Just back from a great, albeit brief, New York City. My daughter wanted to see Greenwich Village and so we were able to drive down the westside highway almost directly to a parking space one block from Washington Square Park. Weather was perfect and a small street festival was taking place so we strolled, listened to the various musicians around the park, drank fresh lemonade and soaked up the atmosphere.Having entered the counter culture world just at the end of the beats and early, early hippies, Washington Square Park was always a strong spiritual beacon for me...for my daughter I am not so sure what the attraction...whatever the case, the park was all one could expect on this day.
That evening there was an extensive retrospective on the life of Pete Seeger including many pictures and even movies of him and his wife and various folks in and around the Park "back in the day" as they say...Seeger and his wife apparently lived directly across the street from the park in their early days together.
I did a great deal of reflection on the 'movement' and where it is today...mostly nowhere near the type of ideals that were espoused in those times. There has been much erosion and co-option of the core but on the otherhand the reflection of the election of Barack Obama, is everywhere in NYC...Manhattan seems to be pretty much a happy mix of black, brown, beige, yellow and white folks (cannot speak for some of the other areas outside of Manhattan).
Looking at Seeger's pacifist work as well as his environmental initiatives (one actually can swim in the Hudson River north of the NYC again) and then looking at where we stand today as a people, one is forced to think about the progress and get back to work...but that is all grist for another mill on some other day...Washington Square Park and NYC were glorious on this summer day.
