New York is changing and it feels like there is no time to noticed it.
A couple of months ago I ran out of journals --it is better to say that I completed my first journal-- so I went to the Kinokuniya Bookstore at Rockefeller Center to get one of those Japanese notebooks, similar to Moleskines but with more color and less bounded, but what to my disappointment there was no more Kinokuniya. Later I found in Google they closed at the end of 2007 but opened a new store in Sixth Avenue between 40th and 41st, with a broader Asian appeal instead of the Japanese specialized one. Good to know, I said. I have to visit it, I said.
Two weeks I walked Bedford Avenue for the first time in months. You can tell I am not a big fan of Williamsburg so I limited my visits there while ago besides the good food with prices one can find there. Still, I do have good recounts of Bedford Avenue since I lived in Williamsburg when I moved to NYC. One was stopping by Clovis Press, a great independent bookstore where I put my first zines. In 2006 I found it was closed and replaced with a cheese store (?). Recently I found a journal entry from one of the former employees about the closing and it explains why it closed and have not re open in a new location. Now I know why, I said.
But in my last walk I was hit in my stomach when I found that another business was gone. The place where Mexican grocery store Matamoros is now a Ricky's Costume as Racked.com reported on October 1st. Matamoros was famous for the kitchen in the back of the store. It was about good and cheap tacos y tostadas, with Jarritos in the fridge. This is sad, I said.
My first published article in English was a review of three taquerias --including Matamoros-- in Williamsburg for one of the first issues of Block Magazine back in 2003. I remember I wrote something about the three comadres talking in the back or something like that. Now that Matamoros is gone I just feel like going home, find the article and hug it. I might framed it or I would simply put it back in the folder where I hope it is.
The gone places are telling me something about my own history in the city. I have never been a guy attached to stuff and sure we all need to get rid of the past, but keeping things I wrote is important in order know where I am going or where I have been. Like New York, I have change and sometimes there is no time to noticed it, but unlike those business I still around, evolving and being able to track the path in case I forget something I need. That way I can ask my spirits the exact things.
