“Yeah, I’ll be back,” I said. “Probably the third weekend, definitely not the weekend of September 11. I have to be in the City then.”

“Oh,” she said, surprised. “ I thought you’d want to be out of New York on that date. They’re threatening another attack on the anniversary.”

Actually, I hadn’t heard that but it was hardly news.

“I need to be in the City to attend the services,” I said, referring to upcoming events at my church and my yoga center. I also planned to rejoin my neighbors on the roof that morning. “Even if they did attack again, I’d want to be in the City “ I added defiantly.

I recalled friends who were out of town on that Tuesday ten years ago and they were distraught. They couldn’t wait to come back and offer assistance. I was fielding their emails as I made pit stops to my apartment from my new post on the West Side Highway. I had joined the crowds cheering the rescue workers, a job I ended up doing for month (and writing about for this site) To this day, I think my presence on the highway was one of the most meaningful acts I’ve done in my life.

If New York City got attacked again, I could not imagine being in New Jersey, my home state, watching this on television. I’d go crazy. The events of September 11th deepened my love of this incredible City I’ve called home for most of my adult life. I’ve lived her since 1975 and have never felt prouder to be a New Yorker than in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.

I know my elderly mother just wants me to be safe, but I will not let a gang of sick fanatics dictate how I run my life and where I live, not even for a weekend. Yes, I will be in Manhattan on September 11, 2011. I’ll pray at my church, chant at the yoga center, and return to Point Thank You on the highway to wave my flag one more time.

The Speed Shrinking events were organized by Susan Shapiro, who published a comic novel with the same title. The concept was modeled after speed dating, except you saw each therapist for three minutes. The quirky event had received lots of publicity and become popular. To help her students, Shapiro expanded the concept to include editors and agents.

I had attended one last summer when her book came out, but I socialized with my friends. As one said, “I don’t want to get shrunk, I want to get drunk.”

But tonight I planned to make the rounds of these love and relationship gurus. I was already in therapy, so this felt like cheating, but maybe a pressure cooker environment could produce instant enlightenment.

As I approached the lobby, I practiced my pitch speech so I could get it out fast: “Hi. I’m Kate. I was in a 26-year relationship with another woman that ended badly a few years ago. I spent a lot of time reconstructing my life — everything is going well — and now I want to meet someone. I’m going out, but nothing’s happening. I had a few first dates, but that’s it. What do you suggest?”

I ran this through my head as I found my way to the main conference room of the Washington Square Institute. I was early but knew from past experience these events filled up fast. The hall looked festive with sparkly white lights and tables filled with soda, water, wine, chocolates and pastries. I sipped a glass of wine and chatted with former writing students and people from my weekly workshop.

As the agents and editors sat down at tables on one side and the shrinks settled into the other side, I grabbed a seat opposite a therapist. Shapiro introduced the guests and the two timekeepers. I knew the drill. I didn’t like the woman who screamed, “Move bitches!” I thought that was crude.

When the male timekeeper yelled, “Start shrinking!” I was ready.

Shrink #1 was an attractive woman in a red power suit. She was billed as a relationship expert who specialized in sex therapy. I raised the possibility that I was too critical when I went out and dismissed people for superficial reasons.

“What are you afraid of?” she asked. “Maybe you are not allowing yourself to see the positive qualities because you are defending yourself against possible rejection.”

That line made sense and if I kept judging women based upon their appearances, I might not get to see any positive qualities. Maybe that person dressed blandly was smart with a great sense of humor. I’d never discover that if I didn’t talk more to her.

This session reinforced the idea that I had to be more open, get beyond surfaces.

Shrink #2 was a relationship advice columnist for a popular Web site.

“Ask your close friends for feedback about how you present yourself when you go out,” she advised.

So far, the only feedback I’d received was that this cute woman I dined with was afraid to date a writer. Since Shrink #2 was also a writer, we discussed how she handled that. She said she told guys that she never wrote about them unless she asked first. But what if they said no? I’d already decided I wouldn’t date anyone unless I could write about her or us. Was that limiting?

I mentioned what my shrink said about my having “a guard rail around my heart.”

“Who doesn’t?” she snapped back. “If everybody waited until they didn’t have any baggage, no one would date. There is no perfect time to start.”

She was encouraging and spunky and I could see why readers enjoyed her.

Shrink #3 was the only openly gay person on the panel. I liked that he helped people with coming-out issues. He was a friend of a friend and I knew a little about him because he was a character in her memoir.

“You know my partner died,” he reminded me. “When you’ve been hurt and then you go out, part of you is there and part of you is not.”

I knew exactly what he meant, but I’d made progress in that area and felt whole now.

I didn’t tell him that I thought betrayal was more painful than death. We talked about the mourning process and keeping a positive attitude.

“When I go to an event,” he continued, “I say to myself, ‘Maybe I can meet my next lover.’”

I liked the gay male therapist and wanted him to meet someone nice.

Shrink #4 was a petite woman with offices in L.A. and New York. She was a relationship counselor and professor of human sexuality. She exuded empathy.

“It’s hard to get back out there,” she said. “I hope you congratulate yourself for doing that.”

I told her what my therapist said about me being afraid to open my heart because I was enjoying my independence and didn’t want to lose it, as I’d done before in my long-term relationship.

