JINX!!

I knew I should never have said anything about that empty lot. That's the one where there grow either wild flowers or colorful weeds, depending on your perspective. The one where there is supposedly an underground spring that prevents anyone from building on it.


I am a great believer in jinxes. I work on the 17th floor of a building in midtown and when a few of us get on the elevator for the lobby, no matter what time of day, all it takes is a comment like "Maybe we won't make too many stops," to make us stop at practically every floor. If I say, "Hey, our neighbors have been quiet lately," it's enough to cause a racket to break out.


So I wasn't really surprised when I found out this afternoon, from someone in a position to know, that we are to get a MOVIE THEATER in that lot. Four screens were mentioned though that remains to be seen (as does the theater itself, actually). The reason, I was told, is that no one building there would be able to dig a basement (presumably because of that spring), but the movie theater would be constructed on a concrete slab on the ground.

Just what a fairly quiet block of Grand Street needs. Why not a multiplex in one of those damn skyscrapers by the river? I had dreams of casting a few dozen bags of wildflower seeds in there this summer to see what the result would be. Alas!

Also, not at all related to the jinx but since the camera is pointing that way . . . it seems like a new little restaurant or cafe opened in the dark red building in the background of the photo above.


I say "it seems" because the way my head is in the clouds sometimes when I'm walking to the train or the store, I might have been passing that place for weeks without noticing. Earlier this week on the way from the L train, I noticed a person sitting a a table in the window and couldn't remember the table or the window being there before. So, either it's new or it's time to get back into therapy.