Life

On Flaco: New York City’s Owl

Written by Kenn Sava. (None of these Photos are mine. If they are yours, please contact me for credit.)

The throng hoping for a Flaco sighting in the Park in the early days after his escape last year. Photo- goodmorningamerica.com

If you live here, and possibly if you don’t, you might be glued to the latest news and social media updates for sightings of Flaco, the male Eurasian Eagle-Owl, who escaped from the Central Park Zoo after his habitat was vandalized in February, 2023. I am, too. In spite of EVERYTHING else going on in the world, it’s a story that seems to have captivated a lot of folks, probably for many reasons.

After early attempts to recapture him were abandoned due to the public outcry, Park Zoo officials opted to let him live as a free bird in the Park. He’s been on his own for 11 months now.

“Yes, I’m cashin’ in this ten-cent life
For another one”*

Shortly after his escape. Photo- goodmorningamerica.com

Of course, he drew immediate and large crowds (as shown up top), including countless Photographers. To date, I haven’t seen any clips of him in flight, where his 6-foot wingspan must be breathtaking to see. Nonetheless, the countless Photos I have seen reveal him to be extraordinarily beautiful, particularly his riveting orange eyes.

“Everywhere around me
I see jealousy and mayhem
Because no men have all their peace of mind
To carry them”*

Photo- newsbrig.com

Ok. I’m biased. My last name means “Owl.” Still, his is a story with wings! People seemed to love the idea of the “caged-bird set free.” I worried. But, as long as he stayed in the Park, he was relatively safe (though another Owl was hit and killed by a truck there) because they don’t feed the rats, a staple of his diet (another reason we love him) poison that could harm him. Then, Flaco suddenly began making trips out of the Park! While this led to more spectacular photo ops, it raised the worry, and the danger, quotient exponentially.

Why did he leave? The Park is as close to “nature” as we have, though it’s all man-made.

New York City’s other Owl. A sighting on the Upper West Side. Photographer unknown.

After living in the confines of the Zoo for 10 years, to suddenly be thrust out into the “wilds” of Manhattan has got to be like being dropped off on another planet would be for us. Like all New Yorkers, and he is certainly one, he’s on his own out here. Somehow, 11 months later, he’s survived on his wits, like many other New Yorkers- this one included.

I never through I’d see a 2 foot tall Owl walking the same streets I do at night, but I’m ready! Let’s hit the town! Photographer unknown.

As more information came to light, the poignancy of it all hit another level. Apparently, Flaco began going further afield searching for a mate.

What could be more human? More universal? Who couldn’t be moved by that?

Being a rare bird- 100,000 to 500,000, total, are believed to exist, and being THIS far from Eurasia, where most of them are, his chances of finding one are not good, to say the least.

Looking for love in the East Village. I’ve been there, man! *Photographer unknown.

When I saw this incredible Photo someone took in the East Village during his sojourn there, I found it heart-breaking. It speaks to me of the extremes he’s gone to. It also speaks to all he’s up against in his search.

“When the joker tried to tell me
I could cut it in this rube town
When he tried to hang that sign on me
I said ‘Take it down'”*

Pounding the pavement, watching out for “the man,” eyes on the prize. Photo- amsterdamnews.com

So, where to with this story?

My read is that the larger public would freak out if the Park tried to recapture Flaco. I wouldn’t. I’d be relieved and I think quite a few others would be, too. The possible bad outcome to this story is too tragic to think about. So, as a passionate Owl lover, myself, I can’t help wonder if an alternative might be for the experts to scour the world’s zoos, forests and jungles for a potential mate for this special Owl. It’s the least we can do for him!

Fatherhood might be the only outcome the larger public would accept.

Then, the lines to see him at The Zoo, would be longer than to see Van Gogh’s Cypresses.

From newyorker.com

And, instead of worrying about him, or listening for the sound of a large Owl landing on my window sill, I can sleep in peace.

“Well I don’t really care
If it’s wrong of if it’s right
But until my ship comes in
I’ll live night by night”*

*Photo by the Central Park Zoo

Happy New Year, brother New Yorker! Hoping you’re safe and wishing you LOVE and every happiness in the New Year!

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “Night By Night” by Steely Dan from their album, Pretzel Logic. The title of this piece is adapted from their song “Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)” from Can’t Buy A Thrill. As in somewhere inside me lies a charmer…

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

November 22nd- Sixty Years On

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

“Yes, I’ll sit with you and talk, let your eyes relive again
I know my vintage prayers would be very much the same”*-
“Sixty Years On,” by Elton John & Bernie Taupin

November 22nd, 1963. It’s a day that probably doesn’t mean much to many who weren’t born yet. But, if you were living on that day, I think it’s a day none of us have forgotten.

I remember it all, from a safe distance of 1,370, or so, miles away as the owl majestically flies from Dallas, TX to NYC. As it turned out, it wasn’t a safe distance at all. As horrific as all the events of the weekend of Friday November 22nd, through 24th, 1963 were. It included watching a man being killed for the first time in my life. John F. Kennedy being assassinated is an event that, 60 years ago today as I write, just hasn’t gone away. I’m not talking about the who-done-the horrible deed, the endless conspiracy theories, or the circus surrounding the events. I’m talking about something much, much bigger that rarely gets mentioned, lost in all the other talk that, frankly, just doesn’t matter any more. If Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t kill JFK, whoever did is most likely dead by now as is anyone he might have been involved with. 

He, or they, are no longer the point. What matters now is what’s happened to everyone else. 

Cornell Capa (Robert’s brother), JFK During a campaign event, NYC, USA, October 19, 1960. Click any photo for full size.

Set the way, way back machine to the beginning… I remember when JFK ran for President in 1960. He was so very well-spoken and it sure sounded like it came from the heart. Then there was his incredible feat of saving his crew after the PT boat he was commanding in the Pacific during World War II was hit and sunk. I came to admire him.

From Four Days by the UPI & American Heritage Magazine

Fast forward to Friday, November 22nd, 1963. There I was in the school nurse’s office, due to after-effects of a bad accident I suffered a few months before when I was hit in the head by a baseball bat. Accidentally, I hope. I was out cold before my face hit the concrete. No one came to help me for about 40 minutes as I lay unconscious. I finally got up and staggered home. I was out of school for a month, and still having problems with the cuts healing, etc. At 12:30pm, as I sat there waiting her attention, I heard the radio report coming over the speaker above me: JFK had been shot in his motorcade in Dallas.

There are other, more graphic shots of this, but this grainy still from a Film speaks to me much more. Jackie was the first one to feel our pain. Though none of us could imagine her’s. She would be an incredible model of class & strength from this moment on. *-UPI Newsfilm image from Four Days.

What???????

There really are just no words for the feeling I had. It was completely unfathomable. 

I can still hear that radio report…

Even for a little kid- everything stopped. People just looked at each other with their mouths open, unable to speak.

A short while later they announced he was dead.

The New York Times, November 23, 1963

To say it was beyond belief is cliche, but true. It was beyond anything anyone could imagine. I had never experienced anything like this. It was something I had never even considered- that a man in such a position could be killed, outside of war.

My copy of Four Days, the 1964 “historical record,” as it says, published by the UPI and American Heritage Magazine. Copies trade on eBay today for about $3.

I don’t remember getting home, but I do remember that everyone was glued to their TV when I did from then on, and continually, for the better part of four days: Friday through Monday, when JFK was buried. It became the title of the book American Heritage Magazine & the UPI published later as a, mostly, visual record. There he sits in the cover Photo taken mere minutes before the tragedy, in the prime of life, in a Photo that, unbeknownst to everyone at the time, marked the end of the world as we knew it. Meanwhile, back in the moment, everyone & everything in the country stopped to watch and to mourn. As the day wore on, nothing changed that initial feeling of utter disbelief.

SIXTY YEARS later (I shook my head in amazement as I typed that) it still feels unreal. 

From Four Days

I watched all the rest of it unfold live. Most memorably, Sunday, November 24th. 

From Four Days

After lying in state at the White House on Saturday, on Sunday, a long procession and ceremonies took his body to the Capitol in a strangely stark light, as the pictures above show. At least it appeared that way on black & white televisions and how it is burned into my memory. It was like an other-worldly and very powerful spotlight was being focused on the procession. Then, a little after 11am, as I was sitting in my living room, watching TV with my mom, who was in and out of the room, Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK’s accused assassin, was brought down to the basement garage under the police station by Dallas Police for transfer to a larger prison. All of a sudden, on live TV, a man lurched out from the right and shot him in the mid-section!!! A short time later, Oswald, too, was dead.

Oswald is shot by Ruby as I watched on live TV. *-UPI Newsfilm image from Four Days.

It was the first murder ever broadcast on live television.

As a little kid watching this happen in front of him, it was just one more thing on the pile of unbelievable things that had gone on the past 3 days. Somehow, it didn’t register as a separate event, as horrific as it was. I wonder about that now. My mom didn’t say a word. 

At that point, in late November, 1963, I was, already, no stranger to fear. A few years earlier, we were pushed to the brink of the unthinkable- nuclear war- during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Adults figured Washington D.C. and NYC would be the first targets of missiles fired from Cuba or submarine. People were glued to radios and TVs then to learn of the latest developments until tensions finally lessened after what felt like forever. It was, perhaps, the peak moment of terror in the entire Cold War which was raging in full effect during my childhood and beyond.

Students being taught to hide under their desks in the event of an atomic explosion nearby(!) *-Still from Duck & Cover.

In “response,” I was among the millions of kids being taught to “Duck and Cover” under our desks at school to “prepare” for a nuclear bomb going off in the vicinity- at any time! We were also taught where the Fallout Shelters were. There was no mention during either of these instructions about meeting up with our families. I didn’t think about that at the time I was under my desk, staring at the floor. Can you imagine what the “fallout” would be if this worthless nonsense was taught to little kids today?

A vintage Fallout Shelter sign. I had to shoot it with the flash because the sign is so old and rusted only the reflective paint has held up. I didn’t bother to ask if there was still a fallout shelter there. Hopefully, I won’t need to find out. West 18th Street, November 27, 2023.

All of a sudden, my quiet childhood had been turned upside down by the insanity of world politics. 

Out of everything that happened during those years, did JFK being murdered have the biggest effect on the country and the world?

His death effected my life in the way few presidents have either during their lives or after their deaths, in countless ways I couldn’t imagine as a little kid in November, 1963. (None of this is said politically. One of the casualties of November 22nd was my permanent loss of interest in politics.) For instance- Some years later, I was in the Vietnam Draft Lottery. Luckily, my birthdate came up too high and I wasn’t called. If I had been called, there is no doubt in my mind, with what I know now, that my name would be with the other casualties up on that wall  in Washington instead of writing about the following 60 years here.

It’s possible JFK might have gotten us out of it before my number came up, but, we’ll never know. Luckily, November 22nd, 1963 didn’t indirectly cost me my life as collateral fallout, but that fallout has covered the world in countless ways- if you look for it. It turns out there is no such thing as being a “safe distance” from the events of that day. I’ve often thought the country has never been the same since November 22nd, 1963. I’ve heard a number of others say that, too. But, that’s hard to quantify. It’s something no one who was born after can really understand. The world would have been different had John F. Kennedy lived, but we’ll never know how. We’ll also never know if “different” would have been “better.” 

JFK never got to grow old in his beloved rocking chair. I wonder what he would have made of the country & the world as he did. Bruce Catton writes, ironically, “The future sets us free. It is our escape hatch.” From Four Days.

On the 60th Anniversary of his death, that’s what I think about. Not the distracting noise about bullet theories. I think about the world those bullets fired sixty years ago today have given us, and how JFK’s death has effected me and everyone, whether we know how, or not. And, how it continues to.

If all of its ramifications could possibly be tallied, World War II is possibly the most significant event of the previous generation. If ALL of their ramifications could possibly be tallied, it feels to me that (through the year 2000) the JFK Assassination and the Moon Landing, which he committed the nation to achieving before the end of the 1960s, were the two most significant events of my generation.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Sixty Years On,” by Elton John & Bernie Taupin from Elton John, his classic 1970 debut album, performed above Live at the Royal Opera House in 2002.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Artist

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless credited otherwise).

The next lines are- “But my drawing is certainly very much less charming than its model. That, however, is not my fault. The grown-ups discouraged me in my painter’s career when I was six years old, and I never learned to draw anything, except boas from the outside and boas from the inside1.”

On April 6, 1943, the story broke that an alien being had descended to Earth; not in Roswell, New Mexico, but on the other side of the world from it as the owl flies in the Sahara Desert. This small being appeared to the pilot of a crashed plane, who was suffering from severe dehydration, over what turned out to be the last week of the visitor’s one-year stay on the Earth; just one of the planets he visited on a desperate mission to secure the protection of his beloved rose on his home asteroid (a world so small he once watched 44 sunsets on a single day), and rid it of a baobab infestation.

