Liberty on the Avenue
Over the past few weeks, my dog’s been unwell, so I’ve been taking him with me along Ridge Avenue from East Falls through Roxborough to a nearby vet clinic. The trip begins with a sudden rise up the hill near where Ridge divides from Manayunk’s Main Street. The rise then plateaus as you travel through the center of Roxborough. I used to think of Roxborough as the brother who remained back home while his upwardly mobile twin Manayunk tried to make the Big Time in Manhattan. Manayunk then moved back home when he didn’t hit it big, yet he still pretends not to recognize his working class sibling when they pass by on the street. At family reunions, Roxy mocks his brother’s pretensions by climbing atop Manayunk’s shoulders and spilling his chardonnay. This, my children, was how two towns came to be.
So much for homemade economic mythologies. While riding in the car, I see a more visible one represented along Ridge Avenue in a mural just above the Sunrise Cleaners, overlooking a 7-Eleven parking lot. Entitled “The Ridge,” it depicts the avenue as the longest line atop of a lumbering tortoise’s shell, with each descending line along its scutes labeled with the avenue’s perpendicular streets: “Lyceum,” “Green,” “Levrington” and “Hermitage.” I recall the Hindu myth that the world is held aloft by a group of elephants that stand on an especially large tortoise. Here the world on the half-shell is Roxborough.
But much more homemade is the historical allusion further down the avenue. A local tax service is clearly advertising itself by paying people to stand outside its storefront dressed as the Statue of Liberty. The name of the shop has something to do with “Freedom.” Having gone back and forth on the avenue enough times, I’ve noticed that at least three different people – two men and one woman - play the role of Lady Liberty at different times. The two men are opposites in some respects - one large and wide, the other tall, sunken-looking and angular. The woman who plays the Lady is herself elderly and gray.
They all share the same Liberty costume, of course. The Lady’s garment is a cheap, plastic rain parka, one found at Wal-Mart to match Statue’s color or perhaps spray-painted the right shade of copper patina. Regardless of the disparate size of the actors, it hangs with a surprisingly consistent quality of listlessness on them all. The real Lady stands in the harbor with her arms bare to the elements, but her imitators on Ridge are heavily layered in the cold spells we’ve had. Among them, they would seem to share a tourist’s souvenir commonly found on the streets of Manhattan, a foam Statue’s crown with the seven points.
A piece of advice I was given as a boy is appropriate here. My father once insisted to me that I never take a job, even in hard times, even for easy money, if it involves greeting people in a costume. He never explained why, but I now grasp the importance of his lesson. Along roadsides I’ve watched countless people dressed as waving pandas, elephants, Elvises, mice and other such vertebrates for the purpose of advertising liquor stores, household tool rentals or menswear sales. While some passing motorists reward their efforts with a friendly wave or honk of a horn, many more than we’d all like to admit throw garbage or give the bird. And why?
This is something I think my father knew. When you put on an outfit for a cause that others deem not your own, you lose your identity; people see it as a metaphor for their own depersonalizing struggles, and so the costumed unfortunate becomes something like a human piñata at a children’s party. My wife describes her own worst job experience as when she was forced to play the Hamburgler as a teenager working at McDonald’s, complete with jailhouse stripes, cape and suffocating plastic mask. She was verbally and physically abused by people whom she recognized from town but who didn’t recognize her. When you put on an outfit that conceals your face, you lose your own identity, and mischievously angry, aggressive, frustrated grown human people suddenly feel license to use you as a scapegoat.
For this reason, the Lady Liberties on Ridge Avenue are fortunate enough to show their faces to the world without being painted Liberty’s acidic green. Neighbors recognize them, no doubt. My God, is that Ronny Costello? But nobody that I can see is mocking or abusing them, which makes me feel a little better. Roxborough is a small place, and small places tend to respect the humanity of the ordinary person, be he dressed as a patriotic symbol or not. Or such is my impression. One finds much less human dignity while speeding through New Jersey, past roadsides without sidewalks, on the way to the malls and the shore.
I saw one of the Liberties– the lumbering, large man with thick coke-bottle glasses – being politely shown by a passerby how he might improve his Liberty routine by gesturing more successfully at the storefront itself. I drove by later and saw him simply flailing his arms like a tired seal as cars went by. I saw the old woman standing unhappily with her one hand aloft - presumably to mime the torch that guides ships through the harbor - and limply holding what looked like a clipboard close to her chest, just as the Statue herself clings to her tablet. She actually held nothing in the air; her eyes had glazed over hours before.
