Uncharted Territory

My favorite thing about New York, other than the plentitude of coffee, is its vastness, its uncharted territory. I adore exploratory missions. That the city has been discovered before is immaterial, because I wasn't there, and I doubt they were serving brunch at the time. I am currently reading 'Teaching a Stone to Talk,' by Annie Dillard. She is fascinated by the polar expeditions of the 19th century, and of the bizarre personalities who attempted such journeys:

"In 1845, Sir John Franklin and 138 officers and men embarked from England to find the northwest passage across the high Canadian Arctic to the Pacific Ocean. They sailed in two three-masted barques. Each sailing vessel carried an auxiliary steam engine and a twelve-day supply of coal for the entire projected two or three years' voyage. Instead of additional coal, according to L.P. Kirwan, each ship made room for a 1.200-volume library, 'a hand-organ, playing fifty tunes,' china place settings for officers and men, cut-glass wine goblets, and sterling silver flatware. The officers' sterling silver knives, forks, and spoons were particularly interesting. The silver was of ornate Victorian design, very heavy at the handles and richly patterned. Engraved on the handles were the individual officers' initials and family crests."

My own discovery missions are less costly and burdened...I just need a metro card, an ipod and an unknown neighborhood. Last weekend I checked out Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Hopstop furnished directions, sending me for a 20-minute trek along the barren industrial wasteland that is the northern edge of Williamsburg. It was so deserted that no one had even bothered to mark the streets, and but for the cold I'm sure there would have been feral dogs. The only danger was my freezing to the sidewalk, but suddenly Kent Street made an anonymous turn and became Franklin (oh, the irony), and I was in the cozy historic district of Greenpoint. There were other people, there was the occasional car, there was brunch, and it was good.

What was also amazing about Greenpoint was the walk back along the considerably more lively Manhattan Ave, which serves as the main drag and center of the neighborhood's Polish community. The signs are in Polish, I heard the language everywhere, and deli after deli had lines of sausage hanging from racks in the ceiling the entire length of the store. I would have bought some, but all the shops were completely packed and ringing with shouts directed from both sides of the counter. I beat a cowardly yet strategic retreat instead.

Needless to say, Sir Franklin should have done the same. His expedition foundered quickly: the boats became frozen in the ice, and the coal soon ran out. Though the shipmates tried to walk to safety, nothing survived but the silverware, which was found, scattered across the arctic, in the pockets of frozen sailors years later.