After a week, he suddenly disappeared.

The pilot lying at the foot of a cliff with his plane in the distance, 1942, Watercolor and ink on tracing paper. Not published in the final book, in which he chose to leave out any representation of the pilot. It’s damaged condition ironically echoes that of the plane.

On or about July 31, 1944, that pilot, the only person to witness & record the event and what transpired during that week, also suddenly disappeared with nary a trace at just 44 years of age. He left behind the story and renderings of their encounter.

The world has never been the same since.

Publishing history. 1943 1st Edition, 1st Printing copies of Le Petit Prince, in the original French it was written in, right, and The Little Prince, in the original English translation by Katherine Woods, left, both published in the USA by Reynal & Hitchcock who had asked Saint-Exupéry for a children’s book. This marked the first time the author had created Art for his books and/or their covers. It wouldn’t be until after the war that the book would be published in France.

April 6, 2023 marks the 80th Anniversary of the publication of The Little Prince by the remarkable Author, aviator, and resolute French patriot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (aka Saint-Ex). Charged with writing a “children’s book” by his publishers, the result is a book that defies categorization that is now 80 years in on its way to timeless.

You’re looking at a remarkable and historic Photograph. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry after his crash in the Sahara desert, 1935. *-per Alexandre Tanase of the Succession Saint Exupéry-d’Agay, Paris; “Saint Exupéry next to his Caudron Simoun C630 F-ANRY. It was not taken right after the accident (and, consequently, not by Saint Exupéry himself or Prévot). This picture and others (there is a full series of them) were taken a few days after Saint Exupéry and Prévot were found, when they came back with others, especially Suzanne and Emile Raccaud, the couple that hosted Saint Exupéry after he was rescued. It is either Emile or Suzanne who took the picture.”

“For I do not want any one to read my book carelessly. I have suffered too much grief in setting down these memories. Six years have already passed since my friend went away from me, with his sheep. If I try to describe him here, it is to make sure that I shall not forget him. To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend2“

The book is apparently set at the scene of Saint-Ex’s 1935 Sahara Desert plane crash which he survived only to almost perish of dehydration in the days after before he and his navigator/mechanic, André Prévot, were rescued by a passing Bedouin. The story was recounted in his memoir, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, before he used it, again, as the setting of The Little Prince, the last book he would finish. Earlier this year, The Morgan Library presented The Little Prince: Taking Flight, which provided a fascinating look at Saint-Exupéry’s original Art for The Little Prince, as well as text and Art that he decided not to include in the final book. As a prior Morgan show, 2014’s The Little Prince: A New York Story, reminded us, he created the book in NYC while he was in exile after the fall of France in World War II.

1st edition/1st printing copy of Wartime Writings, 1982, with a foreword by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, from my collection.

“He was… against the armistice and ‘stole’ a transport plane in Bordeaux to convey forty young pilots to North Africa in a vain attempt to continue the war there. When he discovered that the armistice extended to North Africa as well as France, he was at an impasse…. Without being consulted, Saint-Exupéry found himself nominated for a position on the Vichy National Council, an offer he immediately refused. He did not, however, feel he could join the ‘Free French’ group behind General de Gaulle. (‘I should have followed him with joy against the Germans, but could not follow him against Frenchmen.’) …With enormous difficulty he obtained a passport for the United States…In December, 1940 he sailed from Lisbon to America. Once established in New York, he was depressed by the isolationist reaction of American citizens to war and shocked by the conflicts between exiled French groups (some of who harassed Saint-Ex over the Vichy Council nomination).” Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author and wife of Charles Lindbergh3.

It was in these circumstances that he wrote, and created the Art for, The Little Prince. On April 2nd, 1943, a few days before its publication on April 6,, at the age of 42, he boarded a troop transport with 50,000 soldiers and returned to France to return to combat.

No one or nothing could stop him, though I can’t tell if the soldier on the right is trying to. A die-hard patriot, Saint-Ex is seen piloting a reconnaissance plane in 1944, shortly before his death, in a scene eerily similar to what his departure on his last flight may have looked like. He crashed for the 5th time on one such flight around the time of this Photo. Yet, he managed to get permission to go back up. *-Photo by John Philips, from The New York Times, April 11, 2008.

By July, 1944, at 44, he was overage for a flier (38 was the cutoff), overweight, and suffering from the aftereffects of FIVE crashes4. He was unable to put his flight suit on by himself, or to turn his head to the left to spot enemy planes. Still, due to his prestige, contacts, non-stop politicking (he volunteered for every mission), and indomitable desire to fight, nothing would stop him. “I have no taste for war, but I cannot remain behind the lines.” he said5. After training in a P-38 Lightning, he flew 8 reconnaissance missions, one ending in his fifth crash.

The Little Prince: Taking Flight, Installation view, February 4, 2023.

Still, the powers that be somehow let him back in the cockpit for his ninth and what was supposed to be his last flight. While flying from Borgo, Corsica, headed for the Grenoble region of southern France, he suddenly disappeared, eerily like his most famous creation. Some facts are known, but there’s still no real evidence as to what happened to him6. In 2004, Stacy Schiff, author of a biography of Saint-Ex, wrote in The New York Times, “His was a noble death, made in the name of the greater good to which all of his literature returns. As his widow noted, the exit was custom-made, a meteoric fall at the end of a star-chasing life7.”

To date, The Little Prince (or Le Petit Prince, as Saint-Ex wrote it in his native French), has sold TWO HUNDRED MILLION copies8 and has appeared in 536 languages & dialects9. It continues to sell 1.8 MILLION copies a year10. 

Already, within one month of its U.S. publication there was discussion about just who The Little Prince was for. John Chamberlain wrote a glowing New York Times review of it within days of its publication, calling it “A fascinating fable for grown-ups.” Ad from The New York Times Book Review, May 9, 1943.

200 million copies sold, and I missed it. HOW is that possible? (Not that I am generally a fan of the very popular.) It was never assigned to me as a kid in school, and never found its way to me outside of it in my Art book-obsessed life. It was only after I met my Muse, Lana, who has been under its spell as her favorite book since she was 11, that I read it. Of its effects on her, she told me, “I looked at the sky and imagined the planet where the prince lives…I had many dreams about the little prince.” Coming to it later in life, it seems to me to be a book that one can read at any age (I do wonder how it would have hit me as a child). Saint-Ex was asked to write a children’s book by his publisher, but what he handed in is something that’s not quite a children’s book, nor purely a book for grown-ups. Which ever end of that telescope you look at it through, there are things that feel out of place.

The Little Prince opens with this image, ostensibly a “copy of the drawing” the narrator says he saw in a book. No doubt by Saint-Ex. Seen in my copy.

To wit, the very first image on the very first page of the book does make me wonder about the book’s intended audience. It’s surely something never seen in a “children’s book” before, or probably since, let alone right in the beginning of one. We are shown a Drawing of a boa constrictor wrapped around its prey, baring its teeth with the helpless, captured animal, looking straight into the jaws of death. Terrifying, even for this adult! Saint-Ex doesn’t stop there: the first THREE images in the book are of boa constrictors! “Toto, we’re not in Roswell anymore.” Such is the charm of the book, that I have yet to see anyone talk about this.

Looks harmless enough. The manuscript of the first page of the book showing Saint-Ex’s Drawing Number One, upper center, and Number Two, lower center. The Manuscript is written with graphite on “cheap, dime store tracing paper,” one Morgan staff member told me. Notice how the first image in the book, shown before, is in a different style than his Drawing Numbers One and Two. As I stood looking at this page I was struck by this question- How many billions of pieces of paper contain words and Art work on them? How many of them turned out to be the first page of an immortal book?

Saint-Ex “softens” their impact in Page 1 of his text by discussing his early Artistic life, not snakes. We are shown his Drawing Number One (a boa) and his Drawing Number Two (also a boa) and then are told that the grown-ups he showed them to thought they were Drawings of a hat. Creatively frustrated, we are told that “That is why at the age of six I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter.” (The Little Prince, P.2) At that moment, I was stopped by one question-

Is this true? 

10th Avenue, Chelsea, NYC, October, 2018.

In biographies of the Artist I could find no detail about his Artistic beginnings. A wall card in the show says “From a young age, Saint-Ex had a passion for art and literature, composing verse as early as six years old and illustrating his adolescent writings with doodles and caricatures.” In her biography of Saint-Ex, Stacy Schiff says, “His mother vouched for the accuracy of his many reports…11.” Those indirect words are all I’ve found. The earliest Art of his I’ve found is in the terrific complete collection of Saint-Ex’s Art titled Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:Dessins: Aquarelles, plumes, pastels et crayons (English title: Drawings: Watercolors, feathers, pastels and pencils) published in France in 2008.

The Complete Artwork. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:Dessins: Aquarelles, plumes, pastels et crayons, published by Gallimard, France, 2008. Notice how Saint-Ex drew this figure’s head and face, and his unique way with hatching.

It begins with Drawings Saint-Ex did for “skits” accompanying his plots, which the wall card might be referring to, to be put on by he and his siblings for their mother at about 13. Nothing earlier is shown, so I was unable to verify his beginnings from age 6. From then on, he seemed to Draw incessantly evidenced by the fact the book totals 328 pages.

“It is for that purpose, again, that I have bought a box of paints and some pencils. It is hard to take up drawing again at my age, when I have never made any pictures except those of the boa constrictor from the outside and the boa constrictor from the inside, since I was six. I shall certainly try to make my portraits as true to life as possible. But I am not at all sure of success12“

Though he had never included his Art in his books before The Little Prince, Drawing was by no means a new endeavor for him. In fact, the Art of The Little Prince shows this. The Drawings are executed with skill, invention and imagination. They show a sublime economy. Not one line is superfluous, and the coloring is done with subtlety and terrific taste.

The little prince on the planet invaded by a baobab, 1942, Watercolor and ink. At the time he Drew this, France had fallen to the Nazis, who had taken over all of Europe except for Great Britain. It’s hard for me not to see the baobabs in The Little Prince, which were taking over the little prince’s entire planet, as symbolizing the Nazis. The little prince struggles daily to rid his planet of baobabs, eventually leaving his planet/asteroid in search of better ways to.

It’s up for discussion how much of The Little Prince is cloaked autobiography and how much is a fairy tale. Certainly the plane crash in the desert and the pilot as the narrator line up on the side of ringing truth. Did he hallucinate the little prince while suffering extreme dehydration in the days after the crash? Saint-Ex was far from home when he wrote The Little Prince, and in need of friends. His little prince is too. When asked by the fox if he is looking for chickens, he replies,”I am looking for friends13.” The baobabs standing in for the Nazis, then engulfing his homeland and most of Europe, would be a plausible metaphor.

As published. “Perhaps you will ask me, “Why are there no other drawing in this book as magnificent and impressive as this drawing of the baobabs? The reply is simple. I have tried. But with the others I have not been successful. When I made the drawing of the baobabs I was carried beyond myself by the inspiring force of urgent necessity14.” It’s easy to see everything that was at stake for him at that moment in those words, and in this Drawing of the baobabs devouring his planet. Things that would cost him his life.

So would the little prince’s beloved rose being a characterization of Saint-Ex’s wife, Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, according to quite a few.

Unknown Photographer, Portrait of Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, ca. 1940-43. Consuelo was also an Artist & writer, who wrote a memoir of the couple’s relationship titled The Tale of the Rose.

The Morgan would seem to be one of them, and they included a beautiful portrait of her in the show next to a card reading “CONSUELO, THE ROSE.”

1st Edition/1st Printing copy of Night Flight, 1932, minus the dust jacket. From my collection.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is no one-hit wonder. The Little Prince was not his first rodeo. An early novel, Night Flight, was made into a 1933 Hollywood feature film of the same name starring Clark Gable, John Barrymore, Helen Hayes, Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy. His memoir, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, won the prestigious (U.S.) National Book Award, and is still #3 on National Geographic’s list of 100 Greatest Adventure Books. Yet, I seriously doubt any of his many readers were prepared for what he gave them when The Little Prince was published here 80 years ago, and posthumously in France after the Liberation. For one thing, its prose is dramatically of a different style than that of Night Flight or Wind, Sand and Stars. It’s stripped down, almost zen-like, which enhances the open-ended nature of his words. This is immeasurably furthered by his Art, which often includes details not to be found in the text.

The entrance foyer for The Little Prince: A New York Story, at the Morgan Library, 2014. Photos were not permitted inside, so the photos of the Art shown here are from the Morgan’s The Little Prince: Taking Flight, 2023.