“It’s possible to be independent and open up your heart,” said Shrink #4.

I was working on this in my 50-minute sessions but it was nice to hear from another source.

“You are doing all the right stuff,” she reassured me.

Shrink #5 was a Jungian psychotherapist and an astrologer with a magazine column.

I told her I’d seen another Jungian astrologer who’d read both our charts after the breakup and said we had this horrible Pluto-Venus thing that occurs every 240 years and the relationship could not survive this messy configuration.

“Yes, Pluto may have caused resistance,” she agreed. “But this weekend is a new moon, so make a list of your intentions.”

Interesting. My hair cutter had said the exact same thing to me that afternoon.

Shrink #6 was the only one I did not like, probably because he immediately asked me, “So have you been dating any men?”

“Huh?” I said. “I told you I was with another women all those years.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t hear you.”

I let it slide because the room was very noisy. I looked at his card. He was a psychologist and a wrote for the Web site of a popular self-help magazine.

“Are you depressed?” he shouted at me.

“No, I’m not depressed,” I shouted back.

“Then unguard your heart,” he ordered as I spilled my story. “Try a strategy involving numbers. You may have gotten spoiled being so independent.”

I gathered he was telling me to go out more frequently, but I had shut down because his style seemed so aggressive.

Shrink #7 was a medical doctor and an Indian. He reminded me of Deepak Chopra.

“What do you enjoy doing?” he asked. “Stay in touch with stuff you are passionate about.”

I told him I was into yoga and chanting and taking workshops related to spirituality.

“Go to places like Omega. Direct your energies.”

“I love Omega,” I said.

“But when you go there, are you always looking? If you project that too much, it might be off-putting.”

I liked this doctor’s approach and totally agreed with him.

That was it. Twenty minutes and I was speed shrunk. I’ve had over 25 years of therapy, and yet I was surprised to come away from this experience with renewed hope and feeling positive that I’m on the right path. I was recharged and ready to amp up my dating energy.

Kate Walter is an award winning columnist who teaches Personal Essay Writing at NYU/SCPS.  She is currently completing a memoir which she describes as "Eat, Pray, Love meets The L word." Her work has appeared in many publications. Her website is www.katewalter.com.

The minister was referring to the fact her congregation was under fire from members of its parent denomination, the Reformed Church of America, because it came out publicly in support of gay marriage in New York state.

I never thought I’d resume regular church attendance in midlife, but a devastating break up can do strange things. After Slim, my partner of 26 years, dumped me “to explore what she missed,” I was looking for meaning beyond therapy sessions and psychic predictions. Why was God making me suffer like this? Even my ex said I’d been a devoted partner.

I’d been raised strict Roman Catholic back when nuns still wore habits and ruled the parochial schools that I attended from kindergarten through college. When I was around 19, my parents were crushed that I stopped attending Mass because my native religion seemed too conservative. My Irish born mother cried as she pronounced, “You lost your faith.” My father, a daily communicant, prayed for my return.

After I came out as a lesbian in the 70s, I could not imagine going back to a denomination whose celibate leader proclaimed my sexual orientation a disorder. Instead of formal Sunday worship, I found spiritual solace through practicing yoga and meditation.

Naturally, I visited the Catholic Church for weddings and funerals in my extended family. In recent years, before my gay divorce, I had even made tepid attempts to reconnect with my old religion after staying away for decades. It seemed like something was missing in my life, especially when I felt nostalgic for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

Twice I attended Mass in Greenwich Village on holidays and checked out two different parishes. Maybe I made a poor choice but the first time I went back, the priest carried on from the pulpit about how Catholicism was the one true religion. That turned me off (especially since my partner was Jewish) and it did not seem like a Christmas message. The other one felt more welcoming–it even had the same name as my old one, St. Joseph’s, but I never returned. I was no longer hooked and what was once familiar seemed alien.

But after the toxic break up with Slim, who cut me off and rebuffed any contact, I needed spiritual cleansing from the negative energy of loss. While trying to get my bearings, I started attending services at Middle Collegiate Church, a gorgeous old edifice on Second Avenue in the East Village. Over the years, I’d visited this “hip” church for special neighborhood events, but now I showed up regularly.

The congregation prided itself on being multiracial/multicultural and gay inclusive. One Sunday, they introduced new members and a Black M/F transgender initiate sashayed up the aisle to applause and a pastoral embrace. This felt like the church for me to get renewed. Suddenly, I felt in touch with my religious roots while also in sync with the adult believer I’d become since leaving behind rote recitation of the catechism.

At Middle, where the motto was: “Welcoming, Artistic, Inclusive, Bold,” the arts were woven into the services and related to the liturgy. For Advent and World AIDS Day, singers and actors delivered a theater piece about an HIV positive pregnant woman on the Lower East Side. Every week was different. Modern dancers gyrated up the aisles and jazz combos grooved. A traditional choir rendered hymns and a gospel chorus rocked.

For Palm Sunday, the church presented “Jesus Christ Superstar” with a cast of singers brought in especially for this event. I was not surprised that some had Broadway credits. I walked home through the Village humming “Hosanna Hey” carrying my palms recalling how I did this as a kid. But now it was, “I’m here. I’m queer. I’m Christian.”

