My New Dublin

Note: I have always been interested in old, yet unsung connection between the Irish and Puerto Ricans. Not only did each have an impact in the modern foundations of the other, but they also are undoubtable connected to New York City. With that in mind I went a little out there in my brainstorm and created a New York that was taken over by… the IRA! This is my envisionment of a different New York, a sort of historical mutation right in the middle of Operation Bootstrap (Industrial development project in Puerto Rico that led to the mass migration).

New Dublin

Valleys of steel, cement, and damned souls not worth saving as far as the eye can penetrate through the smog; Rows, rows, rows of decrepit buildings reminiscent of the lost America. Empire State no longer, The Spire; Brooklyn Bridge no longer, Ha’penny; Rockefeller neither, Donnelly.

Smoke slowly rising somewhere distant, but it doesn’t matter anymore, ‘cause it’s probably shadier than the darkness cast by the buildings, no one will bother investigate and the smoke’ll continue to rise and spread. Its heart purrs, hisses, and dies. Smoke still rises though, refusing to be put out, to be evicted as its victims.  It _rises rises ^rises, it engulfsthe clouds above it like if they were marshmallows. From the white centre, the blackness breaks through, further polluting this “beautiful” city; but sarcasm is unnecessary.

This city is beautiful, a collection of hidden flaws. Well perhaps that would be true for some folks if you never really got off the plane. New Dublin was new, now, and naked, but not untouched. New York wasn’t much different (less Irish if you can believe that) just as dirty, just as dark, and just as shiny.

O’Dwyer was the last “mayor” which doesn’t mean much anymore I suppose; he wasn’t expecting it, poor soul. I wonder if he was used to these streets; if everyday he walked passed the hussies, the pushers, the knaves and wondered, why? Did he used to creep through the sinuous alleyways of the loisaida trying to avoid the bad men? Did he visit the tattered, battered, happy flushing brothels; was he attended to by the abused women; did he feel their scars, did he smell the alcohol on their breaths, did he see their souls? Probably not, he would just have used them like everyone else; and he still wonders why. Why has this brilliant city of artists, muses, and corruption died? It will remain mystery; the first victim of the IRA revolution, poor fool.

Among the chaos, the Irish screams, Chinese bullets, and Latin blood, there is silence still. A silence you can feel all take you like a furry spider crawling slowly almost sensually over your body. It’s hidden though, the spider’s nest, within the dark corners, at the end of this citywide labyrinth silence still lives; more than lives, it thrives. Perhaps on the isolation in which it has survived through everything or nothing at all as is silence’s nature.

This city is wilde.