Lovecraftian New York

I'm in the land of H.P. Lovecraft which is very exciting. Back in the days of Dymocks I had planned to do a tour of New England with a friend and visit all the significant sites that features in his short horror stories. It was to be our terror trip across America.

Now I am here I have started to read Lovecraft's short stories again and was struck by his very accurate description of New York City that echoes what I have felt about it ever since I arrived here. One must remember that Lovecraft wrote this story in the 1930s.

....garish daylight shewed only squalor and alienage and the noxious elephantiasis of climbing, spreading stone where the moon had hinted of loveliness and elder magic......and I saw at last a fearful truth which no one had ever dared to breathe before - the unwhisperable secret of secrets - the fact that this city of stone and stridor is not a sentient perpetuation of Old New York as London is of Old London and Paris of Old Paris, but that it is in fact quite dead, its sprawling body imperfectly embalmed and infested with queer animate things which have nothing to do with it as it was in life.
He by H.P. Lovecraft.

It is very true. Take away the people and the city is dead. There is no history or character that gives the city its own life the same way that London or Paris has. America seems obsessed with destroying the old and making as much money out of every inch they can. Rather sad really.

I visited the location mentioned in the story He. At the end of the novel the protagonist is found, broken and bleeding on Perry Street, having emerged from a black courtyard. I walked the breadth of Perry street and whilst it is a nice tree lined street in the West Village, it does not give one much of a feel for the Perry street of the 1930s apart from a small section of cobbled road and the occasional flourish that the residents have added to their entrances.