The Blizzard of December 2010

I first started overhearing chatter about the upcoming storm on Christmas day. People were citing snowfall predictions of 15 and 18 inches. I thought surely these were exaggerations. But the next day it all came through as promised. Flurries started early with the first light of morning. The wind blew the flakes horizontally and we watched the pedestrians from our 15th floor windows and wondered what was being accomplished with umbrellas in this situation. Toni quickly made the “now or never” decision and quickly got into her most formidable winter gear incorporating a few items from my collection and headed out to the grocery store before it got any worse. Good move. Our first Nor'easter had begun.

Views from our apartment

The storm intensified all day long and well into the night. Once it hit its stride it did not let up. At around seven in the evening I only counted about a dozen pedestrians but by eleven o’clock the streets had become a playground of sorts. The numbers kept growing as tourists from the neighboring hotels poured into the streets to play in the snow and push cabs and cars through the ridges left at the cross street intersections by the plows. There were lots of people posing on 7th Avenue and the camera flashing was nearly constant. I found out from later news reports that many of them were from countries around the world and had never seen snow in their lives.
Buses stopped running by 8:30 and the airports shut down as well eventually canceling over 4,000 flights. The pressure center of the storm was so low that it was equivalent to a category 3 hurricane. There was lots of thunder and lightning as well. The official snowfall measurement in Central Park topped 20 inches making this the fifth highest 24 hour snowfall total since recordkeeping started in the 1870s and only six inches shy of the all time record.

Today there are only ridges of snow lining the curbs to remind us of what took place.

Tomorrow is the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium and they are hurrying up to remove the snow, something they have never had to be concerned with in the past. They expect 40 degrees at kickoff.

Santacon 2010

I mentioned in my last post that our friends had an interesting encounter with a group of Santas where they had stopped for lunch. Throughout the day we kept seeing large groups of Santas and mini-skirted Mrs. Santa as well. There were more Santas later when we stopped for a nightcap. I honestly didn’t think much about it and just figured much of it was street performers posing for photos with kids for tips. After all there were a lot of Mickey Mouses, Elmos, etc. all over town as well.
I later discovered that this was in fact an organized, or not so organized, event called Santacon.

They say not to call it a pub crawl but as far as I can determine that is exactly what it is.

This is a very short video of the start up at Central Park's Bethesda Fountain.



Thousands of Santas and Elves meet up, donate food, and then split up to totally engulf the sidewalks and bars of Manhattan spreading good cheer.

Fourteenth Visitors

The whole group in our lobby

click the photos to see full screen

Last weekend we had yet another group of visitors. There were two factions, Fred and Mahvash flew in from Chicago while Thom and Kay came from Kansas City. They met up at their hotel near 38th and 10th Avenue Friday afternoon. Once settled they found their way through Times Square and east to Bryant Park where they shopped some of the temporary Christmas stores set up around the skating rink. This park is totally transformed for the season. The rest of the year there is a huge lawn area in the middle of the park. They take the sod out and install the rink. Most of the rest of the park is devoted to the small shops made of plexiglass sheets. They look a lot more substantial than it sounds.

From there they turned north to our apartment. We hadn’t seen these couples for nine months so there were big bear hugs all around. They took a quick tour of the apartment followed by wines and beers. The girls went to Famous Original Ray’s Pizza around the corner on 7th Avenue and got a couple of large pies, New York style of course. This is not to be confused with other similarly named pizza restaurants. Read this linked article AND watch the Seinfeld video below to fully appreciate this.

After dinner we took a quick tour around Midtown. It was dark and really cold but we were fortified with pizza and alcohol. We went along the edge of Central Park and then down Fifth Avenue to see the high end retailers all decked out for the holidays, outrageous lights on the buildings and even more outrageous display windows. We continued south to Rockefeller Plaza just in time to catch the Saks Snowflake and Bubble animation. From there it was back home for a quick warm up. Our guests had been up since 4 AM so we called it a night.






Saturday evening we all met at Katz’s Deli in East Village for the concert event that brought the Prellbergs to New York. We caught up on the day’s events over pastrami, pickles, and fries. Earlier they had taken the Staten Island Ferry and followed that with lunch that wound up with them doing shots with a bunch of Santa’s at a bar. Just some of the odd things that seem to happen in Manhattan.





