Craving the sensations of cities, the sensory experience of walking through the stellar Doric columns of Central Station, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in spring this year was sublime. A sense of fortuity seemed to prevail under the blue sky and the coquettish curve of Grey Street appeared to rise to meet a new day. Cities change me and I had missed them. My temporal lobes were starved of urban texture, colour and form.

It has been an absolute joy to guest edit this satiating special issue of StepAway Magazine, a publication with the editorial vision of Darren Carlaw which I have long admired. The Flâneuse issue is delighted to present writing fusing past, present and futurity inspired by the female gaze; celebrating the enduring, important and vital presence of female perspectives in any citified place.

Fine art street photographer Linda Wisdom’s work informed the inception of the issue and her striking and iconic cover image of the City/Barbican area of London, shot through glass, oozes satisfying monochrome geometry. Eighteen writers shine their unique voices upon urban areas from around the globe; read each individually or sequentially and let their words change you.

Dr Lauren Elkin writes, in the epilogue of her 2016 publication Flâneuse, ‘A female flânerie – a flâneuserie – not only changes the way we move through space, but intervenes in the organisation of space itself. We claim our right to disturb the peace, to observe (or not observe), to occupy (or not occupy) and to organise (or disorganise) space on our own terms.’

Julie Hogg

Guest Editor

StepAway Magazine

DANGEROUS – DEMOLITON – KEEP OUT. From the outside, you could see what looked like a pebbledashed car park four storeys high. Five cylinder-shaped alcoves at one end recalled nuclear silos. The whole place had the air of an exhumed bunker.
            We crept in through a doorway. An old light socket had been ripped out and chucked on the floor. Wires splayed out like the severed nerves of an eye.
            Puddles on the floor, popper canisters cluttering the concrete. The ground floor housed the broken altar. It once stood upright, like a planted sword. Arthurian. Stencilled artwork on one of the blocks featured a bearded king.
            Porthole-sized windows let in light. Someone had put orange acetate in one of them – apocalyptic stained glass. This was the dancefloor for a rave after the collapse of civilisation, with its floor of shattered bottles. Would I come here on my own? Yes, but only in daylight. I thought of David Harsent’s poem ‘Fire: a party at the world’s end’: ‘They are drinking the last of the wine having drunk/ the last of the water.’

A gap in the floor over a sheer drop – to get to the next floor, you had to jump over a void. We entered an open courtyard swarming with graffiti. Every pillar had a tag or mural: a grinning thistle with its shock of purple hair, a smiley face grinning to reveal the skull below. Piles of pigeon droppings under the pillars. A girl and a guy entered, the boy in specs and beige check, the girl with blue hair backcombed at the front. She beckoned him across the gap in the floor – ‘Dare you!’

*

The seminary at Cardross is considered a masterpiece of brutalist architecture. Inspired by Le Corbusier and created by modernist architects Andy MacMillan and Isi Metzstein, the vaulted ceilings and floating staircases retain some stateliness in decay. An artist once commented that ‘It has an elegance and a lightness, while at the same time having the heaviness of industry and concrete and hardness.’  But the building’s working life was short. Those lofty rooms generated ridiculous heating bills. The number of young men entering the priesthood was dwindling. (Well, after the bohemian Sixties, who’d want to live a life of sexless seclusion?)
            One priest who trained there commented that ‘it was a great building, but utterly useless.’

A birch sapling sprouted from the spine of the northern staircase. Steel grilles linked the stairs to the body of the seminary, a void of air below them. Graffiti at the centre read Hello u c—.
            Each floor of the building was a tier of half-cylinders that looked precariously brittle. They were faced with orange foam that had begun to leak out of the cracks. I tiptoed out onto one of the vaults. Thin concrete was all that separated me from a twenty-metre fall. To our left was the central staircase, stripped to the bones.

*
What would happen to our cities, homes and places of worship if human beings just disappeared? In his book The World Without Us, Andrew Weisman wonders what the Earth would look like without people – say, if aliens abducted all of us, or a virus wiped us all out. New York would be taken over by trees, and voles would scurry down the Channel Tunnel. We can glimpse this already in the irradiated high-rises of Chernobyl: wolves wander the streets and the pavements are split by poplar trees.

On the road back to Manchester, Spotify played REM’s ‘It’s The End of the World as we Know It,’ right on cue. I told JK about the plants and fungi that took over my balcony during lockdown. Hart’s tongue ferns sprouted from the brickwork after heavy rain. Jelly ear mushrooms burst out of the damp wood panelling under the eaves. ‘I spotted one – gave me the shock of my life. Thought one of the neighbours might have had a Van Gogh moment.’