Reverend Jacqui, the senior minister, was a charismatic preacher whose sermons segued from discussing Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine to declaring "Jesus is in the house." All without missing a beat. This pastor’s brilliant interpretations of the gospel were uplifting. A tall attractive Black woman, Reverend Jacqui had everyone roaring the Sunday she unpinned her braids, play-smoothed her hair and imitated Condi Rice or the day she compared Luke’s time jumping gospels to the writing techniques in a soap opera.

Going to this Protestant conclave made me feel elevated–the music, the prayer, the sermons that rocked. When I went to their website, I discovered their creeds were similar to what I learned as child. I’m back and ready to check out membership.

When I told my therapist–an agnostic Jew–that I was attending church I wondered how she’d react. “That’s great. Whatever gets you through the night,” she said, quoting John Lennon. My shrink thought the rituals offered a soothing structure that helped replace the relationship. I’d unconsciously elevated my ex into the role of my higher power, who made me feel safe and protected. So when my lover betrayed me, my life felt chaotic.

After the break up, I kept thinking of the REM song, “Losing My Religion.” Now I had to make the jump into having faith in myself and possibly finding a new practice.

So the horribly painful breakup had one good effect–it reopened my mind towards religion, which I’d cast aside years ago. For that surprising blessing, I say, “Amen.”

Kate Walter’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, Daily News and many other places. She has several works in the upcoming Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood anthology: Lost and Found: Stories from New York.

Whenever my New Jersey friends Crissie and Marie came into the city we landed in some place this downtown dyke would normally avoid–like the Molly Wee Pub on a Sunday night, with a crowd of rowdy sports guys and a cute female bartender with a brogue.

My friends had tickets to a Van Morrison concert in the Garden and invited me to meet them for an early meal in the theater district. After dinner at Zen Palate, we walked down Eighth Avenue towards the Garden and they suggested we grab a drink before their show. I’d recently been dumped by my long-term partner, so I was glad to hang out with them.

In the weird nether land between Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, the selections were limited and the Molly Wee Pub looked more inviting than the Blarney Stone. It wasn’t until we sat at the wainscoted bar and ordered draft beers that I realized we were the only women in the place unaccompanied by men. Several females were seated at the tables behind us but they were all with dates.

“Go, go, go,” the bulky guy sitting next to me started screaming as the clock ran down on the screen. He was pumping his fist in the air. “Oh, no!”

“Overtime,” said Marie, a recently retired gym teacher who still reffed high school soccer and basketball games. The score was 1-1.

By now, the whole place was hysterical with excitement and everyone rushed the bar to order more drinks. I could not recall the last time I’d been in a crowd like this. Maybe decades ago when I was still straight and in college?

I was an arts queer who was not into competitive sports, although I played on Bonnie & Clyde’s basketball team when I moved here 30 years ago. The league was a great way to meet women. I mostly warmed the bench, but one night I got into the game (we were way ahead) and scored a long jumper from the right. The team captain slapped me five.

Today my idea of exercise is taking yoga classes and bike riding in the park. If I want a Corona, I go to The Cubby Hole, a cozy women’s bar in the West Village, with kitschy decorations dangling from the ceiling and a smattering of gay men. So I was out of my comfort zone sitting in the Molly Wee Pub with two Jersey friends.

“Kate, you should see the look on your face,” said Crissie, who was an old flame of mine. We’d met in 1979 and had an affair when we were both high school English teachers. We’d lost contact but reconnected a few years ago when I bumped into her on my corner. Crissie and her partner were visiting Marie’s cousin, a dog walker I knew from the block! We caught up after that chance meeting, which we deemed synchronicity.

“I can’t take all this male energy,” I replied. “It’s too much. Makes me glad I’m gay.”

When the game resumed, everyone except us was fixed on the screen. A few more minutes passed as my friends tried to tell me about their upcoming trip to Europe and their side junket on an all-women cruise, but it was hard to hear with all the shouting. Then I heard roars from the captive audience.

“Double overtime,” said Marie as she ordered another Guinness.

Now the room was insane with tension. Even I peeked at the TV a bit.

“Let’s go, Rangers,” the place was chanting. “Rangers, let’s go.”

We tried to resume our conversation, but it was nearly impossible, so we gave up and watched. Crissie ordered an Irish whiskey and offered me a sip. Groups of men pressed us against the bar trying to be as close as possible to the televised action.

“Yes, yes, yes” some guy screamed right into my ear, pissing me off. I looked up. The Rangers had the puck. Some player got off a great shot and scored. It was 2-1. At that point, the patrons in the Molly Wee Pub went nuts, yelling and hugging and high fiving each other. I wondered if straight men liked sports because it gave them permission to be physical with each other.

Just when I thought the craziness was over and the place would calm down, a parade of guys wearing Rangers shirts and caps arrived fresh from the Garden, stomping into the room like conquering heroes. They revved up the crowd, yelling “Let’s go, Rangers” and everyone except us joined the jubilant chorus.

I felt like I had walked into a frat party and I was 20 years old again. I was stunned that middle-aged men got this wild over team sports. I knew this happened but to be in the midst of it was bizarre. My intellectual father had been an analytical baseball fan who read the box scores at breakfast. My brother and nephew were into surfing and fishing. I had stepped into a macho world I did not understand. Was this what heterosexual women had to deal with on a regular basis?

