The Sartorialist

If you got a lotta money you can make yourself merry,
If you only got a nickel, it’s the Staten Island Ferry.
And it’s hard times in the city,
Livin’ down in New York Town.

“Hard Times in New York Town” | Bob Dylan

On a cold February morning a wind sweeps through the Fulton Houses with late winter verve. Out on the sidewalk, James, 22, is sipping a Red Bull energy drink at 10:15 on a Monday morning and getting ready for his job. “I tell my friends, you know, looking for a job is like a full-time job.” James philosophizes.

James fishes in his coat for a loose Newport cigarette and turns away from the wind to light it. The coat is navy with tan leather sleeves like a high school letterman jacket. The cracks in the leather have been filled in with brown magic marker, giving the coat a (possibly unintentional) tiger print quality. The front and back of the jacket are emblazoned with the logos of the teams of the National Basketball Association -- only the icon for the Charlotte Bobcats franchise, established in 2004, is missing.

The eleven brown brick buildings of the Fulton Houses have a monolithic quality, as if, they were built to deflect the drafts lashing into West Chelsea from the nearby Hudson River. Situated across three blocks between 9th and 10th Avenues, they house 2,000 residents that qualify for government housing (one such qualification is a yearly income limit, which for a family of four is $61,450).

The housing projects have acquired some new neighbors in recent decades. To the south, the development of the old Meatpacking District into a band of trendy boutique hotels, high-end fashion shops, the newest branch of the Apple computer empire, and exclusive nightclubs has provided the neighborhood with a steady stream of sound, traffic, and bodily fluid. Entire blocks of art galleries, escaping the rising rents in SoHo, were transplanted into lofts or converted warehouses just north and west of the Fulton Houses.

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Fringing the borders of the area directly north are even more famous nightclubs still, such as Bungalow 8, which boasts a few admission requirements of its own. To the west, the much-ballyhooed development around the High Line (an elevated park spanning some 22 blocks on an abandoned railroad track [in development of course]) continues to rise in stacks nearby. To the east sits the Chelsea neighborhood itself (pre-meltdown median household income: $111,949), including some of Manhattan’s most desirable and expensive addresses (pre-meltdown median apartment sale price: $735,00).

The seam where the development ends and the Fulton Houses begin appears as one of the starker borders a passerby can encounter while downtown on Manhattan’s west side. On a weekend night, passing phalanxes of cars with New Jersey license plates and raucous stereos contribute their disruption. The cycle of police cars up and down the 9th and 10th avenues lights up the streets like a parade without tickertape. The patrol cars pass outside of the Fulton Houses, where James now leans against a tall black metal fence, and according to him, the police always drive slower. He says there has been some tension in the past. But tension isn’t what he wants to talk about.

“Kryp-to-NATE,” James says with animation.

The slam dunk contest from the NBA All-Star Weekend in February was won by Nate Robinson, the five-foot, nine-inch guard for the New York Knicks. Robinson bested Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard, the defending slam dunk champion. Howard had sported his trademark Superman costume, including props such as a cape and a phone booth. His repertoire featured a dunk on a twelve-foot hoop, two full feet above the regulation height, which Howard completed with considerable ease.

“Forget Superman,” James says, first reenacting Howard’s two-handed tomahawk dunk.

The night had belonged to Nate Robinson, the perpetual New York underdog. Dressed in the color of Kryptonite, Superman’s veritable green ruin, Robinson (who, at five-nine, is ten inches shorter than the average height for an NBA player) won the contest by leaping (almost) entirely over the stationary six-foot, ten-inch Howard for his final dunk.

“Kryp-to-NATE,” James shouts again. “The little man can fly!”

James does not live in the Fulton Houses, but his aunt does. He was evicted from his Chinatown apartment two weeks before after failing to pay his $550 rent. The month before, James lost his job at a cell phone retailer when the store cuts its workforce by 30%.

If Manhattan’s unemployed comprise a fraternity, James does not wear its pin or use the secret handshake. With a shiver, James stares at his shoes and speaks of his troubles with a kind of stoic fatalism. “Once you stay past when you’ve paid,” James explains of his eviction, “you trespassin’.” James does not want to return to his old apartment in Chinatown; he speculates that his possessions have already been confiscated by the landlord.

“They took my keys and escorted me out of the building,” the pitch of his voice twisting higher with incredulity “in front of everybody. That shit’s mad embarrassing.”

James says he knows residents who, in the past, made spare keys and went right back into their apartments to stay undetected for as long as possible. James says he would rather stay with his aunt until he gets a new job. Then maybe he’ll go back to his old apartment and see about it. When asked how the residents of the Fulton Houses, who are (by some standards) the permanent citizens of difficult economic times, are handling the recession, James shrugs.

“Jobs is tough right now,” he says, “Some people is nicer to you in the halls, they wanna look out for each other. Others shut down. They get mean. I hear stuff going on sometimes three apartments down on the floor below.”

Times are often trying enough in the Fulton Houses. Robberies, fights, various suspicions, and domestic violence pervade. But like everyone else, James is keeping his aim steady. He shoots the butt of the expired cigarette with a gooseneck release of a veteran outside shooter. It arcs and bounces against the curb, missing the gutter. “Wind took it.” he says. Like everyone else, James doesn’t want to think about the worst will mean. With the population of the projects now growing because of evictions (like his) from other places as well as the dimness of job prospects, he says residents are eventually going to stop wondering how to pay their next bill and focus instead on how to get the next meal for their families. “It’s getting tense.” he admits.

Gravity only gets heavier from there. That may explain the fascination with the little man who can fly.