>Last night was one of those perfect New York City nights. A rogue 80 degree April day folded into a balmy, urban Thursday evening. A bestie was scooting through for the weekend before embarking on his next international chapter and we met at a hip and casual West Village cantina for Italian. Private school teenagers lazily luxuriated outside the entrance in 5-inch heels, dangling Chanel purses. Couples in hipster duds giggling and practically skipping up Hudson trekked North to the loud glitter of the meatpacking district. Eye contact and the once over were granted to each passerby as everyone invigorated by the electricity of the bewildering warmth was out for a night on the town.
Ours was a multi course meal lubricated with carafes of wine and dirty martinis as we caught up on love, careers, creative aspirations… several hours later we added a 3rd bestie, heatedly debating free will vs. a fixed plan and myriads of other philosophies over bottomless cups of frozen rusty knots. My friend was especially exuberant because although he lived a block away, he’d been on tour for two years and was therefore beyond himself to be back in the land of pretty people and picante conversation. The city sizzled. And we tapped in.
The West Village is a magical place. Although it’s existed for hundreds of years, in the last decade it has become (if perhaps more gentrified and less affordable to bohemians) only more coveted, more relevant in some way, more intrinsically cool. It’s popularity, particularly in the summer months, has even grown to be a bit of a nuisance. Fighting to get home on a weekend night is as though through a parade, and not just on Halloween. Its cast of characters ranges from extras to day players to contract roles and there is a sense from everyone living or visiting that they want to be a part of it. Wanting to be seen, to be involved, to be where the action is and having a sense of belonging within it. If all the world’s a stage, the West Village is down center, with two follow spots aimed at its streets.
Around the world there are areas known to have energy vortexes—Sedona, part of India, the Himalayas, Machu Picchu, the list goes on. These are locales that have high energy due to electromagnetic fields and are linked to ley lines—energy lines. All of these are supposedly attuned to the chakras, energy centers of our physical bodies that operate in tandem with our nervous systems.
New York is not considered to be an energy vortex or to have any sort of auspicious lay lines that run through its streets. However, what if one could argue that the energy produced from its residents/commuters/passerbys is just as influential in the ability to affect our nervous system’s perception as any topographical designations? And if that energy is concentrated most where people want to be, then the West Village is it. There is something drawing us here that is beyond the brownstoned, cobblestoned blocks, Bleecker Street boutique couture and Batali eateries. Aside from the parades of people, coming from someone who works in one of the city’s busiest real estate offices, I can tell you—the West Village listings get the most hits city wide.
Known as “Little Bohemia” as far off as a century ago, and ground zero for the zany well before that, the WV is off the grid, on every level. Even today, its tucked away, convoluted floorplan of zig-zagged streets caters to those seeking a creative (albeit affluent) cache. Although many can’t, or don’t want to, afford the price per square foot that this area now brings, there is a tribal sense of belonging for residents in knowing that you are giving up comfort because you want to be here. Because you NEED to be here.
Regardless of whether one believes in energy or chakras or what have you, we all have at least a very basic gauge of an energy or mood someone emits. You know when your lover is in a bad mood and you need to give her some space, or bring her a glass of pinot, tout de suite. A depressive can enter a room and vacuum the life out of it instantaneously. Back in the days we used to party, I had the fattest Chihuahua of all time, Frederick, who had a very keen sense of people. There was always a rotating crew filtering through our after-parties, and although we might be too inebriated to judge someone’s character, Frederick would get low to the ground with a vicious growl until the wacked out person would leave—the straggler wouldn’t even be doing anything different than anyone else, but Frederick could sense the danger of this person’s energy on a level we could not intimate.
If these levels of energy from people around us affect us, could there not also be residual traces left behind of those who were here before our time? And furthermore, if space and time do not exist as many postulate, couldn’t we theoretically have and allow ourselves a connection to those energies in the here and now?
And so perhaps it’s not the Magnolia cupcakes or Christopher Street sex shops that draw us here but it’s the essence and the spirit of the artists of past generations. The beat poets of the 50’s, the free loving nature of the gay community overtaking the area in the 80’s, the generations of actors, painters, artists, for whom “off the grid” was the only way to live and the one place that truly felt like home.
If they once took this place over, are they not here now? Are we not feeding off of their vestigial dreams, aspirations, bathing in their triumphs and empathizing in their defeats? Could it be possible that I, on some level, could connect my chakras and soak up or tap into the consciousness of Eugene O’Neill, Bob Dylan or Eleanor Roosevelt? Can I open my private lay lines to inhibit the soul of a past creative revolution or connect to a crux of inspiration? Wouldn’t that be incredible?
Only thing is, I’m not really sure how to do that. But it’s a nice thought. And it doesn’t hurt to try. Until I figure it out, I’m just super grateful that some of the city’s best gelato is a few blocks away. I’m going to go grab some Ciacco Peperoncino and eat it in front of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s townhouse. If I can’t get in her head, at least the hypothesis will be delish to contemplate.
