NYC Dec 1 2005
Trip Start
Nov 29, 2005
1
2
8
Trip End
Dec 13, 2005
NYC,
New York,
United States
Thursday, December 1, 2005
"It's just a fire drill" someone says, and we try to believe it. "Welcome to NY, the world's greatest city," the steward says.
"The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3" "Gangs of New York" "Escape from New York" even "Westside Story" and "Barefoot in the Park" - which of our many expectations will the big city confound today?
We found our hotel, the Milburn on West 76th Street with very little trouble and a $55 cab ride. We have a suite... lots of room, just this side of shabby
01 Tiles in subway
. It's great. And we're on Floor Thirteen. No superstition in this building. No consistent hot water, either, and the bed's hard. No problem, matey.Late at night we venture out... about 100 feet away is Niko's Mediterranean Grill & Bistro, with a kind of enclosed sun porch for dining on the sidewalk, and a big restaurant inside. It's 11 o'clock and not only is the joint busy, people are still coming in. Ah, New York. Good food.
We look around outside. Of COURSE there's a Body Shop on the corner. Of COURSE we see six empty cabs stopped at the light. Of COURSE down the block on Broadway is the world's biggest and most astounding neighborhood grocery store. We're talking open 24 hours, more cheeses than a cheese shop, more granolas than a health food store, more veggies than, well, there were imported crackers and cookies, 24 square feet of nothing but lox, shelves of different flavors of rugelach, plus the usual: blinis, knishes, and so forth. What an amazing place. Premade foods of all kinds, dairy, omigawd...
At midnight we check our email, read New York magazine, study maps, check Fodors, look at the Web for a couple of minutes (to read Sophia's blog, for one thing) and hit the hard bed at say, one a.m
02 Subway scene
. Couldn't sleep. Up at 6 am because a previous tenant set the alarm radio to tell us there's some kind of negotiation on the MTA.... And on to a beautiful morning.December 1, 2005
The sun's up, glancing off an hilarious collection of odd architecture out our downtown facing window. Water tanks on every roof, a couple of gardens, smokestacks smoking, little churches way down below, and strange configurations. One building resembles a Parisian apt building; another looks like a brick jail. It's amazing how close to Las Vegas New York the actual New York is getting.
Oh yes, flocks of gray pigeons wherever there aren't spikes or wire.
December 1, 2005 late afternoon
On the subway to visit John Merryman, my best high school bud (from way back in 1959-1963, ouch),... who lives on Mulberry Street in the heart of what's left of Little Italy. I guess Big Italy is east of here. Most of the Italians who lived around here have moved to New Jersey and on to the west; their Roman Catholic churches have been leased to Russian Orthodox and others; the local grave yards look deserted, but at least John has Italian landlords who put his garden door on backward
03 John Merryman lookin at YOU
.John's a local landscaper, hauling dirt to the roof gardens of various high rise apt. buildings, when he's not making an extra book doing para legal work. He has a truck parked outside with his name and address on it, and that no doubt caused him some psychic pain, as he's mostly a most private person.
John took us to breakfast a few blocks away at Balthazar's ("It's not as old as it looks; it's faux") where the service was fine and the food finer. We had a leather lined booth and a view of flowers and the smell of waffles and omelettes and coffee. Very nice, and recommended to all.
Then a couple of hours on Ellis Island, where the very slow ferry and the various waits made us FEEL the angst of all those would be immigrants. We had it a lot better, of course. We had our tickets to the main land in our pockets and an audio tour in our ears. It's been beautifully restored, leaving a few ghosts around, and I did feel for a moment that one or more of my ancestors must have been here, in this hall, looking around, bewildered by the long voyage and the incessant chatter, not to mention dehydration and bugs, but everyone was many decades younger then.
My mother's father and mother (Eli and Ida Keen) came over separately from the Jewish Ukraine (Minsk and Pinsk, family joke, but true) and met in Manhattan. Eli was told to introduce himself to Ida at her apartment, and the rest is me and everyone else related to them. So glad they got along.