In fairness to their insanity, I later read a sports column that described the winning play–a 53-foot hard drive scored in double overtime–as “one of the great hockey moments in the Garden.” It was also the longest Rangers game in 36 years.

“That was some game,” Marie said to the new arrivals who sidled up to the bar squeezing between us to order. “Must have been exciting inside.”

“Unbelievable,” said the fan who smiled at us and soon he and my friend were chatting about the incredible winning shot.

As I walked downtown I thought how this is what’s so great about New York: three lesbians stumbled into a sports bar during a heated playoff game and everyone skated through. I was the one who’d been judgmental about male sports fanatics. My suburban friends seemed more relaxed, maybe because they’re used to sharing a golf course with straight men. My Village lifestyle is hipper, but can be insular.

The next Sunday I was home working at my computer when I heard my yuppie neighbors cheering from their terrace on West 12th Street. I looked up and saw several couples watching a hockey game on the big screen TV inside their apartment. The Rangers were back on the ice. I got up and turned on my set to check the score.

They arrived early at my West Village apartment. My phone rang at 11:15.

“Where are you? Oh you’re downstairs, outside my building. Give me ten minutes.”

And we were off. Aunt Kate whisked them, via cab, to St. Marks Place in the East Village, for lunch at a falafel joint and rock apparel shopping. I wanted to be a cool aunt, and buy Shannon a T-shirt of her favorite emo group “Hawthorne Heights”, in a store I’d walked past hundreds of times but never set foot inside. I had lived on wild and crazy St. Marks Place between 2nd and 3rd Avenues for two decades.

“I don’t want to go in there,” Shannon said when we were on the sidewalk.

“Why not?” I asked, puzzled. I knew she wanted this gift. “Because they sell drug stuff,” she noted, pointing to a case filled with pipes and bongs.

“Then I guess you won’t get your shirt,” my brother said dryly.

Things had changed since my youth. She was brainwashed against marijuana and here I was trying to remember if I’d left any rolling papers out on my coffee table.

But after spending an hour with her, my latent maternal instincts had kicked in. All the guys in the store were staring at Shannon while she chose between two designs. My niece is a pretty brown-eyed blonde with a grown up figure; she wears too much make-up and dresses too sexy. I worry because she looks 18, not 14.

We left St. Marks and headed to East 7th Street between 2nd and 1st Avenues.

“Didn’t you used to live on this block?” asked my brother, who had not been in this neighborhood in years.

“Right there,” I said pointing to the tenement where I dwelled in the late 1970s. “You helped me move in. Remember?” As we spoke, I pictured us at that time, young and single, in our 20s.

“How could I forget carrying that big awkward desk up those stairs?” he replied.

“And that stupid winding turn we could barely get past.”

After shopping on East 7th and East 9th Streets and Avenue A, (Shannon loved looking at jewelry and bought a clunky ring), she wanted to go to a coffeehouse—not Starbuck’s. She had an image in her mind. Luckily my suggestion, Café Yaffa on St. Marks, met her approval. We sat in a booth decorated in leopard skin material while hipsters ate brunch next to us. My brother, a high school English teacher, looked so suburban. I had not been inside Café Yaffa since I moved across town eight years ago. I was rediscovering the East Village; seeing it through Shannon’s eyes.

While we waited for our cappuccinos and hot chocolates, I was thinking how my Shannon’s visit was so much hipper than my first trips to NYC—the Ice Capades at Madison Square Garden with my Brownie troop, or the time my aunt took me to see “Peter Pan” on Broadway. I still remember the strings holding up Mary Martin as she flew. I didn’t discover downtown until college.

It was a cold day and by the time we finished our drinks, I was ready to return home. But it was only mid-afternoon and Shannon wanted to do more sightseeing. So we took the subway to Rockefeller Center and walked to Times Square.

As always, it was crowded, and I could not wait to get away from the hordes of tourists in the theater district. I breathed a sigh of relief when we left, and our train pulled into 14th St. I had suggested taking a bus downtown but Shannon had wanted to ride the subway again because, she said, “It’s so much fun.” (When was the last time I thought riding the subway was fun?) By the day’s end, I was exhausted, and I’ve been walking around New York for 30 years.

Back home on Bethune Street, Shannon kept saying how her bedroom was almost as big as my entire place. She kept looking for more rooms, more doors, as I explained that this was a studio apartment—and a spacious one at that. As she checked out my home, I was unsure if she noticed my vintage gay liberation poster in the corner. Shannon was my youngest niece and I had not yet come out to her as “Queer Aunt Kate”. As a junior high school student, Shannon was still at the stage where she and her friends said, “oh, how gay,” meaning, “oh, how gross.”

While I fixed cups of tea and we waited for my partner to meet us for dinner, Shannon asked if she could use my computer. I hesitated. I’m a writer. This was my office equipment.

“I have to send my friends an e-mail to tell them about today.”

“Can’t this wait until you get home?”

“I want to tell them now.”

“Alright, go ahead,” I said, wondering what she would say.

When my partner, Slim, arrived, she greeted them and kissed me hello smack on the lips. Shannon did a double take and put two and two together. She had gotten a peek into my authentic life- not the one she only saw on holiday visits at my mother’s house. Just by being myself, I showed her the real New York City.