We went around the corner to the Rockwood Music Hall 2 to stake out our territory for the general admission show. We snagged the last seats left at the bar. The floor quickly filled up with the standing room only crowd. We were all there to see one of only five shows on Elliott Murphy’s mini-tour. He plays in the US very little and I think it has been years since he has done so with a full band. Murphy is a little known rocker who has been releasing albums since 1973’s Aquashow. He is originally from the Long Island and New Jersey area but he has been living in France exclusively for several years and his latest recordings have only been released in Europe. But despite focusing his career strictly in Europe he still manages a small but devoted following in America. Everyone loved the show and I think my favorite part was part of the encore that he and the band performed totally unplugged, not even a microphone. He included a few cover songs for his encore with Bob Dylan’s “Blind Willie McTell” being the highlight.


We finished up the evening wandering around the Village. We found the “nexus of the universe” made famous in a Seinfeld scene.

Fred at First and First

This clip is extra funny because we now understand the Ray’s Pizza joke. From there we continued on for a little nightcap at a bar on Third Avenue called the Village Pour House. It is a sports bar with 100 varieties of beer. We did not realize it that evening but I found out later that it was a KU alumni bar. http://myalumnibar.com/kansas-village-pourhouse/ There are so many transplants here that most major schools have some bar in NYC that has become associated with their university. Now the two Jayhawks’ stickers we saw randomly pasted on the exterior make sense.

Sunday started out with a pretty heavy rain. This had been forecast so we planned to go to the MoMA with Thom and Kay. It turned out that Fred and Mahvash’s flight back to Chicago was canceled due to snow so they quickly put plans together to stay another night and go Murphy’s next show in Larchmont to the north about 30 minutes. Thom and Kay’s flight was delayed a few hours and the rain cleared so the plans were changed to take advantage of this turn. We took a nice long walk through Central Park followed by a leisurely dinner at the French restaurant across the street. The flight delays gave us some welcome bonus time with our longtime friends and I was happy they were able to spend it with us instead of stranded at the airport. The extra time did not make the goodbyes any easier though.

Visitor 3.3

Toni and Barb with their unplanned coordinated outfits.

Last week we had another flurry of guests. First up was Barb who was here on business for her third time since we have been in New York. She dropped by the apartment for some wonderful omelets that Toni prepared. I think that is one of her favorite recipes.

The dinner party at The Beacon hosted by Jason at the head.

Later Barb had a dinner planned with some business associates at a restaurant that was just around the corner from us. The owner of the company was nice enough to also invite Toni and me to come along with Barb. The restaurant is called The Beacon Restaurant & Grill. It is a rather large place by New York standards but yet has a variety of totally private spaces which are mostly achieved with a complicated series of lofts and staircases which gives the feeling of being in an M.C. Escher print.

We had a wonderful dinner and Barb’s friend, Jason, generously picked up our tab. Even though it was getting late and it was bitterly cold out we went for a tour of some of the store window Christmas displays on Fifth Avenue. From there we went to Rockefeller Plaza to see the tree and the light show animation at Saks but we got there too late and all the lights were turned off. We had no idea they shut down at 11:30. So much for the city that never sleeps.

Bergdorf Goodman window on Fifth Ave

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

If you get this by email you need to clich HERE to see the video (two minutes)

You can see all of my photos HERE

Toni made herself right at home from her toasty perch

I found out later that the Ice Queen was Joan Rivers.

Horton the Elephant



Notice the color coordinated costumes on the balloon handlers

One of the larger marching bands.

Last year traffic through Times Square was discontinued on Broadway to make that part of Broadway into a pedestrian plaza. This in turn forced the decades old route of Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade to shift slightly over to 7th which now takes the event right by our apartment.

We started seeing small subtle signs of gearing up for the parade a few days before Thanksgiving. Christmas lights and window displays were popping up here and there. Overnight the familiar steel barriers appeared, at first in nested bunches of a couple dozen each at two or three spots per block. The next morning they were all in place in straight neat lines on both sides of 7th Avenue. On Wednesday we started seeing groups from the high school marching bands wending around the sidewalks in their school colors. From our vantage point watching these large blocks of color following the sidewalk one way and then take a right angle at the crosswalk another right angle at another sidewalk reminded me a little of the old Pac-Man game.

Thursday morning there was no fear of oversleeping as the crowd started gathering before 7:00 for the 9:00 start. Eventually there were 3.5 million spectators over the 3.8 mile route. There were also eleven high school marching bands, 800 clowns, and 8,000 participants altogether. The parade started at 77th and Central Park West and reached our corner about twenty minutes later before continuing south to Herald Square and Macy's flagship store on 34th St. There were many balloons of characters I had never heard of including the new-this-year Diary Of A Wimpy Kid. I did not realize that Bullwinkle and Underdog had been retired.