In 2014, Lana’s passion for the book convinced me to read it for the first time, just in time to see the landmark show, The Little Prince: A New York Story at the Morgan Library, an amazing, and fortuitous, coincidence. The Morgan relates the genesis of their involvement with The Little Prince thus-

“As he prepared to leave the city to rejoin the war effort as a reconnaissance pilot, Saint-Exupéry appeared at his friend Silvia Hamilton’s door wearing his military uniform. “I’d like to give you something splendid,” he said, “but this is all I have.” He tossed a rumpled paper bag onto her entryway table. Inside were the manuscript and drawings for The Little Prince, which the Morgan acquired from her in 196815.”

The entrance for the one-gallery The Little Prince: Taking Flight, Morgan Library, February 4, 2023.

I returned to The Morgan in January, 2023, to see the compact The Little Prince: Taking Flight16. Size didn’t matter; both shows were endlessly intriguing. A New York Story featured more of the manuscript, alongside a new translation of unpublished sections, than Taking Flight does. The latter is more focused on his Art- both published and unpublished. Of course, over both shows it was the Art that struck me, but I didn’t really appreciate it in my initial exposure to it in 2014 until later.

Over my three visits, The Little Prince: Taking Flight was never less crowded than this. January, 13, 2023, with another 3+ weeks left to run.

After seeing both shows, as I began looking into the long history of The Little Prince, I discovered that quite a few others have taken their shot at relating the story visually- in Art, Film, on the stage, in Opera, and you name it. I started exploring this realm, but was stopped almost immediately in each case. Why? For me, in each instance, whatever I looked at only served to send me running back to Saint-Ex’s version- i.e. his Art. 

Wait a minute. No one I’ve read has referred to Saint-Ex an “Artist.”

Installation view, The Little Prince: Taking Flight, January 23, 2023.

The “simple” Art he created for The Little Prince has held up against anyone else’s visual interpretation of it thus far. Here, for me, was the first, and the most important, “proof” that indeed he was an Artist, and an under-rated one at that. Then, the more I delved deeper into his Art, the more impressed by it I became. In The Little Prince, his work is beautifully subtle. In his Art (the original Drawings for which were rendered in the delicacy of pencil or ink and watercolor), we get the essence of his words, but often extra details that add even more layers to the text, and in a sense create a dialogue with it, while being essential and an irreplaceable part of the the whole experience that only the author, who was also the Artist, could create.

The little prince standing on the edge of a cliff, c.1942-3, Brown ink on paper. Everything about this is interesting: from the hatching on the lines, to the unique flowers (possibly roses), to the way Saint Ex carries the composition off without a single excess line.

Of course it is beloved by those who love the book, but why hasn’t his Art received more attention and acclaim as “Art?”

For one thing, I believe Saint-Ex purposely set a trap with the way he presents his Art. On the first page (showed earlier), he shows us his Drawings Number One and Two, which appear to be “simple” line drawings colored with watercolor (though he says he used colored pencil as a child). These are the traps. Having lowered our “Artistic expectations” about as low as possible right from the start (which also takes the pressure off of himself as the Illustrator of the book), he then proceeds to present much more finished Art as the book progresses.

Taking flight. The little prince flying over a planet with mountains and a river, 1942, Watercolor and ink.

Herein lies the second phenomenon: Only the Artist who happens to also be the author knows more than he or she’s said in the text. The little prince’s outfit, shown in the first image in this piece above, is a perfect example of what I mean. It is not described in anything near this detail we see in the Painting in the text! It seems to me that this is why the interpretations of others haven’t spoken to me. Saint-Ex has this unfair advantage over them that leaves them guessing.

“The flower that you love is not in danger. I will draw you a muzzle for your sheep. I will draw you a railing to put around your flower. I will–” (The Little Prince, P.28)

A major takeaway from The Little Prince for me, something I continue to think about, and one that I have not heard others address, is that over and over the narrator attempts to use Art to solve the little prince’s problems. First, by repeatedly Drawing him a sheep until he hits on one (that is quite abstract, zen-like, and reminds me of something the great Marcel Duchamp, a fellow French contemporary who was living in Greenwich Village in 1942, would come up with. As far as I know, they never met.) that satisfies him. Then, in the quote, above, and again, during his final encounter with the little prince the narrator feels Art is a key to solving a dilemma. Therein lies the sprit of a true Artist. In fact, more than one renowned Artist has told me they hoped their work “would change the world.”

The little prince looking at a mountain range, 1942, Watercolor and ink.

Over time, much of his Art (as seen in Dessins) shows a propensity for portraits and figures. Most of them are not “finished” to the degree we see in The Little Prince. I particularly find his faces to be unique. They’re drawn economically, with what appears to be quick lines, selectively minimalistic, and some daring details including a rakish lines forming a kind of “unibrow” in a number of them. It’s hard to tell the gender of a number of his Portrait and Figure Drawings, something that continues in some of The Little Prince Drawings. A number of his portraits are striking. Some appear to be quick sketches, others are more finished and more like “traditional” studies or portraits. But it is those that are “sketch-like” that stand out for me. Looking through the book, we see early echoes of what we would see in The Little Prince. Figures stand alone in fields, some sharing body or vague facial similarities to the little prince.

Unknown Photographer(s), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, (Per Alexandre Tanase of the Succession Saint Exupéry-d’Agay, Paris) “taken in 1937  or 1938, in the apartment he was renting at the time, 15 Place Vauban in Paris.”

There are some who feel his books have, largely, the same “message.” Perhaps, it’s not surprising, then, that, as Dessins shows, was, also, a continual evolution of figures leading up to what stands as his final & ultimate realization. But, he was only 44 when he died. As different as The Little Prince is from Wind, Sand and Stars, which preceded it, all bets were off for where he would have taken his work had he lived. He remains, tragically, another great Artist taken from us all too soon by the war, along with Anne Frank and Charlotte Salomon, among too many others.

Am I saying that no one else should try to visually interpret The Little Prince? That’s up to them. I’m sure there are many who enjoy what has been created based on The Little Prince, and probably will with future interpretations. 

For itself, under the scrutiny of 2 museum shows, Saint-Ex’s Art surprises- as the book has countless readers. His Art comes across as ephemeral as its subject. For one thing, he created much of the Art for his timeless book on cheap dime store tracing paper: much of it bearing the visible watermark of Fidelity Onion Skin, a paper that clocks in at all of a 10 pound weight17!. Some of his pencil lines are fading. There is a cigarette burn hole right in the middle of one Drawing. Another has been crumpled up as if it were thrown out, then rescued. Others show signs of coarse handling. Through it all, his art has held up for 80 years. 

I was staggered when I saw this. Saint-Ex’s identity bracelet that he wore on his final flight found in a fishing net in 1998. Seen at the entrance of The Little Prince: A New York Story  at the Morgan Library in 2014.

Among the countless other things it is, The Little Prince is a lesson in what really matters in the face of the temporality of all things, the overwhelming noise that surrounds them, and all the things that don’t really matter we waste our lives on. Of invisible connections, of love, loss and longing in the aftermath of the little prince’s sudden disappearance (uncannily mimicked by the sudden, mysterious disappearance of its creator, himself, a year after its publication). One of my reasons for writing this piece was because The Little Prince reminds me of what I learned in my journey through cancer in 2007. In my February, 2017 10th Anniversary of treatment piece, “Cancer Saved My Life,” I wrote that I learned love and being loved were all that mattered in life, echoing the Fox’s lesson in The Little Prince valuing invisible connections over all. This February, as I mark 16 years free of cancer, I would add something I believed at the time but did not say: Art also matters. Art is one way to live on after death.

“All I had was a common rose…,” the wall card for this Drawing was titled. The little prince lying on his stomach, 1942, Watercolor and ink.

Francis Bacon said it took 75 to 100 years for art to be considered Art. I’ve always felt it took longer. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry has been living on for almost 80 years after his death through his work. With almost 2 million copies continuing to be sold each year, The Little Prince shows no sign of passing into obscurity. Will future generations of kids or adults be immune to its charms? It seems to me it will take something radical to happen to human beings to make them immune to it. My bet is by that point Saint-Ex will also have finally received due recognition as an Artist. 

…maybe they both did.

 

 

 

-For Lana, who sees with her heart, Happy Birthday!

 

 

 

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “It’s No Good” by Depeche Mode from their album Ultra, 1997.

“Don’t say you’re happy
Out there without me
I know you can’t be
‘Cause it’s no good…”

My sincere thanks to Alexandre Tanase of the Succession Saint Exupéry-d’Agay, Paris for his insights & expertise. 

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 7 1/2 years, during which almost 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. The Little Prince, P.10-11 ↩
  2. The Little Prince, P.18. ↩
  3. from her Introduction to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wartime Writings 1939-44, P.xiv. ↩
  4. These include a 1923 crash outside of Paris that left him with a fractured skull. The infamous, near-fatal, December, 1935 Sahara desert crash recounted in Wind, Sand and Stars and The Little Prince. A 1938 crash in Guatemala which left him with injuries that never healed, and a crash on a reconaissance mission just prior to his disappearance. ↩
  5. Quoted by Anne Morrow Lindberg, ibid, P.xvi ↩
  6. Sources for this paragraph are here, here, and here. ↩
  7. Per. ↩
  8. Per ↩
  9. Per ↩
  10. Per ↩
  11. Stacy Schiff, Saint-Exupéry, P.101 ↩
  12. The Little Prince, P.19. ↩
  13. The Little Prince, P.66 ↩
  14. The Little Prince, P.24. ↩
  15. https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/little-prince ↩
  16. From Alexandre Tanase of the Succession Saint Exupéry-d’Agay: “…this second Morgan exhibit was created following A la rencontre du petit prince (Meet the little prince), a unique retrospective presented in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, from February to June 2022, for which the Morgan framed and lent some sheets of the Little Prince manuscript, that was shown in France for the first time. This exhibit had more than 600 items, and was noteworthy especially for the artwork shown: many drawings presented for the first time (notably some Little Prince watercolors from the Consuelo Collection), and many that were discovered after the publication of the Album you mention in your article (which is from 2006, not 2008). For instance, the now famous Lettres à une inconnue. The links to this exhibition website: https://madparis.fr/A-la-rencontre-du-petit-prince-2120 and https://madparis.fr/A-la-rencontre-du-petit-prince). If I mention this, it is because you may then be interested in the catalog that was published for this event (by the same editor, Alban Cerisier, who worked on the 2006 book, Dessins). This second book is a reference concerning Saint Exupéry’s artwork.” ↩
  17. Fidelity Onion Skin is STILL in production! One vendor characterizes it as- “Our best option for onion skin paper is Fidelity Onion Skin. This thin yet surprisingly strong paper is constructed from a true 10 lb. 100 percent wood fiber, giving you all of the most desirable onion skin qualities. This specific line is beloved by crafters in need of paper that offers easy folding, great acceptance of inks and optimal strength. Fidelity’s version is chlorine-free and features a smooth, uncoated finish. Popular choices include 25 x 38 and 8.5 x 11 onion paper.” ↩

Roger Maris: Against All Odds

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

I was a Yankee fan as a kid. In 1961, I saw my first Yankees game in person. My father, who was absent my entire childhood, didn’t take me. A neighbor took me with his kid. My seat was right next to one of the infamous steel pillars in the original Yankee Stadium that were death if you sat behind one. You’d see little. Being next to it partially blocked my view! Still, I remember watching Whitey Ford warm up right down in front of me. In those days the pitcher warmed up along the side lines. Not an ideal seat, but I was seeing the Yankees and what turned out to be one of the greatest teams ever. 

“The Ghosts of Yankee Stadium” may be the title of this Mural across the street from both the original Yankee Stadium and the new Stadium. It shows the heads of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Roger Maris (5th from the left), among others hovering over the top of the original Yankee Stadium as seen from beneath the elevated subway on April 15, 2010. The pillars I referred to, shown on the left in the rendering of the upper deck, ran all the way down to the ground level. Looking at this photo now, the top half is quite similar to the view I had of the field that day, framed by 2 pillars, and the roof. The pillars were finally removed when the Stadium was remodeled in 1973. Directly behind me, the original Stadium stood half-demolished.

The team was stacked from top to bottom. They carried no less than three terrific catchers- Yogi Berra, Elston Howard, both all-time legends, and Johnny Blanchard, who as the 3rd stringer still managed to hit 21 home runs in 1961. An amazing feat, but far from the most amazing feat someone on that team accomplished.

Edward “Whitey” Ford on the mound of the original Yankee Stadium for the last time, September 21, 2008, before the final game played at the Stadium.