I plan to check them on the Ellis database
04 Ellis Island in the big room
. In the past when I looked for Miksak (Bohemia, Catholic) I got unclear results. If I find out anything specific I'll blog it here. In the meantime, Ellis Island is an excellent place to commune with ghosts, and oh yes, by the way, you get a great view of Sister Liberty as you ferry on the Circumspect Line to the island. December 1, 2005 evening...
Tonight John meets us for Chinese and "Romeo & Juliet (Gounod version) at the Metropolitan Opera. I think these are good seats. Each one costs as much as a hotel room in Manhattan, so we'll see. This version of the opera got panned in the current New York Magazine.
Before the Opera, dinner on Broadway at oddly named Ollie's "Noodle Shop & Grill" located at 1991 Broadway a block or two uptown of Lincoln Center. Way good and way cheap - dinner for three, with a glass of wine, $42.16. Juilliard students in line (I told one guy holding a cello case "That makes me miss MY cello") and singers talking at the next table about their boyfriends... a most lively joint.
05 Ceiling of big room, Ellis Island
The Big House is lovely to walk up to... Big Xmas tree with oversized stars and things that resemble musical instruments... lots of people dressed for the formal cold... fountain worthy of being photographed in front of, and the two immense Chagall murals. Inside it's exciting, but way overdone. Reminded me of a gilded version of Blum's Ice Cream Parlors. In the Big Room itself a monument to kitsch and money. Listing the negatives, our fellow listeners were quite snooty.
On the happy side, despite snotty reviews, I thought the production was excellent, if a bit on the Cirque de Soliel side of theatrics (Romeo and Julette's bed levitates, the back wall is a changing panorama of Hubble telescope universe photos, a strange kind of Galileo-like contraption hovers in the air above the singers, and rotates)... but at the same time, when it worked, it was moving. Both J and I were crying at the final tomb scene, and Julette's singing was superb (her acting was not, but it appeared to be due as much to the direction as to her innate gifts). Romeo acted more effectively, but for such an immense hall his voice lacked power.
We closely watched the orchestra and their conductor James Levine. Strangely arranged, with most of the violins strung out invisibly in front, the violas invading the brass section
06 Joselyn at the Staten Island Ferry
. At the end the musicians packed up and left during the curtain calls. By the time Levine got on stage and gestured down to the pit to indicate another round of appreciative applause all the musicians were gone save a couple of woodwinds wiping spit off their trousers. In truth there were no more than five of the 100 players still in the pit.We wondered why they left so abruptly, yet played so soulfully. Was it union rules? Late night dates? It was strange to be applauding them as they walked out.
The final tomb scene, romantic goo that it is, was effective. Juliette was laid out in white on a midnight blue platform tilted toward the audience; Romeo entered by walking down a two story flight of stairs at the rear...the scene lit on stage by two solo candles. Lovely.
And earlier, on their wedding night consummation scene it all came together: Hubble on the back wall was all black and stars; a scrim midstage hung another sheet of white stars, somehow there were stars blazing all over the floor as if flung there by a child, and R and J were in their white sheeted bed hovering in mid air, swaying gently in a wind that fluttered the bed clothes
07 Joselyn
. Powerful. Hey, they were singing, too. Opera works, sometimes.John talked about the future of cultural artifacts like this one: Unlikely. "We're living in a golden age," he pointed out, "when all of this is available to us. It won't be here much longer. The next generation won't attend and won't support it."
I argued the other side, of course, but had to admit this Opera's supporters are barely ambulatory and rarely younger than very old (we watched them exiting a donor's banquet that took over the Grand Tier restaurant before the show). In this audience truly middle-aged was about as young as it got.
Will the funders of the future - Bill Gates, et. al., be supporting opera? I have to doubt it along with John.
Home that night we gorged on crackers and cheese and fresh oranges. New York!
