May Day 04/05/2006 - Edith's Walk

“Pulling her cloak close about her Edith darted across the Avenue. She started nervously as a solitary man passed her and said in a hoarse whisper --"Where bound, kid do?" She was reminded of a night in her childhood when she had walked around the block in her pajamas and a dog had howled at her from a mystery-big back yard” (page 103).


Edith’s journey to her brother’s office “across the street and just around the corner” (page 100) is fairly dry too. The way Fitzgerald is able to make it so visually appealing through words is a testament to his abilities as a writer, “Glancing down toward Forty-second Street she saw a commingled blur of lights from the all-night restaurants” (page 103). The neon lights dancing well into the morning that the young Fitzgerald so beautifully personifies are much more stunning than walking past them in real life. However, I think the reason that I keep running into this problem, not seeing what Fitzgerald saw, has to do with the fact that these buildings aren’t usually eighty-five years old. I never did find the sun when taking pictures at Columbus Circle and part of the reason was that the Time Warner building sat in my way, the other was my ignorance. The same goes for the “all-night restaurants” (page 103) on Forty-second Street that Edith saw. Instead of seeing what Edith saw, at Forty-second Street I was looking at the “commingled blur of lights” (page 103) from all the excessively gaudy advertisements for electronics, fashion, and alcohol.
As far as Delmonico’s goes I didn’t find a “heavy tomb-like building” (page 118) at or around Forty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. The closet thing I found was the Brooks Brothers store and I deleted the photo. The “two-story, comparatively old building on Forty-fourth” (page 103) that houses the Trumpet was an easier find. I’ll be honest, as of now I don’t know if this building is the same building that Fitzgerald refers to but it is the closet thing I’ll find. I mean it’s a two-story building on Forty-fourth Street, how much closer can I get?

“Over on Sixth Avenue the elevated, a flare of fire, roared across the street between the glimmering parallels of light at the station and streaked along into the crisp dark. But at Forty-fourth Street it was very quiet” (page 103).

I believe Fitzgerald is referring to Els, but at this point I don’t know if any Els actually ever existed at Sixth Avenue. Of course, today there are no longer any elevated trains along Sixth Avenue or at least none that I saw. At this point I am unsure whether or not “May Day” is a beautiful lie. I’m sure some research would help but I have yet to make it to the New York Public Library.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “May Day”. Tales of the Jazz Age. First Pine Street Books: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2003.