If there’s another pandemic and no-one survives, what will the block of flats where I currently live look like? It’s a thought that gives me a greyish sense of loneliness. How quickly would the weather strip it to a skeleton of girders and stairwells? With no humans, the chink in my roof would let in a determined leak. Those ferns and mushrooms would eat up the wooden floor and festoon the brickwork. Mould and mildew would devour the books on my shelf. There’s a plump wood pigeon who flies onto my balcony – the neighbours call him Humphrey. He’d enjoy roosting in my top room. Urban foxes would raise their kits in the car park. There’s always something that manages to cling to life. It might even thrive.

Dr Yvonne Reddick

Jennifer Avignon

The park was placid, open, empty: no couples stacked on the grass attached by mouth; no tennis ball’s pop pop pop; no nosey dogs leading phone-glow zombies. No orange sun. No one else monitored the AQI, she figured. Busy Tik Toking.

Was that a raindrop? Rain could clean the air. But only a 30 percent chance.

As Marie rounded a corner near the tennis courts, a girl pulled deeply from a bottle. Faintly orange—flavored vodka? Old enough to drink, Marie guessed, young enough to flaunt it. Marie stepped past without focusing—dangerous to show interest. The girl, large and blowsy and wasted, was adjunct to two men. The tatooed one said quietly, Fuck you then, and turned abruptly towards Marie, forcing her to curve away—a sharp swerve would provoke him. The other man stood red-eyed, plug-shaped, spread-legged. Was he—? A yellow arc hit the oak tree aggressively.

Heyyyyy, the girl said to Marie. Jovially, as if she had good news, or was happy Marie had arrived, or to distract from the desecration. As if Marie could stop him. As if Marie could remedy the girl’s choice of company. Marie gave her a swift look that said Don’t bullshit me! and, Really—are thugs necessary? The girl fell silent. Marie controlled her pace; she could feel their eyes pushing her away. She took the smaller loop. Four thousand steps would suffice. She was already tired. Life among the vulnerable. She missed being reckless, sturdy, strong. Though she’d never have been drunk with morons in a park.

It started raining. Gentle rain, summer rain. A few drops and then spatters that became cleansing, cooling curtains. It would help the air. Maybe it would help the fire-fighters. AQI was 82. It was helping the air already. Water dripped from her visor.

It felt glorious, like amnesia: she could almost forget wildfires, smoke, how damn feeble she was, the complications post-surgery. Her doctor claimed she’d be dead otherwise. Unprovable. She lived rigorously clean, ate salads, took vitamins. She’d quit drinking in college when—running steps whipped her head around. The girl pounded up damply, red, breathless, heavy feet crushing her impractical little polka dot flats.

Can I come with you? she panted. She was already in step. She looked behind her. Please. I need a place to stay.

Leah Halper

Its map—solved
by countless travelers,
quickening pace
to reach
the ever-changing
point B.

Held underneath
decaying pillars
and digital menus,
its cadenced traffic
begets a lull
to quotidian existence.

In man-made night,
I am lost
and found
a thousand and one times,
a weary color
of a soul.

Yet
I’m borne
within
its relentless grind,
always
to
home.

Navila Nahid

I squeeze through the crowded neighborhood farmers market, by a woman shaking a bundle of greens. Another lifts a bunch of spotted bananas over the produce mounds to be weighed. I stop to choose a double handful of mandarins, passing it to the young woman at the scale. She shifts the weights with quick fingers. Three pesos, she says. The coins jingle as my friend reaches over the orange-colored pile & gives her the money.

I turn & see the butchers cutting slabs of pork, their knife blades flashing. The cacophony of voices ordering. People stand patiently, their bags held open for the paper-wrapped meat.

A father cradles his daughter on his hip. Holding her tiny hands, looking into her eyes, he sings her a song.

Celia & Yuraisy pose for a photo, standing tall in the midst of the bustle. Clove & cinnamon, their skins gleam in the patches of sunlight penetrating the roof eaves.

Outside, on the side street, Yuniel & Jesús sit along the sidewalk. Their toy trucks scoop dirt in the shade of a thin tree. In his frustration at my inability to say his unfamiliar name, he puts his small hands on his hips, boyish legs splayed to either side. Then, carefully writing each letter in the fine tan dirt & looking up at me after each to see if I understand, he finishes & says proudly, firmly, YUNIEL.

II. Vedado

In a small triangular park at the base of Julio A. Mella’s statue, a man sweeps debris with a leaf broom & scoops it into a wooden handcart.

Across the street, Estela leans in her second-floor window open to the mid-morning city. Her aged sun-darkened hand rests on the balcony railing. Her gazing eyes are placid.