Edward “”Whitey” Ford was their ace pitcher. He was the epitome of smooth. A classy, unflappable, lefty with flaming white hair. Another Yankee legend having a great year. In 1961, he went 25 and 4 and won the Cy Young Award. He was one of EIGHT 1961 Yankee All-Stars, and 3 Hall of Famers.

Yogi Berra stands at home plate at the original Yankee Stadium, where he where he played for much of a legendary career, for the last time before the final game played there, September 21, 2008.

Elston Howard led the team with a .348 batting average, forcing the legendary catcher Yogi Berra to play left field.

Life, August 18, 1961. Photo by Philippe Halsman over a Babe Ruth Photo by William Greene. In the article inside, with 40+ games left in the season, Life said the odds were 4-1 against Roger Maris breaking the record. Mantle had a 50-50 chance.

At the core of the Yanks that year were Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. The “M&M Boys” as they were known. Good friends, as the season went on and it became apparent both of them had a legitimate shot at Babe Ruth’s 1927 record of 60 home runs in a season, the media painted them as rivals for Babe’s crown.

Drafted by the Yankees and raised in their system, Mickey was hugely popular when I was a kid- The most popular athlete in NYC. Roger Maris came to the Yanks later in his career in a trade. This set him up as a usurper to native son Mantle as they were going neck and neck to lead the team in home runs as summer became early fall as both chased the immortal Bambino, Babe Ruth’s record of 60 homers. Mantle was the golden boy of the Yankees, Joe DiMaggio’s successor in center field. Roger Maris wasn’t even a home-grown Yankee, having come to the team from Kansas City a few years before.

“Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were much alike on one level, both coming from the Midwest, raised in working class families, with similar high school athletic stardom, and both marrying their high school sweethearts. Yet, in terms of personality and lifestyle, they were quite different. Mantle was more outgoing and gregarious than Maris, and liked being in the limelight. Though he played it humbly, Mantle really loved the media attention and he wanted the adulation. Maris only wanted to play baseball; he didn’t want the celebrity that might come with breaking Ruth’s record, and he especially did not want the press attention that hounded him that summer1.”

The Mickey Mantle Monument in Monument Vallery, seen in the original Yankee Stadium before the final game played there, September 21, 2008.

The fans were intensely behind Mickey Mantle as their choice to break the Babe’s record. As the new-comer, Roger Maris felt their wrath, from booing to phone threats, as well the unconscionable intrusions and wrath of the press. Things were getting hot and heavy, something Roger Maris wanted no part of. David Halberstam wrote of what Roger endured in 1961 in his book, October, 1964–

“…The more he [Maris] became the story, the warier he became. The Yankees, completely unprepared for the media circus, gave him no help, offered him no protection, and set no guidelines. They let him, stubborn, suspicious and without guile, hang out there alone, utterly ill prepared for this ordeal; they never gave him a press officer to serve as a buffer between him and the media, or even set certain times when he would deal with the reporters, so what it would not be a constant burden. They did not filter requests, or tell him who he might trust and whom he might not or which requests were legitimate and which were trivial. Under all this pressure, Maris grew more and more irritable. He found that he could go nowhere without a phalanx of journalists….”

And, there was the non-existent “feud” with his friend Mantle some of the media concocted that didn’t exist…

Mickey Mantle got an infection in his hip and wound up in the hospital on September 28th, missing the last week of the regular season. Mantle, who had won a Triple Crown in 1956 (highest batting average, most homers & rbi’s), wound up second on the team in batting average and homers with .317 and was stopped at 54 homers, the most he ever hit in one season. It was now Roger’s record to win or lose. The press continued to give him a very hard time as the scrutiny intensified. Maris’s hair fell out in patches. But, he stuck it out. His attitude was “I’ll show them.” Maris hit #60 to tie the Babe on September 26th. Then, in the final game of the year (talk about pressure!), on October 1st, he hit his 61st, as I watched on tv.

Roger Maris being pushed out of the dugout after hitting #61, October 1, 1961. You can also see the pillars behind him I was stuck next to earlier that year. *UPI Photo

Typically, after he hit it, his teammates had to push him out of the dugout to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd. He. barely made it to the top step before quickly going back down.

The original Yankee Stadium at 1:40pm on September 21, 2008, the afternoon of the final game ever to be played in “the House that Ruth Built” that evening.

Fast forward to September 21, 2008, when something unprecedented happened. The Yankees played their final game at the original Yankee Stadium before it would be torn down and they would move into a new Stadium across the street. I was there for both the final game at the original Stadium, (built in 1923, “the House that Ruth built,” the home to an incredible amount of baseball history), and the first game played across the street at the new Stadium in spring, 2009. 

Baseball heaven. Babe Ruth & Roger Maris once stood here. The view standing in right field looking towards home plate at the original Yankee Stadium before the final game, September 21, 2008.

Before the final game they actually allowed fans on the sacred field- unprecedented in modern times. The same field that Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Roger Maris and countless others had played on. As I walked slowly around the entire field, which I still can’t believe I actually did. I stopped in right field and stood there taking in the view. The same view Babe Ruth and Roger Maris, both right fielders, had. I was wearing my number 9 Roger Maris Yankee jersey. A newspaper photographer came up behind me and asked me to stand still. He shot me from behind looking at the huge stadium in front of me on its final day- showing #9 in its old right field stomping grounds. Then, I picked up my camera and took the picture above of the view I had looking in to home plate. If there’s such a thing as “baseball heaven,” this is it. 

The last game at the original Stadium is about to get underway as former Yankee greats from different periods stand at their former positions, September 21, 2008.

Being on the field was unforgettable. Then, later that night, the Yankees introduced an amazing array of former players, culminating with Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford, both making their final appearance on the field where so much of their legendary careers took place. Roger Maris, who passed away in 1985 at the age of 51, was not among them. Neither was Mickey Mantle, who died in 1995 at 63. 

All of this came back to me tonight, September 29, 2022, after current Yankee Aaron Judge hit his 61st home run of 2022, tying Roger Maris’s American League record. So far, Roger Maris’s record has stood for an ironic 61 years. Consider this- Babe Ruth’s record 60 home runs in 1927 stood for 34 years, until Roger Maris in 1961. Also ironically, Aaron Judge wears 99, Maris wore 9. 

I was struck by some strange feelings that really have nothing to do with Aaron Judge- an amazing player, beloved by teammates and fans. He stands a good chance of breaking the record. I hope he does and keeps going. Roger Maris’s wife and his son, Roger, Jr. were at the game. After the game Roger, Jr said that, in his opinion, if he hits #62, Aaron Judge should be recognized as the true all-time single season home run record holder- and not Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, who each hit more than 61 in a season, because each have been mentioned as possible drug users. Personally, I agree with Mr. Maris.

Watching the aftermath (I missed seeing Mr. Judge hit it live) tonight, and the interviews, my thoughts turned to Roger Maris. I’m not a believer in halls of fame. They’re too subjective. Someone worthy always gets left out. To this day, the powers that be have deemed Roger Maris not worthy of “enshrinement” in Cooperstown. Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle are both enshrined there. Aaron Judge may be one day. 

“Against All Odds.” Roger Maris’s plaque in Monument Valley in the original Yankee Stadium, September 21, 2008. The plaque, installed a year before he died, a few hundred feet to the left of where his 61st home run landed, reads like a belated apology.

Still, nothing can take away what Roger Maris accomplished in 1961. Against all the odds, as his plaque in Monument Valley at Yankee Stadium says, he accomplished something extremely unlikely. I will never forget watching it all unfold, then seeing him do it on tv, making me a fan in the process. “I’ll show them,” was his attitude, and he did.

In a world given to unreasonable, personal attacks, bullying, and unbridled invasion of personal privacy for all of us, what a powerful example he set in overcoming all of it that continues to speak to me on so many levels.

Roger Maris 61 in ’61 US postage stamp issued September, 1999.

As I write this on September 29, 2022, Roger Maris is still the co-holder of the American League record, though it might be one of the last days that will be true. Though his “enshrinement” in baseball’s Hall of Fame seems unlikely now, Roger Maris’s accomplishment has long been, and eternally, enshrined in the Hall of Fame of Life, where great feats of intestinal fortitude and incredible perseverance live on to inspire others forever.

Written on my heart…My hand print created with Yankee Stadium dirt on the right field wall where it remained during the final game, September 21, 2008.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Home Run” by Joe Nichols from his 2022 album Good Day for Living.

Special thanks to Fluff.

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  1. https://pophistorydig.com/topics/tag/mickey-mantle-1961 ↩

NighthawkNYC.com Is Seven! A Year In The Life Of…

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

In honor of its 7th Anniversary, July 15, 2022, I decided to take a look back at Year Seven of NighthawkNYC.com, my most challenging year yet.

Lying in the hospital in November, I seriously doubted I’d be able to continue NighthawkNYC.com and get through Year Seven. Then, things got a bit worse…

During Year 7-
-The galleries that survived (alongside the countless galleries, stores, restaurants and businesses that didn’t) reopened, with restrictions, after the covid shutdown.
-The museums moved closer to full schedules (though not completely), with restrictions.
-Cézanne, Alice Neel, Jennifer Packer, Jasper Johns were each given blockbuster shows. Richard Estes, who like Jasper Johns also turned 90 this past year, was not. I wrote about all of them this year.

Along with this, this past year was a very hard year for me, personally. I hit year 15 free of cancer, but dealt with a mysterious illness that I still don’t have an answer for, then suffered a devastating financial setback. In spite of ALL of it, I created & published TWENTY-FIVE full-length pieces in those 52 weeks! 20 of them while I was working on the 3 Richard Estes pieces that took me 11 months to finish.
See for yourself-

Published on NighthawkNYC.com between July 15, 2021 and July 14, 2022, Year Seven, interspersed with personal “highlights” of my year-

August 1, 2021- “The Met’s Alice Need Love Letter To NYC” (Clicking on the title in each white box below opens the piece so you can revisit it.)

The Met’s Alice Neel Love Letter To NYC

August 21- “Don’t Call Chuck Close A ‘Photorealist'”

The last time I saw Chuck Close, I ran into him while we were both out gallery crawling late one Thursday eve in October, 2017, here in a small basement gallery in Chelsea. It was fascinating to watch him study Art he (or I) had never seen before and hear his comments.

Don’t Call Chuck Close A “photorealist”

September 10- “Remembering 9/11”- For the very first time, to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of that that horrific, indelible day, I shared my memories of 9/11 and the Photos I took before, on 9/11, and immediately after.

Just unimaginable. The view from my window shortly after 9:05am on 9/11/2001 showing the North Tower, 1 World Trade Center, on fire. I’ve never shared any of the Photos in this piece before.

Remembering 9/11

On September 15th, I began having spells of lightheadedness. I immediately went to the doctor, who tested me and couldn’t find anything wrong. 

September 21- “Cézanne’s Other Revolution”

The Murder, 1874-75, Pencil, watercolor, and gouache on paper. In this tiny work, the knife is held high amidst an idyllic scene, with an ominous cross lurking above.

Cézanne’s Other Revolution

October 23- “Art Is Back In Chelsea”

Metro Pictures on West 24th Street. I have seen many memorable shows here, including the fine Louise Lawler show that’s up now. They said they decided to close because of the globalization of the Art market, which doesn’t suit their model. I’ll miss it.

Art Is Back In Chelsea

November 7- “Tyler Mitchell: Bringing Joy Back To Art”

Tyler Mitchell

Tyler Mitchell: Bringing Joy Back To Art

At 4:30pm on November 9th, I nearly fainted crossing 8th Avenue. Wearing all black in the dark, I’m sure I would have been killed if the light had changed. I staggered to the other side then managed to get in a cab and go to the Emergency Room. After 10 hours, they decided to admit me. I was in the hospital for 3 days and saw 27 doctors. None could tell me what was wrong. I walked home (about 2 miles) after being released feeling just like I did when I went to the E.R. .

November 19- “John Chamberlain’s Twisted Dreams.” A nurse chastised me for working on this piece while I was in the hospital.

John Chamberlain’s Twisted Dreams

At 4:30pm on November 20th, the day after I published the John Chamberlain piece, I had another near fainting spell. I went back to the Emergency Room where I spent another 7 hours. Again, they couldn’t find a cause. This time I was released and walked home. To this minute, I still don’t know what was wrong. I was subsequently put on medication for a heart problem discovered during testing. The lightheadedness seemed to largely get better. The doctors I informed of this said it didn’t make any medical sense. 

November 27- “NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2021”

Zanele Muholi, the catalog for her show at, and published by, the Tate, London.

NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2021

December 28- “NoteWorthy Art Books (And Bricks), 2021”

Toyin Ojih Odutola, The UmuEze Amara Clan and the House of Obafemi

NoteWorthy Art Books (and Bricks), 2021

January 14, 2022- “NoteWorthy Music Book, 2021- Paul McCartney: The Lyrics”

From The Lyrics: Throughout the text Sir Paul regularly registers a very wide range of literature. Art is not left out. Left, we see him visiting Willem de Kooning, and right, one of his own Paintings from 1991.

NoteWorthy Music Book, 2021- Paul McCartney: The Lyrics

On January 20th, I suffered a devastating financial loss that leaves me having to focus on my survival full-time. To that point, I had worked on NighthawkNYC full-time for 6 1/2 years for no money, while other costs, besides my labor, have been quite substantial. 

February 4-  “Jasper Johns: Contemporary Art Begins Here”

Jasper Johns, Untitled, 2021, Acrylic and graphic over etching on paper. As strong as ever- at 90!

Jasper Johns: Contemporary Art Begins Here

February 19- “Cancer, +15”  Going in to cancer treatment, I had a 20% chance of getting through year 1 without additional treatment. Hard to believe I’m alive 15 years later…There are no words to express my Thanks. I hope sharing my experiences may help others…

Cancer, +15

February 21- “Jennifer Packer Arrives”

Jennifer Packer @ The Whitney. The word is out. The crowds are beginning to show up. December 28, 2021.

Jennifer Packer Arrives

March 21- “The Sculptural Photography of Vik Muniz”

Vik Muniz with his Nameless (Woman with Turban) after Alberto Henschel, 2020, Archival inkjet print, 90 by 59 inches, One of a kind.

The Sculptural Photography of Vik Muniz

April 4- “Nick Sethi’s PhotoBook Release In Canal Street”

Mind the meter. Nick Sethi takes it to the streets.

Nick Sethi’s PhotoBook Release In Canal Street

April 7- “The Brutal/Smells Like Teen Spirit Mashup” (Olivia Rodrigo meets Kurt Cobain)

Screencap of “Good 4 u,” Directed by Petra Collins.

The Brutal / Smells Like Teen Spirit Mashup

April 14- “Highlights of the Whitney Biennial: Matt Connors”

Matt Connors, One Wants to Insist Very Strongly, 2020

Highlights of the 2022 Whitney Biennial: Matt Connors

April 22- “Caslon Bevington’s Counterfeit Weather”

Caslon Bevington, Frictions (Variations A), 2022, Acrylic on panel, 16 x 20″

Caslon Bevington’s Counterfeit Weather

May 9- “Alec Soth: A Pound of Pictures”

Alec Soth: A Pound of Pictures

May 16- “Ahndraya Parlato: Magic, Mystery, Love & Death”

The cover of Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead

Ahndraya Parlato: Magic, Mystery, Love & Death

May 22- “Richard Estes: Painter. With No Prefixes”

Richard Estes even took over my banner for his 90th. Double Self-Portrait, 1967, from near the beginning of his mature career, seen here behind me.

Richard Estes: Painter. With No Prefixes.

June 6- “Richard Estes Art: What I See”

Richard Estes, Times Square, 2004, This may be the most technically astounding Painting I’ve ever seen, along with any Painting by Jan van Eyck. Having stood on this spot before, during and after 2004, I can certainly verify the overwhelming visual noise that still is Times Square, something that has never been more faithfully realized than it is here.

Richard Estes Art: What I See

June 19- “Richard Estes: Two ‘Manifestos'”

Self-Portrait, 2013

Richard Estes: Two “Manifestos”

June 29- “Learning to Think like David Byrne”

Learning To Think Like David Byrne

July 11- “Thank You, Sheena Wagstaff” I’ll miss the recently departed Chair of The Met’s Modern & Contemporary Department. I close out Year Seven of NHNYC with a look at what she’s given me, NYC, and the world this past decade.

Sheena Wagstaff looking at a very large work by Ursula von Rydingsvard at Galerie Lelong & Co., April, 2018, when I happened upon her when we were both making the rounds of galleries one afternoon (independently, of course).

Thank You, Sheena Wagstaff

P H E W!
I can’t begin to tell you how much work all of that was. Oh, and I got through it all, and spent all of the year, alone. Every minute of it for the second year in a row. Trust me. You don’t want to try it.

On July 15, 2015, I started this site to share my passion for Art and what I’ve seen in the NYC Art world with those everywhere else. In the past 7 years, I’ve published about 275 full-length pieces- 275 in 364 weeks! I have created everything you see on this site for free, and it’s been FREE to access for all!

Well, sooner or later something had to give. Nothing is truly “free” on the internet, though. It means that all the expenses incurred in creating, running  and maintaining NighthawkNYC.com have fallen on me. For the past 7 years, I’ve managed to keep this site ad-free. To defray some of the high costs, I experimented with Amazon links for 3 pieces, then abandoned them. I’ve considered using Patreon, I’ve been told I should put up a pay-gate like other similar sites use.

I’ve decided that first, I should see how much support there is for what I’ve been doing.

If you like what I’ve been doing, if you find this site useful, if you’ve discovered an Artist you previously didn’t know and now are interested in, or a book you’ve taken to, or you want to support Independent Art writing- your support has never been needed more than it is right now. THIS is the time to help.

Donate to keep it up & ad-free below. Thank you!

As always- Thank You for reading my pieces.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “New York Minute” by Don Henley from The End of the Innocence, 1989 performed here by Eagles, unplugged in 1994-

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts, if any, below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

For L.

Remembering 9/11

This site is Free & Ad-Free!

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Preface- I lived in Manhattan through September 11, 2001 unscratched. I lost no one I personally knew in the attacks (as far as I know), but we all lost 2,713 irreplaceable New Yorkers. 20 years later, 9/11 remains one of the most unforgettable days in my life. My days in the World Trade Center area go back to before the construction of the Twin Towers. Then, the weeks after the attacks were equally gut-wrenching. In Remembrance of the victims on the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks I decided to share my experiences and the pictures I took of the World Trade Center before, on 9/11, and after, for the first time, not because I think they are anything outside of the ordinary, but because they are just that- the memories of one average person living in Manhattan on September 11th, 2001, of the World Trade Center, the attacks, and the weeks immediately after. 

Facing south, looking up at Tower 1 on the right, Tower 2 on the left over World Trade Center 6, the black shape, right, and a piece of World Trade Center 5, on the left. Vesey Street, June 20, 1998. Click any picture for full size.

1- Witness to Unspeakable Horror

September 11th, 2001 marked the first of the “life will never be the same” moments that have characterized the first century of the new millennium, the latest of which we are all still living, wherever we are. Wherever we were that September morning 20 years ago as this was happening here, in Washington DC, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, I doubt many of us had any idea what was really happening and how all of our lives would change.

I didn’t.

Just unimaginable. The view from my window shortly after 9:05am on 9/11/2001 showing the North Tower, 1 World Trade Center, on fire.

I woke that morning at 9:05am. I switched on NY1, the local news station to get the weather, as was my habit each morning. When the set came on, I saw a stunning image through my waking eyes. Smoke coming out of the top of the World Trade Center! What? HOW is that possible? They were saying “a small plane” had crashed into it. As we know now, at 8:46am, hijacked American Airlines Flight #11 had been purposely crashed in to the North Tower.

Dwarfing everything. The Twin Towers and 7 World Trade Center, the taller brown building in front of them, seen on June 20, 1998. I remember the neighborhood before the WTC, and the white College of Insurance in front of it, were built. It all looked like the rest of the buildings in the picture. For a look at the destruction of the area to build the WTC check out Danny Lyon’s PhotoBook The Destruction of Lower Manhattan.

A little over 8 months earlier I had been to the Windows On The World Restaurant at the top of Tower 1 (the North Tower, the first to be hit on 9/11, the Tower on fire in the picture earlier) for a company holiday party, the second time in 3 years the company had held it there. For those who never set foot inside either Tower of the World Trade Center, I’m sorry. You really can’t begin to imagine it. From a distance, the WTC is the highest thing in sight, visible in almost every picture of the NYC skyline. It was visible for almost an hour away on various roadways approaching Manhattan. As you moved closer and closer to it on the street, it’s height went from gigantic (above), to overwhelming (as in the first picture in this piece) to impossible, as in the following picture-

Standing at the base of World Trade Center Tower 2 with Tower 1 looming above on June 28, 1998. If I lowered my head, at eye level was a magnificent Tapestry by Joan Miro on display right beyond the girders in the lobby. Created in 1974 by the great Spanish Artist himself by hand for the building, it was also destroyed on 9/11.

Each building contained 110 stories! Looking up, you couldn’t see the top. As if 110 stories in each Tower, wasn’t enough, each floor was an acre in size. That fact still staggers me.

Riding up to the top was a special experience, even here, in the land of very tall buildings. With “local” and “express” elevators, it was a little like taking a vertical subway. When I got to Windows On The World, of course, I had to look down from those windows, though I’m deathly afraid of heights. I never made it to the roof, but this was close enough. Looking down, at night, was like being in an airplane and looking down on dots of light far below you. I really couldn’t make much else out. 

The World Trade Center and I went back a long way, to before there was a World Trade Center when it was “Radio Row.” My father had an office two blocks from the WTC for 45 years. He used to take me to work there on Saturdays and in the summer as a kid, which I absolutely hated. We used to park under the old West Side Highway at Vesey Street and I’d walk along the site of the WTC as the towers and the complex were being built after the area had been demolished to make way for it. I went to work, two blocks away, the day of Philippe Petit’s incredible walk between the two Towers on August 7, 1974. Over the years, I frequented the legendary J&R Music World on Park Row, one block east of the WTC, and I was there two and a half weeks before 9/11. I lived about a mile and a half from the Trade Center.

That morning, after seeing the smoke on TV, I opened my curtains and, sure enough, I could see from my windows the North Tower was on fire! After dressing, I walked out of my building heading east. As I got to 7th Avenue, I asked someone what happened. He said a plane had flown down 7th and crashed into the World Trade Center! So much happened that day, and the weeks after, that thought didn’t really hit me right away. Later, as I put the whole thing together, I got it-

The first plane (American Airlines Flight #11) on 9/11 had flown down my block!

People frozen in their steps in disbelief, unable to tear themselves away from the horror unfolding in front of them to the left on 6th Avenue around 9:30am on 9/11.

In the months that followed, somehow my sleeping mind grasped this thought my conscious mind had forgotten and concocted a nightmare in which the passengers of the first plane, Flight #11, realized in those final minutes what was going to happen, and jumped the hijackers (no doubt influenced by what really happened to Flight #93 in Pennsylvania) causing it to crash early- into my building!

On the corner of 6th Avenue, there were crowds of people looking at the Towers directly down the street. I pressed on to get to work. On 5th Avenue, that scene was repeated with many more people who lined the Avenue on both sides as far as I could see down. 

The view down 5th Avenue with both Towers on fire just before 10am on 9/11.

By now, it was close to 10am and BOTH Towers were on fire, the second plane having hit the South Tower, a bit lower than the first had hit the North Tower. 

On 5th Avenue, people strain to watch a tiny TV set perched on the widow of a truck, just visible beyond the woman’s blue blouse, as the horror was unfolding to their left at about 10am, 9/11.

I checked in at work. Other staff members were there but most were listening to the radio. Nobody was working. I went back out to 5th Avenue to watch again. When I got there, I immediately realized the South Tower was gone! It had collapsed!

The South Tower had just collapsed leaving something I could never imagine seeing- only one Trade Center Tower standing. Seen on 5th Avenue.

As I said, unless you’d been to the WTC, you have no idea how immense they were. HOW could one collapse?? As it turned out, most New Yorkers, including the first responders, apparently had no idea the Towers being about the biggest thing in NYC could ever collapse. It’s hard to articulate the feeling of seeing something impossible right in front of you. The fires looked like terrible fires, but I’m sure most people felt they would be put out. But, no! That MASSIVE building had collapsed! 110 acres of steel, glass and people were somehow just gone. That was the first realization that our long-held unassailable assumptions were assailable. I remembered hearing someone say years ago that if one of those buildings ever fell it would destroy everything for blocks around in that direction. Having lived for must of my life with those Twin Towers defining the famous skyline of Manhattan. Now, there was only one!, it too was on fire, and had been for longer than Tower 2 was!

A few minutes later, as I stood there in a crowd of fellow New Yorkers, I saw THE most horrific thing I’ve ever seen in my life happen right in front of my eyes.

Tower 1 collapsed.

The North Tower, World Trade Center 1, in the midst of collapsing at 10:28am.

It looked like it happened in slow motion. A huge, eerie, grey cloud slowly rose where it had stood, and kept rising. I stood there open-mouthed watching in utter horror. How many people did I just watch die? 