The last of it passed us about two hours later when Santa's float went by. I was amazed that the crowd had totally dispersed in just ten minutes or so leaving their litter of cups and bottles strewn everywhere. Then in another twenty all the litter was gone as well. New York really knows how operate a parade.

Visitor 1.3

We met my cousin, Brent Boydston, for breakfast Friday morning. He was our very first visitor back in April when we were still at our hotel. He was back again shortly after we moved to our apartment and he was here one other time but we couldn't manage to find a good time for us both then.

It is always great to see him. Since he is always here on business and on the go we are never able to squeeze more than an hour or two in but we have fun catching up on the family back in Kansas City. This time it couldn't be more convenient as he was staying just around the corner at the Park Center Hotel on 7th Avenue and we met at the Park Cafe also on 7th.

So for the moment Brent stands alone at first with number of visits...

...but not for long.

Brent's hotel in the background.

Turn, Turn, Turn

To everything there is a season.

These photos are from a couple of outings last week. I went to Central Park in the middle of the week for many of them and Toni and I both went out Saturday along 57th and 59th Streets to 1st Avenue all the way to the East River. This was probably the end of the Fall Foliage for the year.

CLICK THE PHOTOS TO SEE FULL SCREEN

This should look familiar. This spot was used for the movie posters and a famous scene for Woody Allen's Manhattan film. That's Toni sitting in for Diane Keaton.

Bloomingdale's at 59th and Lex

Toni, trying to remember how to drive.


Yours truly with the 59th Street Bridge

Footbridge in Central Park

Bethesda Fountain in Central Park

Cello busker at Central Park

this photo is a favorite of mine

Skating at Central Park, as if to punctuate the season change.

You can go HERE to see these and the slide show photos full size.

The Marathon

Just a handful of photos from the New York City Marathon
45,000 runners, 2.5 million spectators, 26.2 miles across all five boroughs

I got there early enough to beat the crowds

A random wheelchair athlete, not to be confused with....

A random hand cyclist. I did not know these are two different divisions. Both are started as one group a half hour before the runners start.

Gebre Gebremariam of Ethiopia, the eventual winner of 1st place men's about a half mile from the finish line

Edna Kiplagat of Kenya about to win 1st for women's division

Shalane Flanagan of Portland, Oregon near the finish line. She took 2nd place.

The 26 mile marker. I took this the day before. This is actually past the marker and looking back at it as you would near the finish line.

Cab Tips For Newbies

Now I would never pretend to be an expert in this area after just a few months but I can share what I have figured out up to this point. Much of this may be common knowledge but I don’t what to skip the basics.

First, know how to spot an available cab. Simply check the lights on the roof. If they are all dark the cab already has a fare, if the numbers in the middle are lit up it is available, if the smaller lights on both sides of the numbers are lit the cab is off duty. This will save you from appearing foolish trying to hail cabs that will never even look at you.

Next, pick a good spot to get picked up. Head for the nearest north or south avenue depending on your destination. If you grab a cab going north when you are heading south will take you through three unnecessary stoplights and cost you a few extra dollars. Getting a cab on any of the one way crosstown streets is a fluke. The drivers do not cruise east and west looking for fares so most of them you see will be in use. It is also hard to get a cab on the streets around the edges of Manhattan. These are generally higher speed areas and cabs use them after they have a fare rather than cruising looking for business. Still keep an eye out because you might catch one dropping off a fare.

Once you get to your avenue find a spot where the cab can pick you up without creating a bottleneck or a hazard. Ideally this would be an empty spot at the curb. Also, go just past the traffic light. You don’t want to start out before the light and have it go red as you get in the car with the meter running. It is also good to go to the left hand side of the road. The right hand side is the bus lane and there is a good chance there is a bus stop as well. If you and your cab block a bus lane you can be sure the driver will lean on the horn while you are trying to clamber into backseat. If you enjoy being the center of attention this is sure fire way to get it.

Once you are in your ideal spot simply hold your hand out. The cabbie will spot you, no need to do jumping jacks, that is his job. I have seen a woman in high heels walking on the street with her back to traffic, on a cell phone, at night, with her hand out and a cab stopped for her. Now that’s a pro. Hmmm…now that I think about it I believe she was a pro.