Below a younger woman comes, sandals flapping against her soles. Yellow & orange bags hang in her maple-colored hands. ¿Quieres comprar una bolsita de naranjada       o de piña?, she calls up to Estela, stopping below the balcony. No, mi amor, the old woman calls down, leaning over the worn stone.

In the distance of this street, as it leads straight to the center of the city, the laced spire of a church rises above the blockish buildings.

III. El Malecón

It wraps along the blue-grey sea. From the cragged rocks below, young boys swim in sagging undershorts. Their wet skins shine in multi-browns under the warm winter sun.

Bicycles whizz by along either side of the avenue. Sometimes a second person rides a-back, clutching a bag of food to her chest. The bike wobbles with the rhythmic pumping.

Three pensionados sit on the greyed wall. Their hands lay loosely on cottoned laps, then wave with their impassioned words.

Further down a mulata nestles her head on the shoulder of her lover. His lightly tanned hand strokes her smoothened hair.

A double-humped camel bus chugs by pulled by a semi-tractor. Through the streaked windows, among the crowded passengers I see …
       A man resting his chin upon a woman’s head, his arms wrapped around her waist …
       Another man’s expressive face speaking with a friend …
       A young woman, head on upraised hand staring out the window at

The two boys looking skyward, watching their yellow & red kites dance in the sea breeze.

IV. La Habana Vieja

I stroll among the artisan stalls in the cathedral plaza. Vibrant colors spring from the canvasses, paintings of Afro-Cuban orishas, of El Che, landscapes of this tropical isle. Hand-carved statues gracefully reach for the azure sky.

On the corner of a street radiating out from this plaza, a young boy waits at a window. His short white legs kick the noon air, his sandals hang loose as he reaches over the sill for his hunk of bread spread with a bit of mayonnaise & shuffles his coins across it. The woman picks them up with age-spotted hands, her greying hair pulled up into a bun.

V. Plaza de la Revolución

Sunshine fills the open plaza. The giant José Martí looks with his intent poet eyes upon the small food stalls, a few tables & chairs set before each one. The smell of grilling sandwiches drifts on the afternoon. At the far end, a man whacks the stem end off coconuts. The machete blade catches the sun with each thud. Tilting her head back, a young woman lifts one above her pink mouth & lets the milk soothe her throat. Other men pick up the discarded shells & throw them one-handed onto the bed of a truck. A sound stage slowly builds to the rhythm of a throbbing son.

On the other side of this plaza, across from José, Che’s metal-outlined face stares into the future with eyes still full of life.

As I leave the Plaza & begin walking down Rancho Boyeros Avenue, my eye catches a father sitting on the steps of a building. His laughing son & daughter play next to him. On his lap the man changes his infant’s diaper. A safety pin hangs loosely between his lips.

Lorraine Caputo

Then timpani,
tremulous,
glass at the edges.
An old master paints as the air whips full.
Clouds burnt umber,
cracked by light,
as mother nature descends to rule.

An ill-timed apocalypse
drowns out my cries
and the band plays on
as the waters rise.

Jane Mackenzie

She visited the space every day. In the mornings, she danced and in the afternoons, she smoked cigarettes and drank sweaty beer. Sometimes, a neighbour would join her and the mounted oscillating fans above them would witness their slow conversation.

Throughout her four years as a tenant there, she painted every flower in every pot on the roof and then adorned the stairwell with their images. Later, she would host private art lessons, attracting tourists and expats to her views of heaven. Before she left, she conceived a child. Soon after, she left her paradise, forever.

Lindsay Erdman

Francine Rubin

Why? Why would we ever leave the Village? Well, we were crowded in our one bedroom apartment that shared with our children and multiple cockroaches. And since we were on the first floor, we were privy to numerous fights, romantic breakups, and drunken singing outside our window. How would we manage when the children were older? Suddenly the day before the big move to the country, I felt inordinately fond of all of it, even the cockroaches that only surfaced at night.

The day before the move, I developed an excruciating pain in my right side. This can’t be, I thought. This must be psychosomatic. I pushed the double stroller to the park that held our two children who hadn’t a clue their life style was about to change. I sat in Abingdon Square Park with my friends Skippy and Gussie and Esther while our children ran around crazily in the fresh spring air.

I could hardly talk. The pain vacillated. One moment I was gasping for breath, the next I was reminiscing and swearing that we’d always be friends, Gussie, Skippy, Esther and myself.