The last of these - the tall, thin, angular man with a wasted-looking face - holds his torch aloft with more conviction, but his eyes are glued not on passersby, but on his tablet. I was lucky enough to watch him while being stuck in traffic, wondering what it was that held his interest there. Suddenly, as he lowered his torch, I saw he was actually holding a pen that he then applied to his tablet, which, as it turned out, was a game of Sudoku. He then put the tip of his pen meditatively to his mouth and examined his work.
He didn’t notice me watching him, so publicly ensconced was he in his small endeavor on the main street of a little world etched on a tortoise’s shell. He slowly lifted his torch once again. I drove on. In my rear view mirror, I watched his arm come down again.
There are no consolations here. The notion of a tax service promoting “Freedom” in tough times is slightly undermined by people employed as human signposts. It makes me uneasy, as so many things do. But we all must live for ourselves in the costumes we wear. The tall and wasted looking Liberty is either a man who will not survive much longer in his job, or perhaps he’s the one who will outlast us all, however unsteadily. He will remain himself.
Economy, Manayunk, costumes, jobs, lady liberty, liberty, roxborough, statue of liberty, tax 
Reader Comments (4)
Interesting reflection. I think about the people who do this kind of work often. I am especially bothered by the guys who are not in costume - the ones on Baltimore Pike holding the "Going Out of Businness" signs for hours in the cold or in the heat. I guess I am more bothered by the people who hire these men to do these jobs. Can this form of adverstising really positively impacts their sales? I know that I would never want to shop at a place that so blatantly takes advantage of those in need of work. I want to see some data that shows that the use of human signposts actually increases sales. I think that it just makes most people feel ashamed and uncomfortable. Does that translate into dollars somehow? Maybe it does. The whole practice just seems so desperate for everyone involved.
For me, this piece centers around distraction. You the driver are distracted. The shop owner hopes to distract his customers. And even the centerpiece of the article, the sign man is distracted from his job by his sudoku. Perhaps we are all just looking for a little too much distraction from the current state of things in America. It is interesting that you take the man's lack of focus on his employment as a positive sign of his maintaining his identity. But I can't help but wonder if he'd have a better job (and by virtue, a more rewarding identity) if he wasn't such a bad employee. In fact, we'd probably all be richer if we put aside one or two things that take away from our focus and sat down and did our own taxes.
(Before you rail against me for being unsympathetic to the poor and unemployed and too righteous in my own focus, be aware that I post this comment because I was too tempted to check the blog even though I should have left for my part time job five minutes ago.)
A beautifully depressing image that is enhanced brilliantly by your adept portrait and metaphor of the Manayunk/Roxborough relation. When one fails in a city of Philadelphia's size, diversity, and wealth, the shattered illusion of success is so much sadder than the image of failed American Dreams in the few lingering rural landscapes. The real life symbolism of the statue only serves to enhance the sad irony of this tale. If you didn't tell me you saw this, it would have made for such an amazing short story. I think I would have liked to draw more of my own conclusions from it.
I have seen these people too, idling on the main strips of the expanding urban America, outcasts to all passersby. And I too contemplate what injustice could have led to this choice and if there is enough self-respect left in the whole world to extract one from this condition.
I also agree with Caraway though in that this is merely a metaphor for distraction. We are so lost in the trivial absurdities of our entertainment based existence that we have completely unplugged ourselves from the sad state we are really in. I read recently that Barack Obama rescheduled his State of the Union to avoid interfering with the Season Premiere of Lost. Seriously.
On a lighter note, this piece also reminded me of a hilarious episode of a Flight of the Conchords' episode in which the two main characters struggling music careers force them to become human signposts. The episode contains an uproarious take on your very appropriate piece in song form. Thanks and enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wqfcwgT0Ds
Well written and poignant piece on so many levels. First, the personal essay, I know I have said it, but there is just immense value. I think the stores under the avenue will always be a treasure of disfunction. I enjoyed your father's advice and it seems pretty sound. I can imagine you and your dad passing a chicken man on the side of the road and it was your waving that brought your father to remark.
I enjoyed how the turtle is a mocked symbol of slow moving tradition and pride that mires through the world in its own time. How towns and people and stores build on top? How silly and transient everything must seem to the turtle who has seen it all. And yet the turtle does not shake off Lady liberty, or the rivalry between Roxborough and Manayunk, or even your quest to make your dog healthy again. The turtle is forever and we must seem to be all in costume -- all just playing life -- all just trying to stand out --- all just trying to love and be loved.
I truly benefitted from your essay. Thanks for the lunch.