I got an email from Park Slope’s Robin Hirsch, who owns the Cornelia Street Cafe, a venerable and delightful restaurant and performance space in the West Village. Robin is also the author of a memoir, Last Dance at the Hotel Kempinski: Creating a Life in the Shadow of History and a book of poems, FEG: Ridiculous Stupid Poems for Intelligent Children

When he’s not running a restaurant or writing books, Robin also curates a vibrant calendar of music, theatrical and literary events downstairs at the Cornelia Street Cafe. He wrote to say that a poem he wrote was published in the Metropolitan Diary section of the New York Times. 

“In the old days (e.g., the last time I had something in this column), the Times used to send a bottle of Champagne. Now, malheureusement, one has to make do with ye olde fleeting fame–sans Champagne.”

Who knew they used to send out champagne? Times have changed.

Robin created a piece of found poetry based on the electronic signs in the subway. The poem is a literal transcription of an electronic sign at the Avenue of the Americas-34th Street Downtown subway stop. All spelling, capitalization, line breaks are as found. The only editing that Robin did was to take the first line, capitalize it and make it the title..Here’s the poem, which you can also find in the New York Times, that venerable and delightful daily newspaper.

 ATTEN TO YOUR CHILDREN

Adults hold handrail

attend to your

children avoid the

side of the escalator

ride safely escaator

are for passenger

only never run up or

down no large

packages should be

carried on escalator

step on and off

escalator never push

strollers on escalator

nevr sit on step or

handrail never put

umbrella on escalator

steps children should

hold adults hand not

handrail have a great

day