to appreciate artwork, I picked up my head in a fluke moment
of frustration and stopped looking at the cube for a minute. Instead, I
took a gaze at the surrounding buildings and sidewalks, upon which everyone
else was moving, hustling, and bustling. And then it hit me. This entire
time I had been wondering how such a huge mass of people could be so ignorant
to a work of art that was put out into a public center and made readily
available to them, but these people weren't the ones missing out on the
point of the art. I was.
I was looking at it completely wrong by staring and trying to decipher
any symbolism. I, stupidly, stopped and stared at this cube, trying for
the life of me to figure out why it's there. But, quite simply, the cube
isn't about stopping. It's about movement. All around it there are cars
zooming, shoppers consuming, rush hour workers teeming on and off of the
subway trains, new wave poets drinking their overpriced Starbucks coffee,
and street vendors selling various bootleg videotapes, posters, and smoking
paraphernalia (for tobacco use only). Heck, even the cube itself spins.
Everything about it and its location screams, "go, go, GO!"
The Astor Place cube and the surrounding environment, in its perpetual
passing and progress, exemplify the great motion and consumption of the
city atmosphere. Move, move. Buy, buy. It is capitalism at its finest.
It's a sculpture that doesn't exist for any reason except to be a recognizable
point next to major commuting and spending areas. That's its purpose! That's
everything's purpose. In the ultimate give-and-take of economics, nothing
can last without somehow serving as a profitable cash flow towards some
beneficiary. And if it's not making money, then get rid of it.
As I stood there, attempting to understand the deep artistic meaning behind
the sculpture, I couldn't have been further from the reason why the cube
was put there in the first place. I wasn't shopping. I wasn't using public
transportation. I was... idling. And furthermore, who decides what it means
to "appreciate" art anyway? Why, in order to "understand" artwork, do we
have to stand around, holding a cappuccino, scrunching our faces and contemplating
life's very essence? Jeanette Winterson complains, almost disappointedly,
in the essay "Art Objects," an essay that attempts to deconstruct why our
culture is so passive towards artists and their work, that "There are few
people who could manage an hour alone with the Mona Lisa" (180). But is
that truly a bad thing? Sure, the painting is beautiful, but for God's
sake, don't spend your entire day staring at it. Your time on this planet
is limited. Look at the picture, move on, and do something else!
So now, when I think back to the immortal words left to me by the skater
kid that I encountered days before, the one who informed me that, "It's
a cool place to chill out," I want to go back, grab him by the shoulders,
shake hard and yell, " 'Chill out'?! Are you blind?! Could you have missed
the point any more? The cube's here as a motivation to DO something: Shop,
go to work, take a ride, spend, consume... SOMETHING!"
But, alas, even though that kid's probably still sitting at the cube right
now, it's a message that shouldn't be verbalized by me to him, because
he just won't get it. It's a lesson that must be learned for oneself. And
besides, the New York Police Department probably doesn't look too kindly
towards the unprovoked grabbing and shaking of minors in public places.
But one day, hopefully, that youth (perhaps during one of his "chill out"
sessions) will sit up, look around himself, see all the people doing their
various activities and realize that he's the only one in the city who is
doing absolutely nothing. I don't know when this realization will happen,
but when it does, it should hit him like a pile of bricks being thrown
from God Himself and motivate him to spring to his feet and go out and
do something with his life instead of wasting it away by sitting in front
of a giant steel cube in the middle of an intersection. After that moment
of enlightenment, whether he chooses an activity that is worthwhile and
interesting or one that is equally mindless as the "chilling out" that
he seems to have become so skillful at is up to him, but whichever one
he chooses, at least it will be something to do. Some place to go. Some
life to live.
WORKS CITED
Aciman, Andre. "Shadow
Cities." Writing the Essay: Art in the World and The World Through
Art. Ed. Darlene A. Forrest. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
"Astor Place." New
York City.com Attractions. 25 November, 2003 <http://www.nyc.com/
list.aspx?c=3&e=attractionID&s=687&v=6>
Farqhuar, Stephanie.
"Memoirs of the City's Unfamous." Mercer Street 2000. 2000
<http:// www.nyu.edu/cas/expository.writing/MercerStreet00.html>.
Winterson, Jeanette.
"Art Objects." Writing the Essay: Art in the World and The World
Through Art. Ed. Darlene A. Forrest. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
Winter 2004
