[Gocamino] Saint James in Brooklyn

[Blaroli at aol.com]

Hello you all,
Allow me to make some explanations  for those of you who might not be  
terribly familiar with the "Big Apple":
New York City is composed of five boroughs (counties) which are separate and 
quite distinct:  there is the island of Manhattan, which is what most people, 
particularly abroad, think of as "New York". The island is fairly small and 
you can cross its entire width, let's say, around 42nd. street, from river to 
river in fifteen or twenty minutes; the island is separated from the rest of New 
York City by rivers and it is dotted everywhere with  skyscrapers, except in 
the area where I live, Greenwich Village, which used to be an art colony and 
is quite different in ambiance and outlook from the rest of Manhattan since it 
has no skyscrapers;  none can be built because "the village", as we call it, 
is a protected  "historical district" which allows for far less density in 
population and more trees, parks,   greenery and space.. 
The other four boroughs are: 1) "The Bronx", made famous by the Yankees 
baseball team,  by its  burgeoning population and by its fine schools;  2) 
"Queens", where people can own a house without having to move all the way out to the 
suburbs;- our  airports, "La Guardia"  and JFK are in Queens-. 3)  Staten 
Island  which is a small island all  by itself  close to  the Statue of Liberty. 
People who live there take a ferry to come to work in Manhattan or drive over 
the Verrazano Bridge  (of Saturday Night Fever fame). Friends of mine who live 
there love it because, they say, they are in New York City while not having to 
be in the City (!). Also, I should think, the views of lower Manhattan from 
Staten Island are fabulous.
And then,.... there is Brooklyn; connected to lower Manhattan by two famous 
bridges: the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge (for the sake of 
equanimity). Oodles  and oodles of notable people have come, and keep coming, from 
Brooklyn. A generation ago there were Barbara Stanwick, Susan Hayward,  Rita 
Hayworth (whose mother and father, by the way, were flamenco artists from Seville, 
and arrived in this continent just in time for Rita to be born) and a great 
many others.  Of newer vintage there are Barbara Streisand, Beverly Sills, 
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Rudolph Giuliani.... and on, and on, 
and on...And as though such luminaries were not enough, Brooklyn also has 
Saint James..... OUR Saint James!  
Precisely, there is the Saint James Cathedral in Brooklyn, and its Bishop, 
Ignatius Catanello has invited all Santiago pilgrims in the Metropolitan area to 
make a Way of the Cross Pilgrimage over the Brooklyn Bridge on Good Friday.
The walk will start out at the Cathedral at 10:00 a.m. and will be led by the 
Bishop, observing the Stations of the Cross, over the bridge, towards City 
Hall Park and then to Ground Zero to commemorate the sacrifice of the nearly 
3,000 people  who died there.  The procession will end at St. Peter's Church, 22 
Barclay Street, in lower Manhattan at 1:30 p.m.
Poignantly, it was only two days ago that it was announced that more than one 
thousand of the 9/11 victims will remain unidentified forever. The coroner 
has determined that further efforts of identification would be in vain and has 
closed its facilities  there..
I myself will be in Seville on Good Friday, but as soon as I come back I will 
certainly go to Brooklyn to pay a visit to the Saint James Cathedral which, 
frankly, I did not even know it existed until now.  
And, lastly, let me repeat that all five  boroughs compose the one City of 
New York  under the mayoral jurisdiction of only one mayor: Mike Bloomberg.  And 
all of us New Yorkers do come together a heck of a lot riding, as we must, 
"our hole in the ground" subways.
I, like Kat Gower, would just love to see us have an albergue on the Camino 
sponsored by North Americans. There is little I wouldn't do to bring to reality 
such a wish.   It occurred to me that calling, or nicknaming,  the albergue 
Brooklyn might do very well indeed. .  After all, didn't soccer superstar from 
England, Beckham, now a knight, and his equally famous Spice-Girl wife name 
their son Brooklyn?
Warm regards,
Rosina