It’ll be well into the afternoon by the time we get around to the Russian Mermaid Spa in Sea Gate on the western tip of Coney Island, and everything we pass, it turns out, has a history. Just off from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the driver points out a small green island that used to be a haven for spies during the Revolutionary War but is now a bird sanctuary. Like a tour guide, he knows every point of interest. Over there is the cannon, he says, and over there, just across the river, facing us? — more cannon at Fort Wadsworth, so that whenever unwelcomed parties happened through the Narrows a couple hundred years ago both sides could "blow them to shit."
The driver, a native New Yorker, can talk a blue streak. He drives like an asshole. It’s not hard to like him.
He points out pieces of the past now fading from presentation, the stuff that’s just below the surface or lost to concrete overpasses, traces of a bygone day that the metropolis has long since grown around. He knows all about the warts, too. The bleak look-alike buildings in Coney Island, jutting fretfully into a skyline? Those are the original projects, conceived by Robert Moses, the cold mastermind behind much of New York’s ultimate design.
In fact, "There’s a book called The Power Broker, by Robert Caro, and it’s one of my favorites," the driver says. "It’s a fascinating read. Caro is a brilliant writer — he did one of Lyndon B. Johnson, too, but it’s a great way to get to know about Moses. He actually won a Pulitzer for it."
The car we’re in is a gold Chrysler Limited convertible, and the top is down. There is stuff all over, including a tall redheaded girl who we just made room for. Her name is Natalie. She works with him in the movies. We picked her up in Bay Ridge. There are empty Styrofoam cups, blankets, books, water bottles, a child seat with a dog leash attached, golf balls, air pumps, loose clothing, props. The driver has on sunglasses, and he’s angling his car into a tight spot that really isn’t a spot so much as a space shaped like a lab flask between a dumpster and a truck. The sea-themed Russian spa, as the name suggests, has a mermaid on the sign. He takes fighters here on occasion. Sometimes actors. Sometimes Natalie, who is pretty quiet.
"These are the 1960s Ray-Ban Drifters," he says, adjusting his shades as he’s wedging in. "Not the Wayfarers like the Blues Brothers wore."
He gets out and grabs some robes from the back, some flip-flops, some trunks. He’s a regular to this Russian banya. The idea of being slapped with birch leaves in a steaming sauna by humorless Russian men doesn’t bother him in the least. He turns to the redhead.
"Hey, do me a favor, Nat, see that dumpster there?" He takes off his glasses after a few cool strides, his eyes wide, blue and lucid. "Look and see if my reputation is in there, will you? I seem to have lost my reputation. Can you see if it’s in there? Will you do that for me, Nat?"
In the Hands of a Judge - MMA Fighting
The driver, a native New Yorker, can talk a blue streak. He drives like an asshole. It’s not hard to like him.
He points out pieces of the past now fading from presentation, the stuff that’s just below the surface or lost to concrete overpasses, traces of a bygone day that the metropolis has long since grown around. He knows all about the warts, too. The bleak look-alike buildings in Coney Island, jutting fretfully into a skyline? Those are the original projects, conceived by Robert Moses, the cold mastermind behind much of New York’s ultimate design.
In fact, "There’s a book called The Power Broker, by Robert Caro, and it’s one of my favorites," the driver says. "It’s a fascinating read. Caro is a brilliant writer — he did one of Lyndon B. Johnson, too, but it’s a great way to get to know about Moses. He actually won a Pulitzer for it."
The car we’re in is a gold Chrysler Limited convertible, and the top is down. There is stuff all over, including a tall redheaded girl who we just made room for. Her name is Natalie. She works with him in the movies. We picked her up in Bay Ridge. There are empty Styrofoam cups, blankets, books, water bottles, a child seat with a dog leash attached, golf balls, air pumps, loose clothing, props. The driver has on sunglasses, and he’s angling his car into a tight spot that really isn’t a spot so much as a space shaped like a lab flask between a dumpster and a truck. The sea-themed Russian spa, as the name suggests, has a mermaid on the sign. He takes fighters here on occasion. Sometimes actors. Sometimes Natalie, who is pretty quiet.
"These are the 1960s Ray-Ban Drifters," he says, adjusting his shades as he’s wedging in. "Not the Wayfarers like the Blues Brothers wore."
He gets out and grabs some robes from the back, some flip-flops, some trunks. He’s a regular to this Russian banya. The idea of being slapped with birch leaves in a steaming sauna by humorless Russian men doesn’t bother him in the least. He turns to the redhead.
"Hey, do me a favor, Nat, see that dumpster there?" He takes off his glasses after a few cool strides, his eyes wide, blue and lucid. "Look and see if my reputation is in there, will you? I seem to have lost my reputation. Can you see if it’s in there? Will you do that for me, Nat?"
In the Hands of a Judge - MMA Fighting
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