By James Maher
Name: Pamela Joy
Occupation: Integrative Astrologer
Location: 10th Street and 3rd Avenue.
Time: 2:30 on Thursday, March 20
I’m one of the few New York natives. I was born and raised in Canarsie, Brooklyn. I went to the Professional Performing Arts School so my time in Brooklyn kind of ended when I went there on West 46th Street, in the original building. Manhattan is where the action is and Canarsie was far away.
I went there for acting but I’m really an actress-singer-dancer. I’m one of those people who came from a very complex background, where there was a lot of torment. It was tough being both an actress and a sensitive one, so I ended up in the world of psychotherapy. I don’t know if I would have been happy in the business of show. Not enough substance for me, perhaps.
What’s happening right now is that I’m in a transition. The artist and therapist within me who I have become are better able to serve and be served as an astrologer. I help people. I am grateful that my quest has taken me through two wonderful alternative programs where I received my training.
I live on East 10th Street, diagonally across from the Russian & Turkish Baths. I moved down here around 35 years ago with my boyfriend, who was living on East 6th Street. When that relationship ended, and this is the strangest thing, I lucked out and ended up getting my apartment right across from what used to be a jazz club called Princess Pamela, where the café is now. So it was meant to be and I’ve been there ever since. I’ve lived there for over 30 years.
It was very different in the beginning. First of all, I never walked down 10th between 1st and 2nd. People would actually have bullets go into their living rooms. It was like the Colombian Cartel. And then it got cleaned up and now you can see it’s an amazing street. I love walking up and down that street. Loisaida really changed; the Lower East Side has really changed; my block has really changed. It’s interesting how all these little relics have moved around but change is part of life.
It was a good place to be while I was trying to nurture my inner spirit. It was a good place to be while I was trying to blossom into adulthood. In fact, today I was thinking that my home, my unconscious choice of home, was like a reclamation. It feels like the first home I’ve ever really lived in. I feel like what’s been ebbing out of that is that I’ve been helping a lot of people. So I’m very happy about that.
James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.
Great smile! I have the same memories of 10th between 1st and 2nd...I called it "the gauntlet."
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteMy memories of 10th and 1st are smoke smoke smoke. thankfully they are gone and now we have drunks.
ReplyDeleteMy "gauntlet" was getting past the drug dealer's armed guard on the 4th floor while I lived on the 5th floor at the dead end called 5th street between B-C. When this changed I was grateful and living without constant break-ins and an occasional mugging was a big improvement for all of us. True change is part of life, our bodies are constantly changing, people come and go from our lives but many of us need a steady ground beneath us to help us through the day. We may not be able to stop change from happening but we still should try to slow it down if possible. I believe what many of the people that read and post comments on EV Grieve are experiencing rapid fire changes that are beyond anyone that lives here's control. We mourn and grieve what appears to be the death of our place in the world and try to figure out how to adapt to the new EV.
ReplyDeleteColombian not Columbian. Sorry EV but it grates my nerves every time I see that mistake.
ReplyDeleteGREAT interview though!
Hurray for Pamela!! She is an amazing woman! Very insightful too!
ReplyDeleteThank-you!
DeleteThanks IzF!
ReplyDeleteI thought it was the university! Ha. Fixed!
I am also from Canarsie, and now I live on East 10 St., too. Very nice.
ReplyDeleteAwesome!
DeleteI hope we meet at some point...Canarsie was a good stomping ground for a kid.
What about you?
Nice interview!
ReplyDeleteWasn't the "Red Door" on 10th Street bet 1st and 2nd? It was an empty storefront with a bright red door. Inside was dark and you walked up to a closed speakeasy-style "teller" window in the back, slid your $10 into the tray under the window and got a dime's worth of pot back. It was totally weird.
I lived on 12th St between 1st and Ave A back then and dope was everywhere. Coke too. You could get $5 worth of coke in foil on the stairwell inside the building near the middle of the block across from the empty lot. I was in a longish line once in the Korean deli on 12th street/1st ave and two loud, drunk shag haired guys got out of a car, walked in, grabbed a case of beer and started to walk past all of us on line, obviously intending to walk back out without paying for it. The large "doorman" from the coke building stepped out of line ahead of me and faced them holding a huge buck knife. He didn't say a thing. The two drunk guys, put the beer down and left in a hurry. I don't know, maybe because I was young, and a guy, but I was exhilarated by the neighborhood, gritty or whatever, back then. Not so much any more.
"Red Door"? I thought it was a Blue Door. Funny how memory changes with time, but I do remember going inside and standing in line behind a businessman, woman with a stroller, and other regular folks. Also loved Princess Pamela - I still do an impression of the waitress there, "We got chicken, we got ribs. Whachu want?" That was the menu. Great music, too!
ReplyDeleteThere was a Blue Door Store and a Black Door Store, never knew about the Red Door Store. The blue and the black were only a few doors away from each other on the north side of the street. But I have to say, I did not think 10th Street in those days was any more violent than any of the other blocks that had drug gangs on them - and that was pretty much every block. I walked down 10th plenty of times and never once saw a Wild West shoot'em-up the way this lady describes.
ReplyDeleteThe Red door was the color on the apartment building directly between the Blue and Black doors.
ReplyDeleteBullets in the living room! Really?
ReplyDeleteYeah, there was a lot of nickel and dime pot and coke dealing on 10th back then, not to mention all the hookers and pimps along 2nd, but it was definitely, definitely not the wild west.
If you didn't wanna buy, you just didn't acknowledge them and everything was cool. They certainly weren't looking for any unwanted attention. MYOB was the law of the land.
That was what a friend of mine who lived on that block told me.
DeleteWhat is an integrative astrologer?
ReplyDeleteThank-you Uncle Waltie for your inquiry.
DeleteAs an Integrative Astrologer I bring to my interpretations and synthesis of the birth chart practiced, precision sensitive psychic impressions and imagery that supports in a most sensitive, expressive and attuned way the guidance, solutions and clarity that you the client may apply, gently and firmly to any part of your life that requires insight and healing. You will receive along with the reading a drawing of your chart, which is really your own personal mandala that you may meditate and reflect on... You will also receive a recording of it so that you can hear and come to know that which was not ready to be known by you at the time of the reading. For more details info and some of my musings and writings please visit me @ www.lotusinfullbloom.com
I just shared it I hope it is shown and you all come and visit me @ lotusinfullbloom.com
DeleteThanks.
She is awesome.
ReplyDelete:-)
DeleteThanks.
anonymous at 6:54 PM
ReplyDeletethere were indeed several shootings and plenty of fights
if you lived on the block it was worse than the wild wild west
not sure the loud idiots or drunks that replaced the dealers and buyers are any easier to live with
Neat lady! Great interview, as always!
ReplyDeleteThanks.
DeleteI remember Princess Pamela as being upstairs on the northwest corner of 10th and 1st, in the red brick building over a hole-in-the-wall Chinese takeout place...
ReplyDeleteYes, that was it.
Delete