Sunday Morning 7AM

On Sundays I work from 8AM to 8PM so I get up around 5.30 and drag my arse over to the subway at 7. There is no one around; squirrels are performing acrobatics in the trees and paper cups from Starbucks blow across the street like rolling tumbleweeds. I love it.

Not many people get on or off the subway, that is except for a few devout worshippers headed to an early morning church service somewhere, so it flies into Manhattan and I am there by 7.30 (It usually takes about 50 minutes). I get off at Canal Street and scramble to the surface.

Canal Street is the main drag in NYC’s Chinatown and I seem to remember reading somewhere that it is mostly heavily populated square-mile in America. Now I don’t know if that is true or not but what I do know is that it is usually teeming with people. At 7.30 on a Sunday morning it is all but deserted, shuttered up and teeming with Saturday’s trash. In a strange way it is beautiful to behold.

This morning I fired up “Happy Songs for Happy People” by Mogwai on my Ipod, unfolded my cane and strolled south towards my building in the Tribeca neighborhood.

It amazes Me sometimes how New York City changes within a few streets. Chinatown is cramped and dirty but within a few blocks you are in Tribeca (which stands for “Triangle Below Canal” by the way) surrounded by 5 million dollar lofts, Parisian-style bistros and movie star homes. The sidewalks are hosed down and smell like chlorine.

I make my way over to the Bouley Bakery, an over-priced little place that makes the best Orange muffin I have ever tasted and sells espresso that is strangely sweet, usually I prefer bitter, but it compliments the muffin perfectly.

This morning I was the first customer and the manager was still sorting out the cash register so he gave me the muffin and coffee compliments of the house! Wow! Did I say this place was overpriced? Well sometimes it’s worth paying a little bit more for good service. He owns my little black heart now! Never a bad word shall pass my lips about his muffins. [Affect Dick Emery voice] Oooo… you are awful!!!!

My building is two blocks away and I stroll in past the plaque reading “Western Union Building – World Telegraph Central 1930-1937’. I love that plaque, it invokes images of people tapping away in morse code, delivery boys in red suits pie-shaped hats, Humphrey Bogart, the Hindenburg, King Kong, and Louis Armstrong.

I get up to my control room on the second floor and send the nightshift guy home, I now have this large space filled with TV equipment to myself. I read over the shiftnotes from the day before and look at my list of things to do the coming day. Then I hook up the Ipod to the central speaker system and crank up the music. The floor is hollow and it shakes with bass, Yeah, I love it…