Mission in the Bowery

Thursday was one of the most memorable days I’ve had in New York so far. The day had me moving constantly and sleeping little. I stayed up the night before working on a story. I wrote a story that day, too. I also went to the emergency room because I thought my lung collapsed again (partially) – but that’s an entirely different thing.
I went to a journalism class – Betty Ming Liu’s “Downtown” here at N.Y.U. and our field trip turned out to be something I’ll remember longer than anything else that day. We went to the Bowery Mission, a shelter for the homeless and hungry in New York. It was a far bigger operation than I thought it would be; they actually have a huge living space, computer room, weight area and chapel where service is held three times a day.
We went there to practice interviewing people as a group. We first met Dean, a forty-one year old who had just gotten off the streets after 22 years of hard drugs and hard living. He answered our questions intelligently and politely, though I felt embarrassed as we pried into his private life, each taking our turn as we asked him about the darkest secrets of his life. He told us of losing his wife and son. What surprised me about Dean, who has a dark complexion and wide smile, was that he didn’t look like the worn-out faces often seen in the neighborhood, the “Bowery Bums” described so well in Pete Hammill’s “Downtown.”
The next man we met was named Leon, a heavyset black man. Leon was less forthcoming. He would only reveal that he had “trials and tribulations,” and he was over all of them now.
The third man we met was Steve, formerly a high-ranking executive for a British car company. He looked like he could have been one of my dad’s golfing buddies, with a tie and polo sweatshirt. His daughter is attending Wellesley.
For years Steve was a functioning alcoholic, he said, drinking to become gregarious and to numb the pain of his depression. He slowly deteriorated, losing his job, then his apartment. He started to tear up a bit also.
We were given a thorough tour of the Bowery Mission. The chapel was far bigger than I imagined. I was picturing something more along the lines of a senior home’s church. But this was large, with old, wooden pews and nativity artwork. The homeless slumped into the pews as R&B music played, a couple of them hiding their alcohol-smelling paper bags.
I was humbled by the visit. Living in the city can turn into a constant fight to get through the day. But the stories we heard felt like a slap in the face. My own trials and tribulations aren’t that bad.