This gig's for you
Baldwin, Tryon
THE LAST WORD THIS GIG'S FOR YOU Tryon Baldwin One morning last spring, as I left my building for work, I discovered a young woman dancing-well, actually, gyrating is more like it-on my front...
...I might never even see the commercial...
...Last spring, for those few minutes, I felt plugged into the life around me, connected with the world, happy to be right where I was...
...THE LAST WORD THIS GIG'S FOR YOU Tryon Baldwin One morning last spring, as I left my building for work, I discovered a young woman dancing-well, actually, gyrating is more like it-on my front stoop...
...Just stay with the beat...
...parts of Die Hard III were filmed nearby...
...But, from the other side of Tenth Street I saw her sashays and shimmies with fresh eyes: I wasn't a pervert...
...Still, this woman was twisting on my doorstep, which doesn't happen everyday...
...hers were made-for-TV moves, which meant that, in the larger view, she was shaking her hips for all the world, and that, of course, included me...
...The woman watched him and nodded to herself, then she walked a few feet down the block and practiced her moves a cappella...
...Looking back at my building, I saw that a young, broad-shouldered black man sat on the steps and played the bongos, while the dancer, a slim Hispanic woman, twisted and flailed behind him...
...After a few minutes, the director, a portly white guy in a windbreaker and a baseball cap, stopped the action and then stepped in front of the dancer and shook his booty in demonstration...
...film student is easier than finding a cop...
...Blue" is set in my precinct...
...She wore very short cut-off blue jeans and a flowered-print halter top, and I first saw her through the glass front door of my building, from behind...
...Like most New Yorkers, I'm normally oblivious to the film industry...
...Still, that morning, I was more intrigued than annoyed by the woman on my stoop, and I crossed the street to watch...
...The black man set the bongos on the steps, stood, and stretched, and I decided it was time to go to work...
...At times, this "scene" can be a bit much, and a few months ago, as the weather warmed up and as more people began spending more time on the street and in the park, I started to think about moving-not just from the neighborhood, but from New York...
...I should explain that I live in the East Village, near Tompkins Square Park, in a part of Manhattan that has undergone something of a hipster renaissance in the past few years as well-heeled arty types and dressed-down college kids have made it their home...
...Certainly it was okay if I gaped at the real thing...
...Her flailing and her wide, "summer's-here-and-the-time-is-right-for-dancing-in-the-streets" smile, both were for me...
...Earlier, when I'd exited my building and first seen this woman-her twisting hips, her shapely legs-I'd had the uncomfortable, though accidental, sensation of being a voyeur...
...I asked a lighting guy with a ponytail what the shoot was for, and he told me it was a Budweiser commercial, which made sense, considering the high-spirited aura of multicultural fun...
...and finding an N.Y.U...
...He clapped his hands and swung his hips...
...I heard him tell her, "You're doin' great...
...the film crew semi-circled around my front steps-and remembering that sense of vicarious excitement, that energy rising off the pavement that brought me to New York in the first place...
...It was only after I opened the door and passed by, pausing long enough to say "Excuse me," that I noticed the film crew in the street...
...it's not unusual, especially in my neighborhood, to stumble upon a group of people armed with cameras and boom mikes: "N.Y.P.D...
...Now, at the end of summer, the street is quieting down somewhat, and I find myself looking back to that morning- the woman dancing...
...Nose rings and tattoos abound, and Mohawked, leather-clad teen-agers, their bodies pierced in half-a-dozen ways, roam the streets reciting their group manifesto: "Spare change for a cold beer, man...
...Tryon Baldwin is a free-lance writer living in New York City...
Vol. 122 • September 1995 • No. 16