After watching Tower 1 collapse, my immediate thought was – What’s gong to happen next? I immediately turned around 180 degrees. There, 13 blocks behind me, straight up 5th Avenue, stood the Empire State Building. In 1945 a B-25 Bomber, a large plane indeed, had accidentally crashed into it. Yet, it remained standing after that, and it was still standing now.

The scene after both Towers had collapsed around 10:45am leaving billowing clouds of smoke that would last for days.

Numb, and in a state of shock, I headed back to my office. We closed for the day. Some of my co-workers began the walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. I headed back across town. I dropped my bag off and headed back out with my camera. 

West Side Highway at Houston Street as far as the NYPD was letting pedestrians go on the afternoon of 9/11.

I walked over to the Hudson River, where you could see the WTC all the way down. As I started walking along what is now Hudson River Park, a steady stream of Emergency & construction vehicles sped past me on the Highway. At Houston Street, a bit north of Canal Street, all pedestrian, and non-emergency related traffic was stopped. I stood there for a few hours, most of which was spent watching the biggest cloud of smoke I’d ever seen rising up then bending over east towards Brooklyn (which was a lucky thing, for me, at least, as it turned out).

7 World Trade Center collapses at 5:20pm. Seen from Greenwich Street, September 11th.

Finally, I headed inland. As I reached Greenwich Street, it was now 5:20pm. Just as I got there, 7 World Trade Center collapsed! 7 WTC was a nondescript brown square building across Vesey Street from the Twin Towers. It would have seemed to be a fair distance away from them, but given the immensity of each Tower, not far enough. There was also a huge shopping center under the Towers and other, lower, buildings and a hotel I once stayed in, as part of the main complex. ALL of it was destroyed in the 9/11 attack. 

Wow. I had personally witnessed TWO of the three main World Trade Center complex buildings collapse! 

I found out later, 7 WTC had been evacuated. Unfortunately, as we all know, that wasn’t the case for 1 or 2 WTC, the Twin Towers. 

After watching 7 World Trade go down, I began making my way home. I walked through Greenwich Village. There, I came upon an incredible sight that has stayed in my mind along with the collapses as indelible.

The heartbreaking scene outside of Saint Vincent’s Hospital. Doctors, nurses and staff wait for the arrival of victims. Before 6pm, September 11th.

As I came upon Saint Vincent’s Hospital, the closest hospital to the WTC, I saw their side of 7th Avenue lined with green hospital scrubs, with a few white coats mixed in, doctors, nurses and hospital staff, all of who were standing alongside empty, clean gurneys. 

It took me a moment to realize what that meant. And that moment was the moment I lost it. 

NO ONE was coming to be treated. 

EVERYONE was dead. 

2- Union Square

That night, I went to my local watering hole and commiserated with friends and neighbors. As the hours and days passed, you could not go anywhere around here and not see “MISSING” fliers posted on every available space. These were often unlike most of the typical “MISSING” fliers that pop up from time to time. Many of these went beyond the basic stats needed to identify a missing person, into the realm of biography & memorial. A few days after 9/11, I walked with 2 acquaintances heading south. We passed through Union Square. I was stopped dead in my tracks. The central lawn area is rung with a brick wall all around it, and there was a fence inside that protecting the grass. There, on every square inch of this wall and fence were MISSING fliers! In front of them, spontaneous memorials, with thousands of candles burning bright at 3am. I parted from the couple and went home to grab my camera then walked back. I stayed until after 7am. It was just overwhelming to walk among so much loss, to get a tiny sense of who someone was, from a smile, from a few words, from someone else’s pain who was left behind.

Blurry night photo of Union Square, September 19, 2001. The entire Park was blanketed with MISSING fliers, candles and remembrances left by the constant stream of visitors, here ringing the entire lawn to the right and all the way in the back. Never, before or since, have I seen such a huge outpouring of love, loss and incalculable pain.

I found out in the week following 9/11 that two people I knew had been in the Towers that day. Both got out. To this day, I’m not aware of anyone I personally knew who died. Of course, many, many “MISSING” fliers were NYFD, NYPD, PAPD, EMTs, and other first responders. Those that got me hardest were those seeking everyday people. People who either just happened to be there, or who worked there.

MANY of the MISSING fliers were so poignant they stopped me in my tracks, like this one. When they talk about 9/11 heroes, and there are many, people like Mayra Valdes, who served as a Fire Warden for her company on the 103rd floor of the South Tower, deserve to be counted highly among them, “…last seen screaming to her co-workers to get off the floor, to get out…” Ms. Valdes left a 12 year old son. Union Square Subway Station, September 19, 2001.

Imagine just going to work on a Tuesday morning only to be the target, and the victim, of the biggest terrorist attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor, and the biggest targeting civilians? I thought back to the staff members of Windows On The World, who would have had ZERO chance of getting out if they had been there when the 1st plane hit1, and those others I’d seen who worked at the WTC. 

3- Christmas at Ground Zero

Having no family, I’m alone most holidays. It’s never easy when everyone else is with someone. Hell, no one had called me on 9/11 to see if I was ok. Christmas, 2001, was particularly hard because of what had happened that September day and after. Starting to feel depressed Christmas afternoon, I realized I need to stop that in its tracks. I decided to walk down to the World Trade Center site, by then, commonly called Ground Zero. 

I walked down along the West Side Highway, revisiting my youth when I had to park the car there often in gale force winds whipping off the Hudson. This was a particularly cold night. I was frozen to the core, but I was determined to get there and meditate on what had happened and those lost. I walked along the highway and as I approached Vesey Street, I saw some faint lights in the distance. No one was around. My only companion was the wind, the coming dark, and the cold. 

A Christmas Tree installed by construction workers on the West Side Highway at Ground Zero with the Overpass to the World Financial Center behind, the severely damaged World Financial Center to the right. Christmas Day, 2001.

As I approached Vesey Street, I could make out a Christmas Tree with some lights on it. I imagine the construction workers had set it up. No one else was around. Whoever had put it here was off somewhere else with his or her others. It was fitting it was here. Off to my 10 o’clock “the pile” of debris from the collapse sat, the smoldering finally ended, containing the remains of who knows how many in complete stillness in the dark. I stood there letting ALL of this wash over me for a few minutes, staring over at the dark emptiness that had been the World Trade Center complex. I had stood on this very spot before the World Trade Center was built. I was here when they were being built. Now, I am standing here after they were gone, something I never imagined possible. Though there was a lot of damage and destruction to the surrounding buildings, it always felt like if the WTC Towers had ever fallen over entire City blocks would have been taken out by them. But no. It wasn’t like that for the most part. Most of the buildings right around them, including 3 landmarks, were still there. It struck me standing there that what happened was like a giant hand had come down and lifted the Towers clean out the damage from two such immense collapses was so confined. While it was happening, then as I stood there on Christmas, and to this day 20 years later, when I look out of my window, it’s still very hard to believe they’re gone. But it happened, largely right in front of me.

A woman walking around keeping the candles lit. Union Square, September 19, 2001

I said a silent prayer for all of those we lost, and realized that things could ALWAYS be worse. Then, I turned around and walked home.

The view from my window, tonight, September 10, 2021, with the Tribute in Light just behind where the Twin Towers stood.

This Post is dedicated to all those lost on September 11, 2001, and those who continue to be lost since the attacks due to related illnesses.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Life In The Air Age,” by Bill Nelson of Be Bop Deluxe and recorded on their classic Lps Sunburst Finish, 1976 and Live! In The Air Age, 1977, below-

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for 9 years, during which 330 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate by PayPal below to allow me to continue. Thank you, Kenn.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

For “short takes,” my ongoing “Visual Diary” series, and outtakes from my pieces, be sure to follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram!

  1. It turns out the Restaurant was open at the time, and the staff members and guests who were there all died. ↩

December 8th, 1980-2020

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Tales from Isolation. Day #322

Two Days In My Life

After my early young adulthood as an Art lover, and before I focused on Art, again, I spent about 15 years in Music. Early on, I was on the road with a band, based out of Miami, Florida, for five years. Towards the end of 1980, things were getting really bad in South Florida, inspiring the TV show “Miami Vice,” which after having lived through the reality, I found hysterical. It got so bad, the word was that there so many murders the only cases that were being investigated were when a cop was killed.

My Axe. My blonde 1976 Fender Jazz Bass. The color darkened from 4 years of playing in smoke-filled clubs, rests on my way worn Gig Bag.

Around this time, we took a gig playing a party in Coconut Grove. Not something we ever did- before or after, but it was for a friend of a friend who loved the band, and we liked the idea. “Hey, I’m having a big party and it would be so great if you guys came and played” kind of thing. He made it worth our while to take our gear off the stage of the club we were house band at on Miracle Mile, so what the heck. It was an afternoon outdoor job, and we were up on a hill looking down over the large lawn on a road between us and a row of houses lining the water. Suddenly, a group of police cars descended on the scene across that road. It was a raid. A drug bust. Then the host/our boss for this gig, came over and said “Keep playing.” When trouble starts in a club or a bar, the boss ALWAYS comes over and says “Keep playing,” (like I imagine the boss did on the Titanic) while everyone else is falling all over themselves rushing to get to the exit. “Keep playing.” Like when a riot broke out in a biker bar we were playing in. But that’s a different story.

My blonde 1978 Fender Fretless Precision Bass. I went Fretless after I met the late, great Jaco Pastorius, the genius of the Bass, and a Fretless player, in 1977.

It’s funny how the guys from the union, the AF of M, are never around at those times- only when someone playing was not a member. We looked at each other, the girls dancing in bikinis in front of us, glanced at our cars parked behind us, and then at the unfolding drama going on across the street in front of us. Don Johnson’s got nothing on me. I’m living vice in Miami. 

If gunplay broke out, we might well be in the innocent line of fire, like too many others, before or since. 

Luckily, it proceeded without bullets, a line of cops escorting suspects emerged, and that was the final scene on a long and eventful road trip, full of  unexpected turns, on my journey into full adulthood. Time to go. It so happens that Paul, a friend in another band I had worked with, called to say he was leaving and moving to NYC. He offered to take my stuff with him if I wanted to get out.  

Hmmmm…After some thought, and discussion with my then girlfriend, a local, I decided to take him up on it and move back. Paul and his girlfriend, who went from being a waitress a few years earlier, to being a member of an internationally known band (not her boyfriend’s) a few years later, pulled up with a large trailer hooked to their car and the three of us loaded all of my belongings into it, and off they went. 

A few days later, I got into my Porsche 914 and drove it from Miami to Orlando and we both got on the AutoTrain. I had made the complete 27 hour nonstop Miami to NYC drive too many times to do it once more. The ride was pleasant enough, though I didn’t get much, if any, sleep, and woke early on Monday, December 8th, 1980. After detraining near Washington, DC, I drove the rest of the 5+ hours to NYC, where the rest of my life would begin.

Shortly after I arrived at my parent’s house I heard the news that John Lennon had just been shot and killed in Manhattan, outside his home at The Dakota. 

WHAT??????!

Bob Gruen, John Lennon- Statue of Liberty, 1974, Magnum Photos.

It was just unfathomable. It still is. Even for someone who lived through JFK’s assassination, and saw Oswald get killed, live, on television. Someone who had heard RFK’s assassination live on the radio. Someone who had lived through the assassination of Martin Luther King. Someone who remembers Malcolm X getting murdered. Murder is not something you ever “get used to.” Murder of such great men, each cut down in their prime, is a crime against humanity.

And murder was exactly why I left Miami!

So began the rest of my life…

December 8th, 2020

I took the C train uptown and got off at West 72nd Street to go The Dakota to pay my respects. Arriving, I was greeted on the platform by Yoko Ono’s transformative Sky mosaic mural. The north side of the station, ironically, is directly underneath The Dakota, where Yoko still lives, I believe1.

Yoko Ono, Detail from Sky, Tile mosaic, West 72nd Street B,C Station, underneath The Dakota, December 8, 2020.

After admiring it and its “Imagine Peace” section, and thinking, “Gee, countless millennia of war hasn’t worked out so well, maybe it IS time to give peace a chance…?,” I headed up the stairs and was greeted by a sky that looked remarkably like the mural.

“…above us only sky…” Exiting the 72nd Street Station at Central Park West, with The Dakota looming on the left, December 8, 2020.

I turned the corner onto West 72nd Street and was greeted by no one. The sidewalk was empty. Down the block, in front of The Dakota, where it happened, stood two uniformed building employees, as usual. I stood for a few minutes on the sidewalk, taking in the scene, and thinking about what had happened 40 years ago today.

The Dakota, West 72nd Street, December 8, 2020.

