"New York was an inexhaustible space, a labyrinth of endless steps, and no matter how far he walked, no matter how well he came to know its neighborhoods and streets, it always left him with the feeling of being lost," wrote Paul Auster in City of Glass, the first volume of his New York Trilogy, published in 1985.
To reach Brooklyn, let's leave Manhattan and its buildings "so tall in the morning sun they seem to be figments," as the writer put it Ghosts, volume 2 of the trilogy (1986). Brooklyn Bridge, with its pointed arches, can be crossed on foot. The traffic on the lower lane resembles "the buzzing of an enormous swarm of bees." On the other side, the sprawling borough begins with a quiet neighborhood of low-rise houses. Brooklyn Heights is home to a few wooden houses and numerous brownstones – red sandstone houses with staircases leading up to them. On Orange Street, where part of the action of Ghosts takes place, you'll find the little Plymouth Church and its garden with the statue of the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, known for his anti-slavery sermons.
Writer Gérard de Cortanze, author of Le New York de Paul Auster ("Paul Auster's New York") reminisced about his friend, who died in April, with whom he used to take long walks. They would stroll along the Brooklyn Heights boardwalk, which also appears in Smoke (1995), Wayne Wang's film based on a screenplay by Auster. This 600-meter pedestrian promenade (bicycles prohibited) looks out over the skyscrapers rising across the East River. "Paul chose to live in Brooklyn because apartments were cheaper than in Manhattan," said de Cortanze. "His wife, Siri, was horrified at the idea of joining him there." After a stay in Carroll Gardens, a formerly Italian neighborhood controlled by the Mafia, the American writer settled permanently in Park Slope. Today, it's an upscale area adjacent to Prospect Park, a vast green space designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the creators of Central Park.
"I'd bumped into him on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope and followed him to find out his address so I could write to him," said Céline Curiol, who became a novelist thanks to Auster's encouragement. "He was very attached to Brooklyn and its diverse population." The film Blue in the Face, made immediately after Smoke and co-directed by Auster, depicts the borough's multicultural richness with "90 different ethnic groups... 32,000 businesses... and 1,500 churches, synagogues and mosques," as one character puts it.
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