Be prepared to tell the driver where you are going. He won’t want the address, rather he will want the intersection. Tell him 42nd and 7th, that is 42nd Street and 7th Avenue. The east and west addresses are pretty simple with 5th Avenue being the dividing line. So 1 through 100 west is between 5th and 6th Avenues and 1 through 100 east is between 5th and 4th Avenues (only that 4th Avenue is actually Park Avenue). North and south numbering is pretty crazy and that is where you really need to know the cross street nearest to your destination. How crazy you ask? It is so weird that you might need a calculator. Check this link: Street Locator. Well…maybe you will need a slide rule. And that is why the cab driver probably won’t know where 1660 8th Avenue is.

Cab fares can add up quickly and the meter keeps running even if the car is not moving so you can save a lot, maybe half your fare, if you don’t go all the way from door to door. In other words if you can walk a little bit at the start to get to an avenue and then again at the destination to just get to a nearby intersection you should do so. The traffic on north and south avenues runs quickly and you can catch a wave going a mile or so without a red light. Crosstown traffic is where the congestion is. They are narrow and prone to gridlock and the lights only stay green about one-fourth the time that the avenues do. At peak times you may see only a couple of cars get through one green light cycle. So try to plan your trip to avoid the east west cross streets. If you cannot avoid going east and west try to use one of the major two way cross streets, 14th, 23rd, 34th, 42nd, 57th, 72nd.

All of the cabs now have video monitors in the back seat that will show your exact fare at the end of the ride. You use this for both cash and credit cards. It is a simple touch screen and you just follow the prompts including tip amount options in either dollars or percentages. Always get a receipt. This will include the cab number which you will need if you need to report a problem or if you find that you left or lost something in the cab.

One of my earliest posts was about the shift change. This is a late afternoon time when it is nearly impossible to get a cab. It is also difficult to get a cab between midnight and 1:00 AM. Normally buses run every five or ten minutes but at midnight they suddenly jump to just once every half hour or once an hour. This puts an instant increase on the demand for cabs and you will see nothing available during this time. However, this is when the gypsy cabs jump into action. They are not marked and they are not regulated and they are strictly forbidden from responding to a hail, the hand gesture. They will see someone who looks like they need a cab and slow down to make eye contact but you need to make the first move. They will linger a little but move on quickly. It is like a girl wanting you to ask her to dance. Don’t be shy… it ain’t Sadie Hawkins Day. Simply ask if they can take you to your destination and for how much. They know their stuff and will shoot back a price that will be about the same as the cab. There will be no meter and the car will be a bit more worn but that is what you get at midnight.

Now I much prefer to take the bus instead of a cab. They take about twice the time but the cost is a fraction of cab fare and I think it much more relaxing sitting up above the fray and getting bit of a tour. But when you need a cab you need a cab and nothing else will do.

Village Halloween Parade

I am not much for parades and I am not too keen about crowds and I hate being out in the cold and wind. But I had made up my mind to go to the Village Halloween Parade back in April and nothing but freezing rain and sleet would keep me away. We mapped out our bus ride perfectly to arrive at 14th and 6th Avenue in time to grab a bite and get to the barricades before the big crowds set in. This was the 38th annual parade and it has grown to over 50,000 participants and they say two million viewers but I don’t think there was more than one million this year. The parade is about a mile long starting below Houston and going straight north on 6th Avenue to 23rd Street.

That is a little dog skeleton there.

Go to my picasa page to see the rest of my photos.

I saw a whole block of zombies, another block of characters from Rocky Horror dancing non-stop to “Time Warp”, giant skeleton puppets flying in the air, several Edward Scissorshands, Rescued Chilean Miners, countless Marie Antoinettes, Barbie dolls in boxes, comic book characters, lots of Gagas, costumed babies and dogs, and so much more.

It was in the low 40s and pretty breezy so after a couple of hours I decided to head back home. I headed over to 8th Avenue at about 9:30 and the sidewalks of the Village were packed with costumed partiers going from bar to bar. My bus came right away and it felt great to be inside with the heat blasting. I felt like I was in some weird horror movie as I looked at all the zombies and ghouls and monsters who were populating all of Manhattan as I was passing by in the safety of my bus.

I have read that it is said that this is on a list of 100 things to do before you die. Done.

Thirteenth Visitors

Toni mentioned that we attended a house concert last Friday in the East Village. The performers were Fats Kaplin and his wife, Kristi Rose. I have been dealing with them for ten years or so as Village Records stocked all of their CDs as they were issued, including their new Christmas CD coming in a week or so. But this was the first time we had ever met in person. Fats is an extremely talented multi-instrumentalist and Kristi is equally talented as a vocalist. You may not know them by name but if you click on those links you might find that you have an album or two that they were on. They once lived in New York but about twelve years ago they moved to Nashville where Fats has steady work as a session musician and tour gigs. He plays pedal steel guitar, accordion, violin, guitar, and loads of other instruments.