It almost seemed like I was there on the wrong day. Then, I spotted one small bouquet left by a family.

Across Central Park West, looking into Central Park, I could see a long line of visitors waiting to enter the Strawberry Fields section of the Park, but no one else was here, allowing me a private moment in a place where many people live, but which has always reminded me of this day 40 years ago whenever I’ve passed it.

I walked down the street until I came to the spot. I stood there, briefly, alone with the 2 Dakota staff members.

The Dakota, West 72nd Street, December 8, 2020.

In NYC, particularly in Manhattan, everywhere you look and everywhere you walk, you’re walking on history. And the place is not nearly as old as any city in Europe or many other cities elsewhere. Here is one such spot. Passing it now, you’d have absolutely no idea something horrible and world changing happened right here, because it happened 40 years ago. 40 Years. John Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, during the Nazi Blitz of Liverpool. He had just turned 40 when he died. He’s now been dead for almost as long as he was alive.

My thoughts turned to another fact, as what had happened in all that time raced through my mind. Each and every time something’s happened, like 9/11, and all the rest, sooner or later, I wondered- “What would John Lennon say right now?” In addition to everything else he was, Liverpool’s John Lennon was one of our most prominent, and proud, New Yorkers, and a citizen of the world.

Bob Gruen, John Lennon, NYC, 1974. Magnum Photos. NYC in 1974 is light years from the NYC of 2020. It speaks volumes to me that he was so proud to live here then. This t shirt has been on sale here to this day, probably because of this Photo.

On December 8th, 1980, we were all denied knowing

for the rest of time. 

Now, as I sit here after getting back from West 72nd Street, I’m left to wonder- How would the world have been different? 

If you think that’s a questionable question, consider this- There are some who believe that The Beatles played a roll, perhaps the KEY role, in the collapse of the USSR2, in spite of all the countless billions spent to do it by other means, as seen in the PBS Documentary, “How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin,” from 2009. A grainy video of Part 1, is below (Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5)-

If that’s not helping “give peace a chance,”  I’m not sure we’ve seen much else that is. It’s something that needs to be more closely studied, I think. If it’s true, then we’ve VASTLY underestimated the achievement of the Beatles, already the most revolutionary cultural force of my lifetime. And, we’ve completely ignored the lesson.

Even still, there are hundreds of millions who would have been very interested in what John Lennon had to say on any topic had he lived. Like there would have been to hear what JFK, RFK, MLK or Malcolm X would have said had they lived. 

If all of them had lived, I think this world would be quite a different place today. Along with John’s loss, today I mourn that. Again. 

Yoko Ono, Another detail from Sky, Mosaic, West 72nd Street B,C Station, underneath The Dakota, December 8, 2020.

December 8th, 1980 was a day my life, and the world, changed. Neither have been the same since. It’s up to those who remember those we’ve lost to keep their memory & their messages alive.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Imagine” by John Lennon.

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NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

 

  1. I greatly admire Yoko Ono, for many reasons, not the least of which is the supreme grace with which she handled John’s passing publicly. As an Artist, I believe she is still under-appreciated. My pieces on her work to date are here and here. ↩
  2. Here, ↩

Anthony Bourdain, R.I.P.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

The covers of the New York Post and the Daily News. Click any Photo for full size.

I was saddened to learn of the sudden passing of Anthony Bourdain. Particularly in the way it happened. I sat across from him on the Subway once. We glanced at each other, but I didn’t say anything to him, as New Yorkers are wont to do. Too many of us, myself included, have had personal experience with suicide. While “what happened” remains unknown, the tragedy is that he didn’t get help, and as a result, the world has lost someone with a unique voice who created an equally unique platform he used to show the world to the world. Though he was born across the river in Jersey, I consider him to be a true New Yorker in how he welcomed and explored all cultures. More than that, Tony was what I call an “Ultimate New Yorker:” someone who lived and embodied what it means to be a New Yorker, and who effected life in the City, and beyond. It was a spirit he carried with him everywhere, and as a result, made me feel I was in all of these exotic places he visited that I’ll never see because travel is not in my blood. As I watched his shows, I realized that the way he explored food and culture crystalized the attitude I aspire to in exploring the world of Art & Music- That keeping an open mind often leads to “sensations that stagger the mind,” as Steely Dan said, and enrich one’s life to no end.

Apparently, many others feel a sort of similar connection with Mr. Bourdain. Before he became a famous TV show host, he was the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles on Park Avenue in Manhattan, and he maintained a relationship with the restaurant that lasted until it closed due to bankruptcy in 2017. Here is the scene in front of it yesterday, June 9th, as I joined some of those paying their respects.

As I stood there among these people, I noticed that no one said a word to anyone else, as you can see in my Photos. It struck me that through television, Mr. Bourdain had a personal connection to his viewers that was one to one. He spoke to his viewers directly, and frankly, and was usually in the company of one other person, or alone, creating a surprising level of intimacy for those watching.

I realized that, perhaps, all of these people standing on Park Avenue along side of me were having that experience now as they stood reading the memorial messages that covered every inch of the wall, except he was no longer here to speak to us. The air was silent. It struck me that the sound that was absent, the sound everyone was straining to hear was Mr. Bourdain’s distinctive voice.

More than respect, there was also something else- an air of disbelief. That this man who lived life in an almost superhuman way- going everywhere, eating and drinking everything, and talking to people about food, their lives, and more, and doing it all again, and again, and again, and again, was suddenly gone. Part of that silence was that no one really knew what to say. Beyond, “Thanks, Tony. The world will miss you.”

For the rest of us? The takeaway is- When the pain gets to be THAT bad? Don’t let it be “unknown.” Reach out to someone.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Beautiful World,” the theme to his show, “Parts Unknown,” by Josh Homme and Mark Lanegan of Queens of the Stone Age.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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Cancer Saved My Life

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

I grew up in a pre-determined life.

An empty lot? No, this is the box I grew up in. Click any image for full size.

I existed to follow in my father’s footsteps. The problem was that I had absolutely no inclination, or desire to do so.  Right through high school graduation there was never one iota of thought or discussion given to thinking “he might want his own life” by my family. After I escaped, by going on the road with a band, my family actively worked against my efforts trying to force me to come back to their plan. I disowned them in 2005. Lots of lonely holiday seasons have followed. By then, the die had been cast. I wound up knee deep in a career I never wanted to be in just to survive.

I know how he feels.

Finally, I dug myself out and got back to having a career in music, which went very well, until I got fed up with the record business (back when there was a record business), but that’s a story unto itself. Then, in 2007, I was diagnosed with cancer. I got the news, the results of my biopsy done the previous week, over the phone while I was sitting in my office.

“How was your weekend?,” the doctor asked quite casually. “Good,” I said. “That’s the good news. The bad news is that you have cancer,” were his exact words.

Time stopped. The clock read a little after noon as I recall.

I could see the blurred shapes of my coworkers walking in front of the glass walls of my office who’s door was closed, but, after those words, that room symbolized how I felt. It felt like I was in this box surrounded by immediate circumstances- this diagnosis and my job. It felt like a room I’d never been in before. The world was going on outside of it, beyond the glass walls. I could see out the window across the hallway and see sunlight coming down the narrow street, shining on the windows on the other side, a few hundred feet distant.

I was in a different world now.

No stranger to spending a lot of time alone, I was now in a  world inside myself, more fully than I had ever been before.

After giving me my diagnosis on the phone, he said you really should come in to talk. “Yeah. I guess so,” I remembered saying. I was barely listening at this point. Disbelief is the first thing that hits you.

A few days later I went to meet with him, he sat down, and said to me “I had to show your slides to my colleagues. We’ve never this before.”

Huh?

What could possibly be worse? To get a diagnosis with cancer, THEN the doctor tells you “we’ve never seen this before.”

!?

Apparently all 15 of my biopsy cores came back with cancer. I asked “Are you sure those are my slides?” He said yes, and I don’t remember anything of the meeting after that. It was like a window shade rolled down over my mind after that, like it had been glazed over. I walked out of the hospital, in a daze and crossed insanely busy Park Avenue (which runs both ways) a few hundred feet north of 14th Street in the middle of the day without even looking to see if traffic was coming! Somehow I made it across to Union Square. To this day I have no idea how I got there. I walked back to work at 2 PM. My boss, Rob, who would become a good friend, and the only one I had told at work, came in and sat in my office, he looked at me and asked me if I was OK. I don’t remember responding, just sitting there in that space deep inside of myself still in shock.

Cancer? And? It’s bad?

I’ve never really been sick a day in my life. I’ve never had surgery. I’ve never spent the night in a hospital. There was no cancer in my family. I broke a bone in my hand once, I messed up my knee a little bit, I destroyed the hearing in my left ear playing in the band, and I destroyed my feet wearing rock ‘n’ roll shoes onstage made by the guys who made Kiss’s famous boots. That’s been the extent of my health issues in my life. To be diagnosed with cancer, and have to work your way through the biology, the medicine, the treatment options, the incredibly incomprehensible technology, and try to figure out, alone, what is the best treatment for you, is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

Shock was the first stage for me, and it was quite a while before I got over it. Looking back now, it was years before I got over the shock that yes, I have cancer. Growing up, cancer was a death sentence. One thing I learned that even then, in 2007, most people I eventually told, treated me like I was going to die.

I was alone as I’ve ever been. Why is there even a light on?

Given all my responsibility at work, I didn’t say a word to anyone else there about any of this. A few days later my boss, Rob, came in and announced he was leaving. ! What? Are you serious? He got a better offer. The owner of the company, who still didn’t know, wound up giving me his job. He was the CFO of the 3 corporations with offices in 3 states! He was making $150,000 more than I was making. I was the Controller, but I wasn’t a CPA, which he was. And? I didn’t get a raise.

I had to deal with researching treatment options, not to mention the strain of being newly diagnosed with cancer, while learning his job, at the end of the year with a financial closing period looming for three corporations. I don’t know how I got through all of that. I had two full-time jobs. Learning about cancer, looking for doctors, and researching treatment options, side effects and outcomes, was the other full time job.

Well? At least I didn’t have to worry about “celebrating” the holidays!

I did my due diligence, learned as much as I could, got four opinions, and then decided on the treatment. And then? Every cancer patient’s worst nightmare happened. I picked the WRONG treatment. I chose to have hormone therapy followed by two types of radiation treatment. That’s 3 treatments. Why? Because I just didn’t want to have surgery. People die during surgery.

So, at peace with my choice, that I had avoided surgery, I went back to the hospital to begin my treatment. The doctor who had diagnosed me and called to give me the news sat nearby holding the needle with the hormones in it about 2 inches from my left arm. He said, “You know you’re not going to have any libido for twice as long as you’re going to be on this, right?” The treatment was scheduled to take 2 years. So? That was four years. “Um, what? No. I didn’t know that.” I had asked the question during the original meeting, but didn’t ask the right follow up question. Uggh!

I stopped him. He, basically, saved my life right there.

I went home devastated. After all of this, all of these opinions, all of this research I had made a mistake!

The writing on the wall SCREAMING at me. These letter are about as big as the mistake I made.

This treatment plan was chosen for the WRONG reason- basically, for my comfort. Since it wasn’t surgery, it was in my comfort zone. Ok. So? Now what, Kenn? The cancer is still here.

I had no choice but to start over. Square one.

Going to back to the beginning, I had to face that the most basic fact was the one I wasn’t focused on COMPLETELY. And that is-

Cancer was trying to kill me. This was WAR.

I then asked myself a hard, fundamental and essential question- What do you want to accomplish through treatment? There was only one answer. Get ALL the cancer out of my body as quickly as possible, via the means with the longest track record of proven results. By that I mean long term survival rates free of cancer.

A woman reached out to me online to tell me about her husband’s story. He had been treated and it hadn’t gone well. He had bad side effects after, and both of their lives were now negatively impacted, every day, by them. Then, she said, “If I had to do it over again, I’d insist he go to Dr. Samadi.” Who? He’s a surgeon. Since my treatment choice had turned out to be WRONG, I decided to consider surgery even though, yes, “people die during surgery.”

Umm..? People die from cancer, too, Kenn! MANY more people.

You want your best chance of getting cancer out of your body and possibly beating this horrible disease? Surgery was my best choice. (Mine. Every diagnosis is different. I am not a doctor and I am certainly not giving medical advice here. What worked for me may not for someone else. There are side effects from any treatment, and they are just one factor that needs to be carefully considered.) I was still young enough that if surgery didn’t work I could have radiation treatment(s) after. In my case, I couldn’t do it the other way around. I posted on a cancer support website asking who other patients thought was the best surgeon in NYC. About 20 people responded in 24 hours. Dr. Samadi got 3 votes. No one else got more than 1. The next day Dr. Samadi, himself, contacted me through the website.

