back home

Last night, I left Ed to the vultures of the New York Bar and flew home.

Apart from the early morning tumble, the day was unmemorable. When I was not at the library, I people watched.



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And window-peered.



at Tiffany's: taxis, jewels, lights
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at UW: cows, explanations, lights

Ooops, that last was from today, back in Madison. You couldn’t tell?


Yesterday, I had wanted to eat dinner at the Grand Central Oyster Bar – it’s a place where Ed and his dad used to occasionally dine and it’s a place where my dad has eaten as well (though not with me) and I thought it would be somehow fitting. Especially since it also happened to be Ed’s birthday. Normally, Ed would like me to make nothing of October 20th, but I remind him that it is also the date we first became Occasional Traveling Companions (three years ago), and so it’s harder for him to be a jackass about the whole date recognition thing.

The Oyster Bar is so traditional, so old world New York, so old people New York (especially if you’re eating before 6 p.m.), so old habits New York, that it hurts. Have I crossed over to that world? Of hanging on to fading lights and checked tablecloths and waiters who understand that, so often, you must dine alone?

As it happened, on this day Ed was with law types and so I did eat by myself. I at least had wanted to pack some oysters and take them to him, over at The Firm, but New York says No! to taking out raw foods of this sort and so I ate a handful of Long Island blue points…



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… took over some clam chowder for the OTC, and flew home.


At my condo, the heating system has again failed. You may recall that this was a recurring problem last year, but they swore that it was finally repaired and that I should never have to experience the depressing reentry into a cold unit. I know they tried. I know it. Still, it was cold.

This morning I biked to work. Out of habit. Blue skies means bike. So now I am hoping for rainfall for the rest of the week because frankly, I’m too cold to bike out there in the tail end days of October.

On a cheerful note, I also visited my dentist so that he could plug my jaw with additional pain meds.

In all, a glorious day of cold, pain and work. No, I'm not complaining. Life is good.

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This morning, looking for an open branch of the Public Library (I need a quiet space to get stuff done), while also glancing up at the Empire State building, the flags on Fifth Avenue, and the lions of the main library, I fell. It’s not the first time that I have fallen in a city. Curbs and uneven slabs are dangerous for people who think and look in terms of photo angles.

My camera shattered and helpful Australians who had gathered to assist felt badly for me. I felt badly for me as well. My knee is just recovering from last week’s biking tumble. I’m feeling bruised.

As it happens, just this morning, I was thinking about taking care. I do know that I can be both over-attentive and under-attentive, all in one breath. At the b&b breakfast table another group of Australians was asking about safety. I mentioned always feeling safe in New York, even in days when I was in college, riding subways to and from work after midnight. Our b&b landlady confirmed that even in this still poor neighborhood of Brooklyn, she, too, feels perfectly safe. But really, her word is suspect given that she is going to Afghanistan next week to do a story on orphans, and this is not her first and only visit there, and my word is suspect because I also can be not careful enough. For example when mounting a curb on 4oth and Fifth.

Of course, people usually fear other people rather than their own lapses in judgment. The Australians were especially surprised and disturbed when they learned that nearly anyone can purchase a gun in this country. They probably weren't really worrying about tripping on sidewalks. Maybe they are better at navigating uneven terrain than I am



Today, Ed is again conferring with lawyers. We were late for his meetings because there was traffic down below, in the tunnels of the NY subway. The train paused numerous times and I remembered that feeling of irritation that comes to you in New York as you stand still waiting for others to move so that you, too, can get ahead in life. And in traffic.


Yesterday (Sunday), I dragged Ed through Manhattan once more. I proposed several escapes from the city, but he was nice enough to say it really did not matter where we went and I believed him. He has given up on the city and his radius of intolerance extends so far that any quick journey out of the center will do nothing to calm him.


In my youth, I had always hated Sundays in New York. It always felt empty and ugly then. But now, tourists and an influx of young families have given new life to the city on week-ends. As we made our way again to Central Park, we encountered any number of good people watching opportunities.



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But you can’t just hide in the park for two whole days. In my opinion, it's not beautiful enough. This time the park spit us out on its southwest corner and I gave Ed the choice of staying on Broadway or heading east. He shrugged. We turned east.


The high towers here are cool to look up at. Not all are boring, or even straight.



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We find ourselves admiring these two thin buildings providing the bread to the piece of salami in between (the salami being the Russian Tea Room).