They were here for the whole week looking up old friends and checking out old haunts. On Wednesday we arranged to have lunch together at a deli across from my apartment. It turned out that we had much more in common than just our taste and interest in music. I discovered that Kristi, like me, was born to a Canadian mother and she has been looking into getting her Canadian citizenship restored just as I have. That is quite an interesting coincidence.

Transportation Adaptation

Toni takes the wheel today:

Highlighted in our lives this week has been transportation. Now that we have lived here for almost seven months, our current brag is how we haven’t driven a car for that long and how happy that makes us. We are not kidding or exaggerating here. First, we have considerably reduced our carbon foot print, second, public transportation and cabs are economical and third, we can have a drink or two without endangering other beings. As we have grown accustomed to this lifestyle change, our courage to take more and more complex routes has increased.

As of this past week I now commute along with the throngs of other train passengers to my new job populating a website for the International Trademark Association in Midtown. I leave the apartment at 8:30, enter the subway station that is steps away from the front of our apartment building. After no more than a two minute wait, I board the B or D train and two stops later I am beneath Bryant Park. Up a flight of stairs, a two minute walk down an echoing hallway filled with the sounds of a busker playing classical accordion, and down another flight of stairs leading to the 7 train. One short stop later, I disembark and walk to the end of the platform, up a flight of stairs, then up an escalator, and find myself at 42nd Street and 3rd Avenue directly across the entrance of the Chrysler Building. I cross 3rd Avenue and walk one door south to my building and ride the elevator up to the 10th floor and I am at my desk by 8:50. I find this routine less stressful than driving on the interstate or parking a car.

We attended two small concerts this weekend far from our neighborhood. Friday night’s venue was in the East Village at a private apartment on East 8th Street for a house concert. Since it was on the East side, I did not want to backtrack from work, so instead of reversing the morning’s route, I got on the 6 Train. This required some trekking down unfamiliar corridors packed with commuters rushing home. Diligently following the signs without error, I boarded the train and five stops later debarked onto the South side of 14th Street at Union Square. Walking a half a block east I boarded the 14D crosstown bus, taking care not to board the 14A. The bus, packed with commuters and lodged in rush-hour traffic, required patience. It stopped at every avenue and then finally turned onto Avenue C putting me just a block from our agreed meeting place to have dinner before the show. I entered the Royale restaurant and ordered a Brooklyn Lager which felt really good after the 45 minute commute and waited for Bill. I made it at our appointed time, but Bill was not so lucky.

Meanwhile the scene switches to Bill:

I left the apartment a little more than an hour before meeting time. I went directly to the M7 bus stop, got in position, then I went to get my Metrocard in hand. It was not in its usual spot. I frantically flipped through every part of my wallet but I knew immediately that it was fruitless to continue, all I had was an old card with twenty cents left on it. Toni was going to throw it away but I kept it figuring I could put more money on it if needed. There was no time to go back to the apartment. Okay, think! I can use money but the bus won’t take paper…only coins. So I went into the restaurant there, Rosie O’Grady’s, to try to get some change but it was Happy Hour on a Friday and I couldn’t even get an employee to make eye contact with me. Okay, screw it, I would just spring for a cab. I went back out to the sidewalk and looked up the avenue just as the bus came barreling down to the stop. I impulsively just hopped in as the door opened and put my depleted card in the slot thinking perhaps the driver wouldn’t notice. It popped back like normal but the driver said, “That’s no good.” I said, “Oh sh…” and stood there for a second before the driver said, “Oh, just sit down.” I thought that worked pretty well. But I still had to transfer to another bus and I didn’t think I could pull that stunt again. It was easy to do once because I really didn’t know what would happen when I put the card in but to do it a second time would require me to act surprised and I didn’t think I could fake that.

After getting dropped off at the next bus stop I glanced around for a likely spot to get change for the fare. There was a DVD store right there with the door propped open and it didn’t look busy at all. I went in and noticed that only the front ten feet or so was a regular DVD store. The rest of the place was all adult films with signs hanging above all the aisles with categories a bit like a grocery store. I definitely did not want to make a purchase to get change. It took a second or two to figure out where the cashier was. He was seated in this boxed in area that was about four feet higher than the floor level. Apparently he also served as security from his perch. As I laid out my plight and my request I felt somewhat like I was in a courtroom approaching the judge in his lofty bench with my hat in hand. It took a little extra explanation but once the cashier finally understood he was sympathetic and gave me the change I needed. I quickly returned to my spot on the sidewalk, got my bus and wound up being just a few minutes late.