The next day, when we spoke on the phone, Shannon told me she liked the fact there were people all over the place. She liked the subways, the cab ride, the coffee house, the fast food falafel- all things I take for granted. Of course, she can’t wait to come back during spring break. She’s already hinting at an overnight visit.

The guys who worked at the counter always had the right album playing at the right time. For months after its release we heard Springsteen’s opus “The Rising.” Last week it was the Beatles. Two sanitation men waiting for burgers sang along: “Come together, right now, over me.”

I started hanging here five years ago when I bought a new bike and spun down from the West Village. I fell in love with Pier 25′s funky charm during the summer of 2001. An urban oasis, it reminded me of my youthful summers at the Jersey Shore–the boardwalk at Seaside Heights; Belmar and beer parties. Whenever I visited the place, I felt like a kid on vacation, not a middle aged woman in the middle of Manhattan.

Workers lunched at the picnic tables while jocks played volley ball in the sand courts. Day camps brought kids for fishing or miniature golf. I caught a breeze and watched the sail boats from an Adirondack chair at the end of the pier. The rough hewn sculpture garden, made with drift wood from the river, fit right in, as did the Yankee, the old wooden ferry boat docked at Pier 25.

After the terrorist attack, Pier 25 was transformed into the massive barge port where trucks dumped the World Trade Center debris onto boats. It added to my shock to see my favorite haven used this way. As each truck arrived, I watched the dust fly across the highway to the comunity college where I teach.

Everyone has their own touchstones for when downtown returned to normal after 9/11. For me it was the reopening of Pier 25 in the spring of 2002. I was so elated to return that June and have my first lemonade of the season. My New York was back, even if those towers were painfully missing from the skyline.

Now I’m losing the pier again–this time to gentrification, as part of the 70 million dollar redesign of this section of Hudson River Park. I hear what the experts say about the worms that have devoured the pilings, but I’m sure what will emerge in 2008 will be sanitized and lack community character.

The change is already happening. The other day one of the dudes from the Snack Shack warned me to dismount my bike. The park police were giving out tickets for riding there.

“Your tax dollars at work,” he snapped.

“But we could always ride here,” I said.

“Not any more.”

I tip my bike helmet to the folks at Manhattan Youth who have operated Pier 25 for the past 12 years under a permit from the Hudson River Park Trust. I regret never having the nerve to try a free kayak, available at nearby Pier 26, which is also closing for refurbishment. I bid farewell to the River Project, a public aquarium and science field station that studies the Hudson’s marine life. I used to rest outside of it, watching the river flow, smelling the briny water.

Homegrown funkiness was what made this area appealing. It was a spit of land that felt organic, as if each element, each event grew from community needs.

One summer, ping pong tables appeared. In September, there was a music benefit for the hurricane victims. The Pier of Fear, the popular Halloween party for local kids, orginated here. Right now, they are giving away the trees and shrubbery. Perhaps my building can replant some of those wharfside good vibes in our courtyard.

I can’t imagine what next spring and summer will be like without Piers 25 and 26. While I can visit the chi-chi piers on Christopher or Charles Streets, it definitely won’t be the same. Spontaneous stuff does not happen on these sleek designer Village venues, where even the chairs are locked into place. I suspect that the replacement in Tribeca will be similar, just another pretty spot on the water.

I’m not one of those rich downtown residents living in a fancy waterfront condo facing the glitzy park. Pier 25 fit my bohemian life style. Its demise is symbolic of how the Village and Tribeca have changed. As the days are getting shorter, so is my time on Pier 25. Until it closes, I’ll be eating my veggie burger at an old wooden picnic table, cherishing this special spot that will become another part of lost New York.

His annual reminder always opened with the awkward phrasing: “Winter is here and with it the knowledge that April 15 will soon be here.” That stilted sentence always made me smile. He was good with numbers, not words. I was just the opposite

He died last spring right after my taxes were done. This winter I was desperately seeking a replacement. I first met Shelly 20 years ago in the East Village. He did the books for the printer who had a business in the storefront of my building. The shop was a gossipy hang out where the mailman delivered our packages; the place reeked of cigarettes.

In the early 80s, I had a disastrous experience with a street corner tax moron who urged me to deduct all expenses for a trip to the Caribbean. I’d sold a travel article about it. I was just starting to freelance seriously and didn’t realize this would send up red flags. I was audited that year and had to pay hundreds more dollars. I vowed to find someone who knew what he was doing. That’s when my partner and I became Sheldon’s clients.

We could not have been more different. He was a religious Jew living with his wife in Brooklyn and we were a lesbian couple living on St Marks Place. We had to remember not to call him on Saturday.

After the printer downstairs retired, we no longer saw Sheldon in person. Although I hadn’t actually seen the man in years, I felt a strong connection. This man I called Shelly was privy to personal details about my life. He knew I was in psychotherapy for over 10 years, and he knew when I stopped.. (“That’s good but now you need another big deduction,” he said )

Who else but Shelly would note the positive side when I spent a small fortune on dental work several years in a row. He knew what publications I wrote for and how much money (or how little) I made. Most important, he knew when I moved to another apartment and my lover stayed put.

“How’s your friend?” he asked that spring. “Everything okay?”