“Hello. With your diagnosis, I can treat you and your prognosis will be excellent.”

Huh? What “good” doctor is on the internet looking for patients?

I didn’t respond. My bias against using the internet for this returned. What was I thinking looking for a cancer doctor ONLINE? The road to help, and an answer, felt endless…cold, lonely. It was November, outside and the dead of winter in my soul.

Life lies dormant on The HighLine in February. The path stretches far out ahead into the cold night…

About this time my friend, Fluffy, told me to try Columbia Presbyterian. President Clinton had been treated there. So? Being as Dr. Samadi was there, and with these other recommendations, I decided to call his office.

No one returned my call. ?

I decided to finally write back to him and tell him I tried. He said, “I’m leaving on a trip tomorrow at 1:30pm. Just come to my office and I will get you in.” Without an appointment? Again, irregular. But? Ok. I did. He did. Opinion #5.

I was impressed with every thing about him. He told me he could give me a triple golden outcome (i.e. be free of cancer with neither of the two most serious side effects, i.e. incontinence, impotence). An expert in the (then) new robotic surgery, he also had had state of the art training, and experience, in the two other, time tested types of surgery. Should the robot somehow fail, he could switch to one of them without missing a beat and complete the operation. No other doctor I knew of in NYC could do that. He had treated many patients successfully (I would speak to some). He seemed to have every base covered. The robotic surgery seemed to promise minimal incisions leading to a quicker recovery. I left feeling I didn’t want anyone else to touch me. I realized later that that feeling of ultimate confidence is something you MUST have in a doctor you choose to treat you! I decided then and there to make an appointment to have Dr. Samadi operate on me. I had done a 360 on surgery. Let’s go! It was the third week of November. The earliest appointment was in March!

What? Let me get this straight-

He’s booked FOUR MONTHS in advance AND still took time to find me online and offer his help (to me)? Wow. Now? I was in awe. It felt like a hand had come out of the sky and plucked me out of the worst nightmare of my life. “Just get on the schedule and I will move you up,” he said, as my condition required quicker treatment.

He operated on me on February 7, 2007. 10 years ago today.

4 hours later, my eyes partially opened. The bottom half of my closed eyes revealed light. I slowly opened them more. There were trees, branches and sunlight. Where was I? It was early February. This wasn’t winter. This was spring. Around this narrow opening of light, it was all darkness. Just a narrow rectangle of light in the lower center.  It didn’t look like the famous “tunnel” near death experience survivors speak about. But, there was a center section of light surrounded by blackness.

Passing this doorway this week uncannily reminded me of “waking up” that day.

I laid there for over an hour and a half before anyone came over. I was in the recovery room. At least that’s where I was told I was. The light was from an open window about 100 feet across from me. I wasn’t sure I was alive.

To this day? Part of me feels like I died on that operating table on February 7, 2007.

In many ways, my life did end that day. As I realized that, I started thinking of my “new life” as having begun that day, too.

So, today? I’m 10 years old.

The part of my life that DID die from cancer? Ok…

I had no wife, no girlfriend, no family, no kids, no one I could see on a daily basis, there was almost no love in my life. Most of my friends took off after I got sick. The girl I had been seeing did me three days before my surgery, then I didn’t hear from her for four months. Until she sent me a card. A card? You live two blocks away from me. You’re the closest person I know in the whole world to where I live. I’m getting through my recovery alone, in a 4th floor walkup, with no one to help me. And, you send me a card?

She wasn’t the only one.

My “best friend” of seven years pulled up shop in New York and decided to move home to Indianapolis, Indiana. She went to see a friend of mine at a bar the night of my surgery when I was lying unconscious in the hospital. She told him she was leaving in the morning. He asked her, “Are you going to say goodbye to Kenn?” She said “Yes.” She never did. She left town and never even said goodbye to me. I was hoping and expecting she would help me over the next couple of weeks.

One of the first things cancer taught me was it made me realize that the two or three friends I had left were my real Friends (cap, mine, as I am wont to do in this Blog). Forget the online nonsense of what people call “friends.” How dare they use that word! I KNOW what a Friend is. I learned the hard way. When push comes to shove, When the stuff hits the fan, and all bets are off, like the soldiers talk about “in their foxholes,” you’re lucky if you have two or three people by your side. That was the first major lesson I learned.

The doctor who diagnosed me told me I had a 20% chance of making it through year 1 after treatment without needing additional treatment. Today, I celebrate TEN YEARS without addtional treatment!

But? Early on? I was sure I was a goner. That 20% quickly flipped in focus to 80% against.

I decided to sell everything I owned and make preparations for “the end.” I lived like I was going to die. My assistant at work forced me out of my job while I was laid up in bed, so I left my job of 10 years, and the career I never wanted, to focus on my recovery. After I did, I took stock of my life.

Almost everyone was gone. My career was gone. My former boss, now friend, Rob used to ask me, “What are you doing in this job? You’re a creative guy.” It hit me pretty hard. I didn’t have an answer for him, until life handed me the answer. My cancer was gone (at least until my next test). What am I going to do now?

I decided to take care of myself. Complete my recovery, and live being myself- 24/7. Crazy, right? Who does that? 10 years later, I haven’t looked back. (Yet.) It’s pretty scary, though. I can’t say I don’t worry about the future. Then again? Who doesn’t?

Yes, someone is sleeping in the doorway of this gallery.

So? Yes, a fair amount of the life I knew did die on February 7, 2007.

The second big thing cancer taught me was what REALLY MATTERS in life.

Are you ready?

I realized that ALL that matters in life is Loving and being Loved.

Read that again. I’ll wait.

That’s all. Period. End of sentence. Goodnight! Get home safely.

But, having no love in my life? Being a “get it done” kind of guy. I decided I could “get it done” and find love. I spent most of the next 5 years looking for love- E V E R Y W H E R E. What I re-learned was that “finding love” is impossible. Love isn’t something you can “find.” It just happens. Or? It just doesn’t happen. Finally? I decided to love myself. It was all I had left.

“The words of the prophet are written on the subway wall,” Paul Simon once sang. Or? A block away.

Besides? If you don’t love yourself, who will?

Of course I’ve been very lucky, and have so very much to be thankful for. I have been trying to practice mindful giving thanks from moment to moment. Having cancer, also, puts you in touch with the cancer community. I heard a lot of stories. Many terrible. Many inspiring. It’s miraculous, to me, that anyone survives cancer, given how it was when I was growing up. I’ve watched some dear people die from it. I’ve talked to quite a few people who didn’t have good outcomes- either from complications from their treatment, or from cancer returning and spreading. The cancer community is, also a wonder. Survivors like the author Musa Mayer, (who is “also” the great Philip Guston‘s daughter) have forged new paths in cancer advocacy and given hope and support to countless others in ways that didn’t exist when I was diagnosed.

I was privileged to be in the presence of Musa Mayer a few weeks ago as she spoke about her father’s, Philip Guston’s, work in the Nixon Drawings show @ Hauser & Wirth.

Beyond them, to say I’m grateful to the doctors who treated me and saved me 10 years ago is a huge understatement. Recently, I had the honor to meet another one who’s on the front lines right now, Dr. Melissa Pilewskie at Sloan Kettering Memorial Cancer Center. Listening to her, I couldn’t help but marvel at her inner strength, and those of my doctors. She told me that as a surgeon she has treated 2,000 patients in 5 years. That’s 400 a year. There’s only 365 days in a year! Ok, Dr. Pilewskie is obviously a world-class doctor, with an extraordinarily rare skill set. I couldn’t help but wonder…where does this young lady get the inner strength to deal with cancer patients all day every day? Let alone to deal with them so well. It was a humbling experience that reminded me of the debt I owe the doctors who treated me. On my 10 year anniversary, it was also an insight into how far cancer treatment has come in my lifetime, and continues to progress, and a reminder of how many very special people are in there fighting tooth and nail to treat, beat, and even cure cancer. This isn’t a “job” to them. It’s their mission.

THANK YOU! And, bless you all.

If you get diagnosed with cancer (PLEASE, no!), you now have a great chance of being treated, and then get to go on with your life. My advice to you is- Get the best doctor your insurance will cover and get treated. Go for your follow up tests, religiously. For everyone else who doesn’t have cancer? Catching cancer early really is your best chance to beat it. Don’t miss those checkups! That’s how mine was discovered, my life saved.

The big reveal from my experience with cancer is that cancer wound up forcing me to have the life I always wanted to have.

Finally.

No one lives forever. I was living my life like I was going to live to be 200, and everything I REALLY wanted to do, I would get to one day. Well? One day is N O W. That’s why I have this site. That’s why I spend my life going to see Art 6 days a week, taking photos and listening to music. I can’t wait for “one day” anymore. Damn the expense (which goes up every minute)! Damn the later impact on my life (he says now)!

If I don’t do this NOW? WHEN am I going to do it? I don’t know if any of this would’ve happened if I didn’t get cancer.

After I started to recover, I had some of those plastic bracelets made for my site before this one. I was writing about my daily experiences with cancer, in an effort to give others who were newly diagnosed some information through sharing my experiences, because at the time no one else was doing it. On them, I had three phrases engraved. One was

Get tested

The second was

Get treated

And finally-

LIVE YOUR LIFE!

They were there as a reminder to myself, a mantra, as much as what I’d learned.

Close, and seeing this this week was a coincidence, and a reminder.

Early on my friend and cancer survivor, Stephanie 2, told me that cancer “would change my life in ways I could not imagine.” She was right. My experience with cancer challenged me in more ways than any other. In the end? It challenged me to face myself. To love myself and to be myself, fully, no matter what.

I’m not grateful for cancer. I HATE cancer. It’s taken the lives of friends, acquaintances, and many I’ve admired from afar. It’s cost me parts of my body I really didn’t want to lose.

In the end, I’m more grateful for life (than what it cost me to have it). For the chance to change the course of my life, and finally live the life I always wanted to have.

Ok, so cancer didn’t really “save my life.” Doctor Chuey, Doctor Dinlenc and Doctor Samadi did. I used cancer as a wake up call to save myself after they did.

So?

Life, in February. The High Line, February, 2017.

I hope you’ll join me in celebrating my 10th Birthday.

If I’m actually still alive.

———-

With my undying thanks to those who saved me-

-Dr. David Samadi

-Dr. Caner Dinlenc

-Dr. John Chuey

-Helen Petrocelli, RN

-The staff of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital

To those who stood by me-

-Fluffy

-Rob

-Kevin- Thanks for the ride home

And, with my thanks, and admiration to fellow cancer survivors, patients, and a professional-

-Stephanie 2

-Dave (R.I.P)

-Kitty

-Mrs. Kitty

-Mrs. Fluffy

-Musa Mayer

-Sv

And,

-Dr. Melissa Pilewskie

I took all the photos appearing in this Post over the first six days of February, 2017, except the photo of Musa Mayer, on January 10, 2017.

*- The Soundtrack for this Post is “Accept Yourself,” by The Smiths (who you can watch perform it in 1983!, below), written by Morrissey & Johnny Marr. Morrissey was 23, or 24 when he wrote this. Astounding. Its lyrics just fit-

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

The Scene of the Crime- Aftermath

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

With a suspect in custody, here’s what the site of the explosion looked like this evening.

Seen from the corner of 6th Avenue, as close as anyone was allowed. My crude arrow points to the spot of the blast. As you can see, there are still other dumpsters there.

Seen from the corner of 6th Avenue, as close as anyone was allowed. My crude arrow points to the spot of the blast. As you can see, there are still other dumpsters there.

The former Tekserve, as seen in my previous Post, is the white building on the right. To the left is a church (the second white building), a brownstone and The Associated Blind, under the scaffolding. My crude arrow points to the approximate spot of the blast, which was in or near a dumpster. As you can see, there are still other dumpsters there, which is somewhat surprising. Yes, that’s a street cleaning machine, left with headlight on, but the water on the street is from rain.

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23rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues is still closed. The cleanup is continuing. The police, and the media, were out in full force, with two live broadcasts going on.
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As you can see, it’s a pretty non-descript location for Manhattan, hence my question- Why (there)? As I predicted, I’m not surprised to hear the suspect arrested this morning in New Jersey, surprisingly quickly, is not a New Yorker.

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Subway & Path Train Station entrance to the right. The bomb exploded a few hundred feet down the block.

Subway & Path Train Station entrance to the right. The bomb exploded a few hundred feet down the block.

Interestingly, perhaps meaningfully, there is a PATH train station (an express train connecting NYC & NJ) right on the corner of this block.

Besides the street closing, everything else seemed to be back to normal today.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.