I have truly enjoyed learning to adapt to all the differences of living in Manhattan but perhaps none as much as learning the ins and outs of New York transportation. Old dogs learning new tricks.

We were this close to Lanois

And now back to Toni:

The next day we wanted to see an artist who we have admired for over twenty-five years, but have never had the opportunity to see live. Daniel Lanois, a Canadian musician and producer (best known for his work with U2), was playing a free 30 minute acoustic set at the Rockwood Music Hall on Allen Street, a half block south of Houston on the Lower East Side. If we didn’t get there at 5:00, we could miss the whole show, so we set out by bus at 3:30. We caught the M57 going cross-town at 57th and 6th Avenue. Again, it stopped at every Avenue and was caught in typical NYC crosstown traffic so the trip to 2nd Avenue took more time than we had allotted. As the minutes drew nearer I grew more and more anxious that the appointed time would not be reached. We transferred to a second bus that would take us down Second Avenue and drop us off at Allen and Houston, but not without more delay. We started to board the bus, but the driver would’t let us and our fellow travelers on board because we had not obtained a ticket at the kiosk. What the hell was that?? We turned to the left and there were new machines where you place your bus card into them, and a select bus ticket prints out. It turned out this change just took effect and was only on this one bus route. So this was not only new to us but to everyone else boarding with us. We did this but it made us miss the bus, but within a minute another bus pulled up. We showed our printouts to the driver and came aboard. This ride down the avenue was a little faster and we arrived at the Rockwood with just five minutes before show time, but never fear the band was still 10 minutes late.

My anxiety was as usual a waste of energy, but next time I have vowed to take the F train like Madonna if I am going to that part of town again.

Madonna was recently seen taking the subway here

Twelfth Visitors

Batting cleanup in our recent flurry of visitors was Jeff Meiring. He is a distant cousin originally from Ohio but currently living in Washington DC with the Department of Homeland Security. How distant a cousin? He is my third cousin once removed which means that our common ancestors are my third great grandparents who were born near the beginning of the 1800s in Prussia. We have corresponded since about 1990 first by snail mail and later by email. We were both researching our family trees at the time and Jeff came across a query of mine at the county genealogical society in his county in Ohio. Over the years we have exchanged and shared loads of family information and old photographs. But we had never met face to face before Saturday.

He and his partner were here for a lecture the following day and we made arrangements to meet up in the Village for drinks and a meal. Jeff surprised me with some recently found family photos that I had never seen. They were really nice studio shots of three direct ancestors from around 1870, quite a find.


Franz Joseph Meiring and Catharine (Schoen) Meiring about 1870

I learned a lot of things about Jeff but by far the most impressive was that he has either fostered or adopted nine twelve year olds. At that age these are kids who are “unplaceable” and he took them in as a single parent. I am sure he could write a book or at least be a guest on Oprah or something. We had a great time with Jeff and his friends and we showed them a couple of places in the Village that aren’t found on most tourist guides.

Now I think our calendar is open until the beginning of December when we have another wave of visitors.

Let Me Take You Down

I am sure everyone heard that October 9th would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday. As many times that I have been in Central Park I have never been to “Strawberry Fields”, the section that has been made into a memorial to Lennon, almost directly across the avenue from the Dakota entrance where he was murdered. I just didn’t want to deal with that bad memory even after nearly thirty years.


But that Saturday was different and I made plans to spend much of the day at the park he loved so much. I thought I would head in the direction of the memorial and just see how close I could get. It was a beautiful sunny day so I was prepared for a crowd.

Around noon I entered the park from the west side at 72nd Street and immediately saw all the vendors set up selling anything with his name or image on it. Just past that was a brass quartet playing Beatles songs and a two man crew interviewing and video recording fans. A little further in the park was the memorial and there was a small crowd around it. I took my time and as someone moved away I inched up until I was only about three rows of people away from the center.

Everyone was singing along with an impromptu group who were playing all variety of instruments from the edge of the circle. By this time the circle was already nearly full of flowers, candles, photos, and apples. The crowd would only part for a muscian to get in or out of the first circle. It was a non-stop singalong with an ever expanding group of fans and musicians. In all I was there for about three hours and I couldn’t tell you how many songs were sung during that period. All Beatles’ songs whether or not they were Lennon ones were played as were lots of his solo songs. It was all unstructured and spontaneous with no one in charge or organizing anything. It made me think of an outdoor church service and nobody needed the hymnal books because they knew all the songs. There was an incredible mix of people, all ages, little kids and teenagers singing along with all the oldsters. Between songs I heard a multitude of languages spoken as well, a modern day Tower of Babel, but with the universal language of the Beatles words and music. While I was there the crowd grew to a couple thousand I would guess.