“She’s fine. We see each other all the time,” I added.

Looking back, I think maybe he worried if I could survive in Manhattan on my own or maybe he cared about my relationship. Or maybe both. When I told him I’d landed a studio in subsidized housing after years on a waiting list, he seemed relieved.

Shelly’s rates were very reasonable, so I knew we’d have trouble finding someone comparable. This crisis reminded me of when my long term dentist retired to Florida unexpectedly. He knew my teeth were bad; Shelly knew my financial situation was bad. Both knew better than to lecture me. They accepted me as I was and worked wonders with what I brought them. How would I find a new CPA?

As usual, my partner, Slim, was not as anxious about this dire situation. She always did her taxes at the last minute.

“You can’t do that this year,” I said. “We don’t have anyone lined up” She accused me of being nervous and neurotic. I lashed back, “I’m not the extension queen, like you.” Slim remembered that someone else had signed her forms last April. Were mine the last papers Shelly inked? Did an assistant finish those jobs left behind? Recouping this name was like finding a life line. For once, her filing late had saved the day.

We both called John in Brooklyn. He said Sheldon taught him everything he knew about taxes; he worked for him five years. John was familiar with our names, recalled our forms. And he’d do our taxes- for the same rate. So now we have the master’s apprentice- it’s kinda like Shelly is still doing my taxes, punching that old calculator in the sky.

I live in Westbeth Artists Housing in the far West Village; the note was from the management office and it said something about keeping Hilda’s spirit in the building.

Since I needed something for a big vacant wall, I raced downstairs and rummaged through about forty paintings that were stacked up in rows on the walls near the boiler room, where the janitors hang out and sneak smokes.

I selected two large mellow impressionistic works, 4′x5′, one vertical, one horizontal. They looked like companion pieces from the same blue/grey/green series. I lugged one upstairs and then went back for the other. When I got them resettled, I was surprised to notice one was painted in 1981, the other in1985.

Hanging side by side in my living room, the paintings make my 400 square foot loft seem bigger by drawing attention to its high ceilings. And I liked the idea of keeping this woman’s artistic energy in our complex. I had never met Hilda, but she was now part of my home. Her art is the first thing I see upon waking from my convertible couch.

The canvases ripple: grass waves and clouds shimmer upon the water. The shades of blue are calming, meditative. To me, the paintings recall Monet. Several viewers have observed, “looks like lily ponds, without the lilies.”

Several months after I hung them, a resident yenta who must be near 80 rang my door bell about the tenant council election. I invited her in and she gushed over the two paintings. When I explained how I got them, she became teary. She had known Hilda and told me she was now institutionalized with Alzheimer’s.

“Oh, Kate, I am so happy you have her paintings,” my neighbor said, while giving me a perfumed hug. “She is still with us.”

Now I started to wonder, what did it say about me that I was attracted to work created by someone who had lost her faculties? And I wanted to know more about Hilda. I started playing detective and was directed to Mark, her next door neighbor of 20 years, a portly middle aged gay man who works in theater. I’d heard Mark was upset when Hilda was removed from the building, so I expected to discover a sweet old lady. “She was not a nice person,” Mark said, as we sat on my couch and chatted over tea, staring at her gorgeous paintings. “She was nasty and antagonistic and acted superior to others. For years, she wasn’t nice to me, until she got older and needed help. We got friendly about 10 years ago. She was alone and so was I.”

Hilda was 87 when she left Westbeth Artists Housing in 2001. Her walking and vision had been impaired for 15 years, her mind in the last five. Mark felt it was wrong to put her away, but other neighbors disagreed. Hilda had been active in the gallery in the building and left behind about 100 paintings No one from her family wanted them. When she had better sight, Hilda did representational work.

According to Mark, she’d been “in la-la land” since at least 1997, when Hilda was 82, and he greeted her on the street and she didn’t recognize him. She later told a mutual friend that a stranger had talked to her. Around this time, Mark asked Hilda for the number of her uncle who visited and brought food for Passover and Rosh Hashannah.

As her illness progressed, Hilda started knocking on Mark’s door several times a day asking for food- yogurt, oranges, cookies but she mixed up the food names. Soon Hilda was wandering the 7th floor, going door to door, ringing bells, asking for yogurt. “She seemed to think the front desk was like a deli counter,” Mark said, “and she was always asking the guards to get her food, like they were store clerks.”

Suddenly I knew who Hilda was! ” Did she have gray bangs and big black glasses?” Yes, that was her! I recalled a day last year when this older woman got off the elevator and marched up to the front desk and insisted the security guard get a light bulb for her apartment. I thought she was gone. I remembered another time two years ago when I was posting a flyer and I spoke to her about the event, and she was shockingly nasty. It was probably the disease speaking, but her venom was scary.

Mark and another neighbor, Adrienne, offered to grocery shop, but Hilda was stubborn. She insisted upon going to Dag’s herself but when she got there she forgot what she needed. She told Mark money was no problem but he had no idea about her income. Neighbors brought her food and got her into Meals on Wheels, but she resisted the delivery guy. The building social worker arranged for home care, but she threw the attendant out. She let two cooked chickens rot in the fridge while she wandered around he hallway begging for peach yogurt. Near the end, everyone on that floor was talking.

