Manhattan at hand

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  New York City, New York, United States
Friday, October 5, 2007

End of Day 4 finds us in a tiny ice cream shop half a block from the hotel, scarfing up soft (low-fat) ice cream and atttempting to read e-mail.  We're hot, even at 9:30 pm, and wondering why on earth we packed a bunch of sweaters and very few short-sleeved things.  My one skirt is getting a work-out.  And it's not regulation Manhattan length (too long) and my sandals have a clunky heel (all wrong).  Am trying to rise above this.  THe upspide is that I forgot a slip and ventured into an establishment called The Town Shop on Broadway yesterday to buy one.  Utterly seduced by it.  A throw-back to lingerie shops of my mother's era: bras filed away in plastic boxes, many sympathetic and capable salesladies who send to the basement for sizes that aren't out (and they seem to use a dumbwaiter to bring them up from downstairs, where someone searches and loads it).  Bought a slip not entirely practical but for nostalgia purposes had to have it.

Yesterday post South-Street Seaport,  we did manage to take the Staten Island ferry (with all the other tourists, mostly foreign) and then eat a late lunch in Battery Park--haunting because the globe sculpture from the World Trade Center Plaza, somewhat battered and half-melted, has been stationed there with an eternal flame.  Made it all seem more real.  I carefully avoided happening upon Ground Zero, though. The sculpture was close enough..  .  From the ferry, looking back at the skyline, we could see two enormous cranes between skyscrapers, which I realized were positioned in the WTC site.

Today we were back in a museum--the Whitney--after a leafy, warm morning walk across Central Park.  More babies, more nannies, more dogs, more runners.  We saw two shows at the Whitney, both inspiring in their own ways I thought (Stingel and Bradford, can see online).  Then lunch in Central Park, at the Boathouse (in the bar, right on the edge of the lake, cheese, fruit and wine).  After that I dashed down to Chelsea for the obligatory survey of the galleries, which sad to say, were not very interesting this time.  In May, I found them riveting, but today, nothing seized me, plus it was hot and treeless.

At six pm I met up the Cal pre-med student, Carling, who had given  me allergy shots in Berkeley for a year as an physician's assistant.  Now she's a med student at Columbia (2/3rds of her classmates are from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, she says, which speaks well of how bright she is).  Her boyfriend Scott, another Cal grad,  is also in med school in Manhattan,and he met us, via subway from Harlem, where he's living ($2100/month for a two-bedroom apt) and we spent and hour and a half together in a vegan/bagel shop off Broadway.  What an inspiring couple they are!  THey expect to be $250,000 in debt by the time they're through with their education.  Each!  Dear God, they are dedicated. It's boggling.  They adore Manhattan but have no time to explore it; Carling's been here since August and not been to one museum (gave her some pointers on that).   I can't tell you how fun and impressive they are, so committed and funny, with so much of their future plotted out, licensing, residency, loans, whatever.

Tonight Jerry and I gave into the Manhattan experience of Eating on the Sidewalk at a Restaurant.  The traffic pours by, the busses roar, people slam in and out of cabs.  People, mostly quite young, sit and drink and talk on cell phones, and seem to ignore the noisy spectacle.  Not us.  We watched it all--from Orthodox Jews coming from services, yuppies returning from health clubs, groups of women with enormous expensive handbags and stiletto heels. 

Tomorrow we leave Manhattan, pick up our rental car a block from the hotel, and head up the Hudson River Valley to Poughkeepsie and Vassar and Annika!   More from there, with any luck.

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