I had kind of hoped to get close enough to get a photo of the Imagine Memorial mosaic but the inner circle of people just wasn’t showing any sign of budging. So instead I took this picture of the sky directly above the memorial. That seemed appropriate as the church ceiling. As John sang, “…above us only sky…”.

Peace.

Oysters And Cloisters

Toni writes today:

Two outings with the Vossmans were particularly fun for me. First, Bill and I were able to spend Thursday afternoon with them between their visit to the MoMA in the morning and taking in the Billy Elliott musical that night. One of the places we visited was a place I had wanted to go since we arrived in the City….the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station.


After traversing the corridors of the main level, we went to the lower level into the restaurant. It’s not fancy, just a plain old 1950s diner with a twist. Like the rest of Grand Central Station, The Oyster Bar seems to be frozen in time. In fact the restaurant has been located there since the station opened. The ceiling is a collection of archways clad in yellow subway tiles and the arch shapes are reminiscent of an old wine cellar. To one side is a colonial style dining area with checkered table cloths, in the middle are three huge u-shaped counters, and to the left is a long marble soda fountain type counter that serves as the raw/cocktail bar. After opting to sit at the bar we were able to see the staff shuck, cook, and cold prep the oyster offerings. The handwritten menu board on the back wall of the bar had an enormous variety of oysters to choose from.

I got four raw oysters from Washington State and they were heaven. One was so big I had to cut it into three bites. They were so fresh I couldn’t believe they came from across the country instead of from Long Island. This was my second oyster experience and was much better than the first time I had them in Midtown. These were fresher and more satisfying. I didn’t realize just how much fun I would have eating oysters. I am now addicted to their lure. Fortunately, Bill found a place called “The Ten Bells” on the Lower East Side that offers more for the money. Looking forward to trying that out next time we are in that area of town.

Saturday I was up early, and I joined Roger and Betsy on a trip to the Cloisters. We all had studied maps to get there and concluded the best game plan was to take the nearest subway up North, then the bus. We embarked the A train at 57th and 8th Avenue, Columbus Circle, and got off at 190th Street nearly to the northern tip of the island. To our surprise when emerged from the subway we were right at the entrance of the park where the Cloisters are located, no bus transfer or complex directions were needed after all.

photograph pending

First, we were able to tour the cute little two story gatehouse which is rarely open to the public. Then we walked the main building though the beautiful perennial gardens. The weather was perfect. Along the walk we saw the Hudson River with outstanding views of the George Washington Bridge. We were taking our time with every detail as we eventually arrived at the main building of the Cloisters. Since the building was actually disassembled in from several abbeys in Europe and then brought over reassembled piece by piece, we felt like we had been transported to Italy instead of being in the northern tip of Manhattan. Inside there are expansive stone rooms, outdoor courtyard gardens, and balconies overlooking the Hudson. The Unicorn Tapestries are divine, the highlight of the medieval artifact collection.

photograph pending

We decided to walk down to the café just inside the park entrance for some lunch. To our dismay there was a 40 minute wait and no outdoor seating due to a wedding party. We then asked a local for restaurant suggestions. We were directed to go straight ahead out of the park, past the subway station and we would see a little three block retail area. It was the cutest neighborhood with old, well kept apartment buildings, the Mother Cabrini Shrine and High School, four grocery stores, and many little eateries. Roger’s good eye spotted our place to eat, Bleu Evolution. We were able to sit outside in an enclosed back patio and enjoy a fabulous, inexpensive lunch. The service was good and once again like the places we frequent in the Village, free drinks were given without fanfare to show appreciation. A block further down was another little subway station and in minutes we were back to the center of the bustling metropolis of Midtown.

Eleventh Visitors

On the Brooklyn Bridge

Just four days after the Bollingers arrived we had our next visitors. Our very good friends from Lake Quivira, Roger and Betsy Vossman, were here for a long weekend…Wednesday to Monday. Betsy may be familiar to a couple of you as she taught grade school at Saint Pius X in Mission several years ago. I know she taught a couple of my cousins. Some of you may also know them through Saint Joseph parish.