“She could not admit she needed help,” Mark said. “I took her aside and told her ’Hilda, you need help or they will put you away.’’”

“She was like a six year old in an old lady body,” said Adrienne, an abstract painter. “I’d hug her because no one else touched her.” The uncle gave Adrienne money to buy inexpensive clothes on 14th St because Hilda–once immaculate–had stopped doing laundry.

The night the police came with a psych unit, (after Hilda was reportedly walking around exposing her breasts), she went away quietly to St Vincent’s for testing.

Two weeks later, Mark and Adrienne visited her hospital room. Hilda told them she liked her new house; Mark said she looked happy. She did not recall their names but chatted about neighbors from 20 years ago. Hilda now lives in the Hebrew Home for the Aged in Riverdale, where two of her paintings hang in her room.

From what I learned, Hilda had no husband, no kids, no significant other, no relationship. She used to read “The New York Times” over the phone to a blind painter every day. She did not spend much money. She walked around the Village and visited Soho galleries. During her normal life, she painted regularly, her easel overlooking Washington Street. Years ago, she sold a painting to someone famous. Early in her career, she lived in Paris and sold her work to private collectors. Hilda studied at the American Art School and the Art Students League and showed in New York galleries in the 60s and 70s.

By all accounts, she was belligerent, feisty, aloof. Family tragedy shaped her personality. Hilda grew up in Brighton Beach. When she was a young woman, her brother became paralyzed from an accident and then committed suicide; after this, her mother lost her mind and was institutionalized. “She had a lot of anger from that,” said Mark. I wonder if she was ever happy.

Hilda moved to Westbeth in 1976, when she would have been 62. I try to imagine her younger, in Paris, in the 1930s or 1940s. I picture her as a lesbian hanging out with Gertrude and Alice. How I would love to have been part of that scene! I asked, but Mark said he had no clue about Hilda’s sexual orientation. I imagine her easel set up along the Seine and her brush strokes capturing its ripples and reflections. Maybe that experience is in my paintings.

The lone caring relative said Hilda had alienated everyone over the years. Her version was that “They’re no good. They never liked me because I was different.”

Perhaps we are kindred spirits in some way. I certainly can relate to feeling different and alienated from my family. Like Hilda, I’ve turned people off with my anger. But I’m from the therapy generation and spent years working out family issues. As I sit on my couch, chilling out, looking at Hilda’s paintings in my studio I wonder how someone so angry could paint so serenely. Maybe it was her release.

Nick was a tall and jowly man in his late sixties who looked bohemian. He wore his beret at a jaunty angle, smoked a pipe, and carried his camera everywhere.

Early the next morning, there was still no answer so we started calling local hospitals and the Veteran’s Hospital, where Nick visited when he had problems. We also called the medical examiner’s office. No sign of him at any of those places. We tried to find his son, who we last heard was living in the Bronx. He was unlisted. By now we feared the worst- that Nick was dead inside his apartment.

We asked another neighbor below if we could walk through her apartment, crawl onto the fire escape, and try to slip through Nick’s back window. Although we’d had a stormy relationship for years, she readily agreed. We were no longer the Queer Couple from upstairs, but Nick’s dear friends frantic about his welfare. We could not dislodge his ancient storm window, so we went back upstairs and decided to call the police.

My lover went to work and I sat down at the computer. I was finding it hard to concentrate when there was a knock on the door. It was the police, who I led to the fire escape. Two cops climbed down, smashed Nick’s window and entered. While I hung out my window and watched and waited, my heart pounded.

I said a little prayer. The neighbor was also hanging out the window. About 15 minutes passed, but it felt like hours.

“What’s happening?” I yelled down anxiously.

“He’s dead,” she said flatly. Just like that.

I beeped my lover and told her to call home. I phoned Nick’s boss and relayed the bad news. I went downstairs into the hallway and talked to the police who by now had the apartment door cracked a bit. The stairwell smelled like Nick’s cheap after shave; the cops had dosed it all over his body. I told them we had been unable to find Nick’s son and asked what happened next.

They said his body would be sent to the coroner’s office for an autopsy. (Cause of death was a heart attack. No surprise; he was chain smoker.)

At this point, the entire building was buzzing. Everyone was out in the hallway and the super had tears in his eyes. The police and the coroner’s grey suited men were in our building for five hours. (Maybe it was more complicated because we could not locate the next of kin.) They sealed up his apartment with official yellow police tape that scared other tenants. A neighbor, who missed this commotion, thought Nick had been murdered.

That night we felt sad and told Nick stories- how he gave so much and would not accept anything in return, not even a flannel shirt at Christmas.

Over the years, Nick had taught my lover a vast amount about photography. He built the darkroom in our kitchen. When my partner first started doing photo assignments, she’d race downstairs to the storefront where Nick hung out. (Absolutely no one was allowed to enter Nick’s apartment.) She’d tell him details about an upcoming job and beg for quick answers. But he refused to hand out knowledge easily. He made her figure it out; then he’d confirm or correct. He was from the old school and insisted she learn how to use a light meter.

Thanks in part to Nick, my partner is now a successful freelance photographer and earns her entire living this way. He remained an insightful critic of her work and was proud of his star pupil. I never once detected any jealousy. He had a lifetime of photo knowledge but he lacked the personality to use it professionally. So he passed it on to a younger person with more confidence and drive.