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I lay down on the sidewalk trying to get it all in, but I fail, because the lens does not permit the joining of the red awning and the blue of the sky in one shot.

At times, the stuff on the ground is equally captivating. Somewhere nearby, there had been a costume party for dogs, and this guy was being wheeled home after collecting no prize at all. Perhaps feeling disappointed with his lack of success, he is now unwilling to pilot the plane home. His owner finally gives up. He knows he is almost home, she tells me. Home is the building right next to the Mercedes Benz dealer. Yes, that’s Park Avenue for you.







We stay for a long time on 2nd avenue. No tourists walk on 2nd avenue and so it retains the aura of my childhood (helped by the fact that I lived right by it) – an empty wide street, with dozens and dozens of small neighborhood restaurants. One after another, none of them especially unusual or expensive. It’s like walking through a French city on a day where everyone has checked out with the flu or the plague or some such disease that keeps you off the streets.

Eventually I lead Ed to Tudor City. Even though it’s hard to hide entire neighborhoods in New York, few people knows about this place. It’s a bunch of blocks elevated above the rest, connected to the world with the two prongs of a U shaped street. Built in the 1920s, it was created with the hope of luring the middle class back into this part of New York. Now it faces the UN. Back then, it had the city slaughterhouses below it. The middle class can easily be bought off by decent housing.

These days, you can find quiet here. And views of the UN. And of 42nd Street below.



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Ed wants to linger, but I’m feeling cold. I’m often cold when the sun hovers just above my reach. We make our way to Grand Central where Ed proclaims that it looks the same (apparently the huge renovation efforts of the 90s do not impress him; a crowded station is a crowded station). And now I know we have done enough of Manhattan walking.

We take the train back to Brooklyn and get off (along with this well tended duo)…





…just on the other side of Brooklyn Bridge. This is the spiffy part of the borough and only the most difficult to impress (Ed, for example) would not find it charming.




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The promenade gives pretty views of the bridge and of Manhattan. It is a pleasant place to finish up the day.



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The walk back to our own neighborhood is long, but it takes us through the gentrified neighborhoods – Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope -- and I am curious to see these well treated parts of a long-ailing borough.

We pass by many pleasant looking eateries and as I had hoped, Ed is tempted. We are intrigued by a place that brags about its cupcakes and posts a news clipping proclaiming it to offer the very best piece of chocolate cake in Brooklyn.





We buy cupcakes for later and settle in for a dinner of soups and salads and sure enough, rosé wine for me and a lovely darkish beer for Ed.






So ends our week-end. Today I’ll be flying home for sure and Ed will be flying home maybe for sure, depending on what the attorneys decide. I have a busted camera and a sore knee, but I really do have to admit that on balance, I sort of like this city. I gave it some good years and it gave me back an interesting take on life. It’s like having a very witty friend who doesn’t make things easy for you but keeps you amused nonetheless. Eventually you may get tired of the strain and stress of it all, but I’m not there yet. Stumbles and falls on crooked curbs notwithstanding.

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Masha Hamilton, co-owner of the B&B where Ed and I are staying, is an accomplished novelist. And journalist. Not surprisingly, it takes us a while to leave the breakfast table. And so it isn’t until noon that we make our way toward the upper east side of Manhattan.

The goal is to go easy on the city parts and emphasize the green, the water, the walking opportunities here. In other words, to placate the guy who refuses to say one kind word about New York.

Except that it sure is more crowded than when he was a kid here.

It is that. You hear French, Italian, Russian, Polish. Tourists, in great numbers. As someone said, the weak dollar has been a boon to New York.

And so here’s our walk, with commentary.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rooftop sculpture garden. Because it’s such a good view toward the south and west.



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Inside the museum proper, Ed starts reading every bit of info plastered on the walls. I tug, he reads. We crawl toward the exit, past a photo exhibit and past the new Impressionist (and early XX century European) art rooms…



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And finally, out the door. And into the park.



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As always, it is a place of calm, even on the week-end. Ed wonders if the horse trails are still there. A well dressed man with a large shopping bag from Tiffany’s overhears and pauses to talk about the trail and whether they have closed all the stables in the park. Ed mutters that New Yorkers aren’t supposed to be friendly.

Toward Columbus Avenue, in search of food. Past Magnolia Bakery (yes, now on the upper Westside)…



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…past endless brunchy places which Ed rejects on the basis of price and pleasant ambiance. I’m thinking hungry thoughts, so we take the subway to SoHo. I am in NY, with a million places to find unusual snacks and all I can think of is that Café Café on Greene Street will probably be an okay compromise for the two of us. I’ve gone there when the chips are down before and it always seems to be okay for fussy types.