I won’t try to describe everything we did together but here are a couple of highlights.

On Friday afternoon we caught up with them near City Hall as they were touring lower Manhattan. From there we walked the raised pedestrian section on the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a bright and sunny day so we were treated to commanding views of the Manhattan skyline, the East River traffic, and the Statue of Liberty. Oh, and of course the bridge itself from a totally different vantage point. It is surprising how many walkers and bikers were on the bridge. It was as busy as any sidewalk in Midtown. The walk is a mile each way including the approaches.

From there we wound around through Chinatown and ended up in Little Italy. This is now nothing but nonstop restaurants and each one has a barker/maître d’ on the sidewalk trying to snag patrons in an aggressive yet friendly manner. We randomly picked a restaurant and were whisked to our table as if we were going to change our minds and try to get away. This briefly gave me concern about the quality and the price but my worries quickly evaporated. We were treated royally, the fare was all home-made and we went away quite content.

Sunday morning we met everyone at Maison for brunch and after said our final farewells to the Bollingers. Later that afternoon we went to another classical guitar concert at the Roger Smith Hotel. This time the performer was a young woman from Bogotá, Columbia named, Irene Gómez. The hotel presents a classical guitar concert once a month. It is an intimate setting and wine and cheese is provided. This is quite a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon and I was glad the Vossmans wanted to share it with us when there are so many things to do in New York.

I think Roger and Betsy made the most of their trip. They went to Top of the Rock, The Circle Line boat tour, The Museum of Modern Art, The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park, Bryant Park, Ground Zero, Greenwich Village, The New York Public Library, Mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, ate street food from a Halal cart, Thai food in Hell’s Kitchen, went to the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station, enjoyed an adult beverage at Sardi’s, rode a pedicab, and saw two Broadway musicals!! They will need another vacation to rest up after this.

It has been great having so many friends visit us while living in New York. Each time it is like a vacation for us and we always wind up doing or seeing something new for us as well. We have now passed the six month mark on our year here. Whether or not we will stay on for a second year or head for our next destination remains to be seen.

Their final appearance on Broadway

Tenth Visitors

We have been pretty quiet lately and you might be wondering if we are still here. We have been very busy with guests since October 2nd. That Saturday our friends from Switzerland, Jürg and Hanny Bollinger, arrived in Manhattan for a week long stay. Jürg has been a mail order customer of Village Records for fifteen years and he almost always ordered by phone so we got to know one another since he orders nearly every month. On our first trip to Europe five years ago Jürg picked us up at the airport in Zurich and we spent the weekend at their home and got a great tour of their village, Neuhausen, and some of the nearby villages. So this was a reunion of sorts.

They had booked a room at the Manhattan at Times Square which is very convenient at just a block from us on 7th Avenue. We greeted them at our apartment for snacks and wine. They brought us some wonderful chocolates, biscuits, and cheese from their canton in Switzerland and we had to sample a little bit before we took a quick stroll around the neighborhood and then off to dinner on 9th Avenue. They were naturally tired after the long flight and called it a night but they hit the city hard and strong the rest of the week. During their stay they were at the observation decks of both Top of the Rock and Empire State, took the Circle Line boat tour, walked the Brooklyn Bridge, toured Greenwich Village, Battery Park, Staten Island Ferry, the Museum of Modern Art, took a day trip to Pennsylvania to see a friend, an overnight trip to New Jersey to see another friend, and more.

Monday evening the four of us went to a small concert in the East Village, Rod Picott and Amanda Shires. Rod has written many songs with Slaid Cleaves who has been fairly successful. Rod and Amanda record together and separately and they both deserve to be better known. There were only twelve in the audience counting us but it was great and they didn’t seem to mind the lack of a crowd and gave an enthusiastic performance.

After the show we went around the corner to perhaps the most famous deli in New York, Katz’s Delicatessen. This is where the famous restaurant scene from “When Harry Met Sally” was filmed. The ordering and paying system there has to be unique. When you enter you are required to take a large ticket at the door. One long side of the restaurant is actually the kitchen/grill with a high counter. There is one cook for each category of food and you order directly from him to assemble your meal. The guy making sandwiches takes your ticket and marks the price on it and hands it back to you to take to the French fry guy or whatever else you want. On your way out you go by the cashier who tallies your ticket. I don’t know but it seems inside out. For the more traditional types there is a section with waiters. My Philly cheesesteak sandwich practically melted in my mouth.

We had a great time visiting with the Bollingers over their stay in NYC and we agreed to get together again in five years…that will involve a return to Switzerland.