Tribecan Richard Sunderland was kind to send me a copy of his collection of what he calls poetic stories, or narrative poems, which are all set here in the neighborhood. “Tribeca Stories” is a slim soft-bound volume of about 30 entries that feel like they were penned as Sunderland passed through our streets.

I am reprinting three here, but it was hard to choose. They are really wonderful and so evocative if you are a local.

Some are ripped from the headlines — Bob Dylan style — albeit the headlines of the 1880s. And many pay tribute to local institutions: the Mercantile Exchange; the ship that hosts the Grand Banks; the late artist Richard Serra; Duane Park.

Yellow Pencil
There’s half-a-pencil
On the sidewalk by the dry cleaners on Greenwich Street
It’s a rich, dark yellow
Likely abandoned by a schoolkid or one of the construction guys
working overhead
Yet its lead
Is still good for ten thousand words

………………………

The Invention Of Lines
Reclaimed from the street, a child’s desk
Left outside Washington Market School
The school was founded in 1976 and the desk
Must’ve been there about as long as that
The altar where its history sat
Its lid was nicked with fidgeted nibs
And dotted with pitted daubs of paint
The Hale Company of East Arlington, Vermont
Spat these sitters out
Machine-made learning, most devout
For Michaels and Jennifers to ink out dues
Their I-must-not lines in blacks and blues
And if the afternoon outside grew dark
They’d forfeit sunlight in Duane Park
˜
In 1879, while the British were painting a red-jacketed, romantic
version of their history at Rorke’s Drift in Natal, Henry Hale bought an
unloved washboard factory near Warm Brook in Arlington, Vermont.
He retuned its tools to the manufacture of furniture. Their work was
hard-worn. A typical working week was ten hours on a weekday and
nine on Saturdays, leading to a strike in 1908. The company continued
to trade until 1992, by which time it was done with school.

………………………

Coke On Duane
During a break in filming
The cast and crew of Death To Smoochy
Gathered on the raised ironworks
Next to the sidewalk on Duane
Robin Williams had subbed
A production runner fifty dollars
To pick up a case of Coca-Cola
From Morgans Market
As they broke open the red-labelled bottles
One of the party parsed Frank O’Hara
And channeled Having A Coke With You
As the springtime sun set on set
The conversation turned to what next
When their words drifted back and forth
In the ‘warm New York 4 o’clock light’
And they agreed this was life done right