Stacy Horn

I took a picture of 546 Hudson Street, a building that has been empty and abandoned for a long time. I googled it and saw that the last three businesses to occupy this space were Vincent Louis Galleries in the 1990’s, a place called the Junque Shoppe from the 1970’s to early 1990’s, and the Half Moon in the 1960’s.

There were a number of articles about the Junque Shoppe and the owner, Buddy Noro, who became very politically active in the 1980’s, in response to the AIDS crisis. I didn’t make a huge effort, but I couldn’t find out much about him, aside from his love of the items he collected for his shop, and some of the efforts he made to help when little was known about AIDS.

Buddy died in 1993, when he was 61. Not so long ago, you could live and die without leaving much of a trace. I know there’s a lot of backlash against the need for fame among the people growing up with the internet. But the upside of that is, fewer people will die and disappear. Everyone deserves to be remembered, to have left a mark, even if it’s a small mark, and only searched for by a small number of people.

Wait, now that I’m looking at this, did I research the wrong building number? Should I have been looking for 548? It would be funny if I came across Buddy Noro as the result of a mistake. (I checked later and no, I was researching the right number building.)

Buddy Noro in 1971.

Buddy Noro in 1972. I like this shot because it gives a peak at what it looked like behind and above the storefront back then.

Buddy Noro in 1988. He’s the guy on the left in the light colored suit and glasses.

You can see me in the window, taking the shot.

This drugstore, Grove Drugs, always does lovely, old-fashioned Christmas windows.

Try and watch this without getting choked up. Someone on YouTube said it was based on the story of Jesse L. Carpenter, a homeless veteran who froze to death on the streets.

This is a very very very minor problem in the scheme of things, but I’m dealing with so many small problems it just put me over the edge. I was up at 4am dealing with one of them, (cat behavior issues) when water started gushing under my sink as I started to use it. I looked and a section of the pipe was completely broken away from the rest of the pipe. I just sat on the floor and sobbed. For about 15 seconds. It wasn’t just because I have a broken pipe, it’s the battle I must face whenever I need the landlord to fix something. I’d only just recently concluded one, and a big one. I need a rest.

My first thought was to call the ASPCA and say I wasn’t coming in so I could deal with this, but nothing will happen today. I called and emailed my landlord, but God knows when he’ll respond. So I’m heading into work. I really hope it’s a good day. Ha! Everyone at works believes in the jinx and would say that just because I said that it won’t be. Whenever I say “it’s a slow day” they all turn on me, insisting that it’s going to get crazy now that I’ve said that.

We shall see! Good day, bad day, what do you predict? I will report back.

Update: It was a neutral day, nothing terrible happened, which automatically put it into the good day even though nothing great happened either. A good day is when nothing terrible happened.

Update 2: . It’s January 2nd and my kitchen pipe was fixed this afternoon! So not a terrible wait at all.

I wouldn’t mind having a week off, but it’s back to work today. It won’t be too bad, I’m on releases. That’s when people come to pick up their animals from the hospital. It’s a happy shift, because these are mostly the animals who came through whatever they were dealing with and are better and ready to go home. Everyone is happy.

I took this picture on a subway platform, while waiting for a train. This was actually a sad trip. I was on my way to a wake.