The Village. I had lived in New York City all my life and frankly I loved every neighborhood. But my favorite neighborhood, hands down, was Greenwich Village. Stan and I lived there before we married and certainly we vowed we’d never leave. What did I love? I loved the winding streets, the immediate good mornings to friends and strangers on leaving our building. I always stopped to view the flowers at the green grocer around the corner. And the Launderette owner Arnie, I admired his big muscles and the way he called me “Honey.” I cherished the old lady across the street who owned forty cats. Oh the small restaurants. Before we had children we went to Beatrice’s quite often after coming home from work. And Seville, we went there weekends often with friends. They served incredible paella, the clams and mussels and chunks of lobster oozing out of the saffron rice. And then there was the White Horse where went for a beers and a hard-boiled egg. The White Horse is where Dylan Thomas hung out with other writers to talk, argue and often get intoxicated.

I loved the drugstore near us with its striped awning and serene interior. Later, when we had children, I often chatted with the owner about baby medications. The A@P was on the corner of Sixth Avenue and we made our way through its crowded aisles on Saturday mornings. Oh and the Greenwich Movie House…how much better could it get on a rainy afternoon than to go to a first rate movie plus a newsreel, and coming attractions and then find our way to John’s Pizzeria where if we were lucky, we didn’t have to stand in line. Certainly, I could never ignore Abingdon Square, the small playground right across the street from our Bank Street apartment. We mothers took turns throwing out the broken beer bottles in the sandbox before taking our children there in the afternoons. And we babysat for each other so we could run over and buy a grocery item or two at Gristedes or take a child for a haircut.

On weekends Stan and I usually took the children to Washington Square that was more attractive than Abingdon and not as close to home. On the way, we passed Balducci’s where we bought fresh orange juice and pastries for all. Once settled in the Square, Robbie ran to the swings. Judy cooed and napped. The same old men played chess and we nodded at them from benches we found under the trees.

However, the afternoon before the move to Eastchester, I sat with my friends on a bench in our usual neighborhood playground. Suddenly I was enveloped in pain. I wrapped my arms around my waist and tried to push the spasms away.

“This is crazy,” my friend Gussie said. “We’ll watch the kids. You have to go to the doctor. Maybe it’s appendicitis.”

“Why would I get appendicitis the day before I move,” I said.

“You have to go. The kids will be fine with us.” Skippy added.

“I don’t want to move,” I said. “I changed my mind. I will not sew curtains and bake apple pies. I just won’t. I’m sorry I ever thought of it. Now Stan will hold me to it.”

“No he won’t,” Gussie said.

“Yes, he will.” I thought of those lovely winter strolls around Christmas when Stan and I popped into craft stores. As we inhaled the scent of lavender and spices, we sipped mulled wine and deliberated about gifts we might buy.

“I’m calling a cab but first you must explain to Robbie you’re going to the doctor and will be home later. And he and Judy will stay with us. I’ll go to the drugstore and call your doctor and tell him you’re coming.”

She hailed a cab and I went over to our doctor whose office was a few blocks away. Dr. H was bespectacled and serious. ” Your white blood count is up…. I think you have a kidney stone and I’m going to drive you to Mt. Sinai Hospital. It’s on my way home. Why don’t you call your husband?”

“That’s impossible, ” I cried. We’re moving tomorrow.”

The whole family took it as some kind of bizarre joke. My mother took over with the children and Stan drove them up to our new garden apartment. I spent one night in Mt. Sinai hospital waiting for the kidney stone and nothing happened. Nurses kept tip toeing in to see if I’d produced.

When I complained, the resident suggested I be patient. The following day after my mother made a particularly biting remark about the inventive ways I got out of hard work. I got out of bed, changed into my clothes and took a taxi up to Eastchester. I left the hospital without official permission and jumped into one of the cabs lined up at the curb. I gave him our new address, 5 Field End Lane, Eastchester

“It’ll cost you,” he said.

“I am waiting for a kidney stone to drop. I can’t take a train,” I explained.

“Jesus lady,” he stared and me and then pulled out into traffic.

I said a sad farewell to the young budding trees in Central Park, to Harlem, to the Bronx. I longed to jump out the door and race back to our apartment at 75 Bank Street, to greet Arthur, our doorman who was an ex con and enfold my children in my arms. At six Stan usually came home. I waited to hear his footsteps as he walked through our courtyard.

The driver finally pulled up to our unit, which was identical to all the others. All of them were two stories high. Was I crazy? What were we doing here? I stared at the fields of grass. Robbie came rushing toward me, his pacifier in his mouth. My mother carried Judy out in her arms.

“You have to take him off the pacifier. This isn’t the Village,” my mother said.

I entered a new life in this land where I had my own washing machine, white curtains, no living room set yet, a single parking space for a car and behind the kitchen a communal clothes lines.

“Here we are. Home,” Stan put his arms around me. “We even have a plot where we can plant our own garden.”

“How wonderful,” I said and began to weep uncontrollably.

Joan Halperin