Nick’s outward life appeared simple- going to his telephone sales job, attending AA meetings, playing on his computer, taking pictures, betting at OTB, and visit- ing us on Sunday afternoon for coffee. He was the only person allowed to smoke in our home. At Christmas, “Uncle Nick” always bought catnip mice for our cats, Bedford and Grove; he fussed over them and they loved the attention.

His boss called the following day to say he’d located Nick’s son, Wade. Someone at work remembered he had graduated from Fordham and got his number from the alumni office. We were relieved we would not have to identify the body and make arrangements. Soon Wade called to tell us there would be a funeral Mass at St.George’s Ukrainian Church. Could we notify his Dad’s friends? We made a few calls, posted a sign in the hallway, and tried -in vain- to contact his home AA group. So who would show up?

The weather was horrible the day of Nick’s funeral. It was raining hard and very windy. We waited in the church vestibule, afraid we’d be the only mourners. Then people from my building started trickling into the church- Pete and Rita, the hardworking super couple; Nancy, a senior citizen; Kathy, a commercial artist; Danielle and Maria, first cousins, well educated Polish immigrants working as a waitress and nurse’s aide.

I was so glad to see these neighbors who were soon joined by about 10 co-workers from Nick’s job. The Mass was in Ukrainian, so we had little idea what as happening, but my lover cried a lot. Wade followed the casket, along with his mother, Nick’s ex-wife. We accompanied them to the cemetery in the hearse and then they took us to lunch.

A few days later, I saw Wade in the hallway. After some hassle- like going to surrogate court to prove he’d paid for the funeral- he’d gotten the keys from the Ninth Precinct and was about to enter his father’s apartment. Would I like a peek?

I knew Nick’s place would be a disaster, but it was truly hazardous. We both fell down as we tried to navigate our way though the rubble in the dark hallway. What I saw inside was far worse than I’d imagined. Let’s just say the man never threw out a plastic or paper bag or carton box. The place had not been painted or cleaned in over 20 years; plaster was falling from the ceiling. I could not figure out where Nick slept because there was debris all over the funky furniture.

The kitchen was crammed with computer equipment and we kept finding cameras and other valuables buried underneath all the garbage. Later, Wade invited my partner to take the cameras, noting his Dad would want her to inherit them.

Admidst a lifetime of clutter, two things stood out- a crucifix and rosary beads were hanging on a grimy wall; a campaign button for Franklin Delano Roosevelt was propped on a dusty dresser as if Nick had just unpinned it yesterday.

1989

As I walked along Second Avenue to the video store, I saw tv trucks lined up outside. I felt sad; my youth was vanishing.

I’d gone past this now boarded up building hundreds of times during the 20 years I’d lived in the East Village, but I’d never really noticed the facade until this week. I always walked on the same side as the building, too close to see the art around where the entrance once stood. I crossed the street to imprint the building in my mind, one last look.

As I stood there watching, I flashed back to me: college student, week-end hippie from New Jersey who came into the Village with her boy friend to attend concerts at the Fillmore. I did not know the neighborhood then. Joe, my boy friend, drove us into the city in his sporty Karman Ghia. He had long hair and wire frame glasses like his idol, John Lennon. I had long hair and a fringe suede jacket.

We went to the Fillmore a lot during its brief heyday from 1968- 1971. It was a great deal: two or three groups, a program with bios, (like a psychedelic playbill) and the Joshua Light Show. Best seats were $5:50; the balcony was $3:50. We never sat upstairs.

Tim Buckley

Among others, I saw Traffic, the Grateful Dead, Jethro Tull, Canned Heat, Procol Harem, The Mothers of Invention, The Incredible String Band, Tim Buckley.

Ten Years After, and Country Joe & The Fish.

(To listen to Country Joe’s recently recorded tribute to John Faheyclick here.)

I recall The Who and Pete Townsend smashing his guitar to pieces after an amazing set. The perfect harmonies of The Byrds on "Eight Miles High." The Jefferson Airplane and Grace Slick ripping through the anthemic "Volunteers." It was a call to arms, as she belted out, "Look what’s happening out in the street." And with pumped fists, we echoed the next lines: "Start a revolution, start a revolution."

Back then, I never would have imagined that 25 years later, I’d be chairing a block association in the East Village and writing to the community board griping about a rowdy punk rock club. Had I become "the establishment"?

Joe was the mass ticket buyer for our college crowd; he arranged to meet our party in front of the Gem Spa at St. Marks and Second to give out the tickets. The sidewalk outside the Fillmore, a block away, was so crowded, it was difficult to find friends under the marquee; the sidewalk was jammed with concert goers and ticket hawkers and drug dealers ("sunshine, sunshine") who spilled into Second Avenue. As I paused on a glorious summer afternoon in August 1995, observing the wrecking crews, I recalled those good friends I attended concerts with at the Fillmore East. Joe died of AIDS in 1989. John is a high school teacher in Morristown. Terry becameÊ a town official in Montclair. Billy flipped out after college and became a homeless alcoholic. Walt and Betty married and divorced. I came out, moved to the East Village and became a writer.

1995

For more about the Fillmore, click here: www.Fillmore-East.com