Though my affinity for Park Slope has not waned, wanderlust got the better of me last night as Josh and I ambled north into Fort Greene, the neighborhood once home to Richard Wright and Walt Whitman. Though similar to the Slope in its brownstones, patio dining, and children running through a park with messy ice cream faces, Fort Greene has a calmer, younger crowd, with men more likely to be carrying a tote bag than a baby in a papoose.
Always on the lookout for a restaurant that keeps prices low and food quality high, we settled on The General Greene, a relatively new spot on DeKalb Ave. Like so many others, The General Greene specializes in local, organic food, though this wasn’t obnoxiously displayed or shoved down your throat, that is, until you ate the food. There were no, “We’re Greene!” signs or “Keeping it Greene” plaques. It was nice to know we were eating locally and organically without it feeling like we were at a coop.
The restaurant was packed with Fort Greeners and Greene impostors alike, and when we finally squeezed into a packed bar we decided to settle on an appetizer of heirloom tomato salad, prepared with olive oil, fresh red onion, and mint. It was refreshing and cool and had an almost French feel to it. Jonesing for something a little more American, Josh and I both got the burger, a solid choice for a red-blooded man. It had aged cheddar and a mix of lamb and beef. Masculinity affirmed, we walked down the block to Fort Greene’s greatest attraction, the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
If cheaper rents, better subway lines, and fewer yuppies aren’t incentive enough to move to Fort Greene, its proximity to BAM just might seal the deal. A veritable treasure trove of offbeat entertainment, BAM is always showing something worth attending, and that night we chose to see “Man on Wire,” the story of French wire-walker Phillipe and his quest to cross the World Trade Center towers on a wire.
Phillipe and his crew started small, by scaling smaller buildings like the towers of Notre Dame in Paris and the Sydney, Australia Harbor Bridge. In the early seventies, just as the twin towers were rising, Phillipe made the impossible happen when he and his partners launched wires from across the twin towers and rigged them so that he could dance his way across. If you have vertigo issues, I would not recommend this film. If you can get your hands on some dramamine, however, it is worth seeing just for the purely stunt elements. The movie goes beyond simply recounting the dramatic episodes that lead up to Phillipe’s climb to the top of the world, as it chronicles the eventual disintegration of his team that got him there. Not surprisingly, Phillipe is a bit of an egomaniac and megalomaniac, which can at times distance him from other people.
What was most fascinating about all his travails was just how positively he was received by authorities. People in the 1970’s seemed to have a sense of humor about all this. In the wake of anti-terrorism efforts across the globe, not only could this kind of stunt never be pulled again, but I doubt the city would issue lifetime security passes to the building, as it did for Phillipe when he came off the wire at the WTC. The towers’ eventual collapse made his efforts even more ethereal.
The film, which is part bank robbery flick, part documentary, and part arthouse cinema, never loses its cool, much like its protagonist. Pushing the theme that no one has to have a reason to make something beautiful, “Man on Wire” challenges American rationale while showcasing a daring clown traipsing a quarter of a mile in the sky. How French.
