The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen by Katherine Howe





For Charles Susman and Marion Magee, who went until the wheels fell off





Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?

   —Walt Whitman,

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”





PROLOGUE

The café in the basement of Tisch, the art and film school at New York University, was redecorated this year. After entertaining a number of ambitious design proposals, including one with a water wall illuminated from within by pulsating LED lights, they decided to go with a retro–New York theme that featured subway-tile walls, stained mirrors, large filament glass lightbulbs, and hand-weathered bentwood chairs. They revamped the menu, too, adding old-school New York deli food, like huge pastrami sandwiches on rye, hot potato knishes, and half-sour pickles the size of a freshman’s forearm. Everyone seemed pretty confident that the redesign would make the space more inviting for students than when it had a 1990s look, with grunge band posters and retro shag carpet and papasan chairs. Nobody ever went down there then.

They decided to dress up the wall behind the salad bar with silkscreened reproduction newspaper articles, all collaged together. For some reason most of the collaged newspapers documented long-forgotten tragedies, like the Draft Riots in 1863 or the Astor Place Riot of 1849. The decorator’s assistant whose job it was to find and silkscreen the newspapers, they found out too late, had kind of a macabre sense of humor, and had been rejected by NYU.

She’s since been let go.

Fortunately, nobody ever bothers to read the articles.

On the lower left part of the wall, overshadowed by the metal rack that holds the cafeteria trays, is the following story. There’s a smear of ketchup across the title, but it’s so low down on the wall that no one has noticed, and the bloodred stain has been allowed to stay.


The New-York Star Sentinel

October 28, 1825

TRAGEDY STRIKES CANAL JUBILEE GRAND AQUATIC DISPLAY

Dozens Feared Lost as Barge Sinks amid Cannonade


New-York—

The celebration of the marriage of the waters between Buffalo and the Atlantick reached a tragic climax off the Battery yesterday during the celebration of the Grand Canal Commemoration.

The day’s revels began as a grand cannonade announced the entry of the Erie Canal boats into the waters of the Hudson River. There they were joined by steam-ships carrying representatives of the Canal Corporation flying flags of the City, escorted by pilot-boats, barges, and canoes with Aborigines from Lake Erie to see them safely to the waters off New-York. Upon passing the North Battery the flotilla’s arrival was heralded with a National Salute, and it proceeded to round the island and traverse the East River as far as the Navy Yard, where it was met by a Frigate flying the flags of the City, which fired another National Salute.