Renegade Cafe

At the end of the High Line the crowd is serenaded from a cabaret on a fire escape.

On Friday, a slightly humid summer evening, my buddy, Tony was in town and we walked the new High Line walkway, which opened in June. Originally a freight train railroad trestle, not in use since 1980, and instead of knocking it down or as I would prefer, bring back the freight trains, it has been transformed into a walkway. It starts on Gansevoort Street and only goes to 20th street , although it is scheduled to be extended to 34th street. What these New Yorkers won’t do to get another view of the Jersey side! The walkway, mainly cement, has design accents echoing railroad tracks and there’s foliage scattered about, places to sit. But the best part was the Renegade Cafe, which is what the singer called the fire escape stage.

There’s a fence near the stair way at this temporary end-point to the High Line. Across the way is an old apartment building, with near-perfect sightlines of the fire escape. Plastic colored lanterns dangle from the railings. The High Line has spotlights which illuminated the fire escape. Wearing a light green gown, the woman sang a cappella standards. She was wonderful. It wasn’t just a performance, it was a serenade.

“I’ve been in Chelsea for 31 years,” she said at point. “And I’m not leaving, no matter what my landlord says.”

I felt like I was in some Science Fiction story, standing on the latest urban development project of 21st century Bloomberg New York while viewing a lovely siren from old time Chelsea singing across an abyss of time.

Luckily I missed the New York Times article a few days earlier, so encountering the Renegade Cafe on the fire escape was an utter surprise. Turns out, in this apartment—you not only can just see the fire escape, but right into the living room—lives Patty Heffley, who was a photographer of some renown of New York punk. A visit to her website(www.pattyheffley.com/), reveals some familiar images of punk icons, including what I believe are the last concerts of Sid Vicious at Max’s Kansas City. Heffley has lived here since the Freight Train era and according to the Times piece, when she realized her fire escape, where she hangs her laundry, would be a perfect performance space for a captive audience of pedestrians on the newly opened High Line walkway, she asked her friend, Elizabeth Soychak, a jazz singer, (www.elizabethsoychak.com) to perform. Thus the Renegade Cafe was born.

Being a Jersey City citizen, I could only think that the High Line might be an example the 6th Street Embankment, also former freight railroad trestles, will follow. I’m ambivalent about that prospect, unless of course there’s a Renegade Cafe where an apparition-like singer can serenade us from a not so distant past.

Visit: Renegade Cafe on Facebook