I remember when the wall went up, when suddenly we were cut off from our friends on the other side of the zone. A hundred yards of concrete, steel and rubble lay between us and them, a very real division keeping the Avenue from the Downtown. People Downtown milled about like lost ducklings, looking across the wall at their friends on the Avenue like forlorn orphans. I was among them, slouched in a patio chair at the Tap Room and gazing across the zone at my lost loves, my Che’s and my Bison, my Brooklyn. Orange hardhats and yellow vests crawled across the bare landscape like aimless army ants without a general; never before, it seemed, had I seen so little accomplished by so many.
During the time of separation, people Downtown turned inward, and this was good. I saw more familiar faces in the bars and restaurants along Congress, more couples drifting up and down the sidewalk below my balcony, newly interested in the wares and wiles of the merchants down here. The same happened on the Avenue - cut off from friends and neighbors, the residents turned inward and saw their streets with renewed interests. It was a sort of severed renaissance, a one-sided bloom. No matter where we went, we still felt the separation like the ache of a phantom limb. We lived, but only halfway.
When they told us the walls were coming down, I remember not believing. It’s been too long, I thought, too many years of separation. Would our lost friends on the Avenue remember us? Would we remember them? Would the way really be opened? How would it feel to be reunited with the other half of our shared culture down here?
The tunnel opened on August 20th this year, and it was good. From my high balcony above Congress, I watched the crowds swell as I showered and put on my Thursday best. When I came out on the street, there were hundreds of people packing the sidewalks and spilling into the streets. Hotel Congress looked like a venerable old ship adrift in a deep sea of faces. The smell of food and the sound of music lay thick over the wandering people. I couldn’t even see Maynard’s. The sense of hope, of possibility, was palpable. Caught up in this, I made my way north-east towards the newly opened passage, stopping to talk and get a quick beer.
I had seen the torn-up no-man’s-land laying between Downtown and the Avenue for so long that when I saw the bodies coming through the tunnel, I barely believed my eyes. It was open! We were free to cross! No more nights of solitude! No more flashing messages by semaphore across the dirt and smashed stone - how are you over there? how much is bread on your side? have you seen my cousin? No more slinking across through the warehouses on 6th Avenue like refugees in the dark! The way was open! People were moving through the tunnel in each direction, their fingers trailing along the photo-adorned surfaces like they couldn’t believe it was real. A yellow trolley came dinging up from the depths, and it was like seeing a sunrise. I caught a whiff of garlic knots on the breeze from the tunnel. I thought I could see Gary Crystal on the far side, holding a beer for me.
People from the Avenue mixed swarmed up into Downtown, and people from Downtown crossed over to the Avenue. The reunions were so good to see - the wheels of progress had finally turned and made us whole again. I saw Bob Walkup and my long-seated urge to wing a tortilla at his huge, bald head seemed suddenly unimportant. In my mind I saw the coming days of renewed contact, the nighttime crowds in both districts a growing mix. I saw the new faces that would pass below my balcony and the old friends I would visit on the other side of the tracks. I saw another piece of the renewal fall into place, and it was good.
The walls have come down. The tunnel is open. Get out there, people - go see your old friends on the other side, and welcome them down here when they come. We’re hooked up again. It’s pretty good.
Zocalo