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But the blocks in SoHo are dense with crowds. And merchants. And tourists. And shoppers. And families. And the world. And so long as we’ve lost our calm, we may as well plunge all the way to complete madness and cross over Broadway toward Little Italy…



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…and Chinatown, and the markets along Canal Street …



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I ask Ed if he ever used to come down here when he was growing up. Not really. Just to get pickles over on the lower east side. Makes sense. People leave their neighborhoods mostly for food, right?

Finally I take pity and we turn toward the financial district. Surely, on a week-end, all will be quiet there.

But no! If you were a tourist, wanting to see ALL of New York, wouldn’t you go here, to Wall Street, to the Bull, you know, to take a photo of how it should be but isn’t, what with the markets collapsing?



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The sun is getting awfully close to the horizon. I think Ed is in a daze. He’s grown awfully quiet, so that even provocative things like “isn’t this great?” aren’t having much of an impact.

I suggest that now is the time for us to ride the ferry to Staten Island. Ed used to do this as a kid. We all did, but he used to do it A LOT. Back and forth, when it cost a nickel. Now it’s free. Life could not get better than this.

We walk toward the ferry just as the sun turns all those golden and orange colors near the horizon. One of those oh say can you see moments.



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At the Ferry Terminal, the crowds are huge. Of course. People do use this boat to get home. The sun blinks, shines and dips below the skyline.

The ride is beautiful.



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Not to get too immigrant-y here, but this is the way I first came to the country: through the Verrazano Narrows, before this bridge went up in 1964...



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Ahh, New York...


The return is dark and windy and we stay indoors. Ed reads the rag papers people have left behind. I watch a woman paint her nails as the ferry hums and pushes toward Battery Park.

We take the subway back to Brooklyn. Neither of us feels like hiking for food. Our hosts suggest that we get take out from Homage. It’s kind of skuzzy, but it has good food, we’re told. We pick up a bottle of rosé from a hugely secure liquor store, then some chicken salad and portabella mushroom sandwich with sweet potato fries from Homage, and make our way back to our b&b room. Ed tells me it’s one of his favorite meals. Ever.

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As always, the drive into the city blots out all that has happened in the last decades and puts me into my childhood days again. Especially as we crawl into the gut of Manhattan at 49th, near the UN, just blocks from where I lived during my first years here.

I don’t think it has the same effect on Ed. I hear him groan as we move in that incremental way one moves from east to west here. Let’s get out and walk, he says. We do. An overnight bag rolling behind us, backpacks in place – we look weird, but, as always in this city, not weird enough to stand out.

I remember three years ago, during my routine trips here, I’d walk the streets at midnight, often in great distress, often sobbing actually, at the enormity of life and the difficulty of finding a good way to move forward and I did not stand out then either. New York is a city that pretends that eccentric is normal so that it can turn away and ignore all that should not be ignored.

It’s a gorgeous, albeit crispy cool day. It makes the city look clean and fresh, especially if you look up toward that patch of blue.



Rockefeller Center
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I leave Ed and the suitcase to the vultures of law and set out to meet a family friend (Martha) back at the UN. It’s a rare chance for me to get back inside and look around. I used to have a pass, but security measures have tightened so much over the years that our permanent passes became worthless and we, once children of the UN, have become part of the crowd again. Outsiders.



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Did you notice there are no children at all visiting the UN? Martha asks me. No school groups. No children. They’re not allowed. The building is not up to code.

It’s one of the reasons why I am here: come spring, the UN is going to be gutted and rebuilt from the inside. For the next four or five years, it will be closed, under construction. And once it reopens, all the remaining people that I still know and could ask to let me inside, will have retired.

We stroll now past the big rooms – the Security Council, the General Assembly.



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head of the Polish delegation ?


And the delegates’s lounge, where you can get your espresso fix.





My father, after his stint as head of the Polish delegation, returned later to the UN as USG. Two ends of a career in diplomacy: the first trip was so brilliantly optimistic and exciting. The second – so different! The family’s grown and gone, the wife’s tired of diplomatic functions, the future is uncertain.

My parents broke up after his final years at the UN. He went back to Poland, she stayed behind. As I walk now with Martha, I remember these spaces as ones I walked through on my own. It had been my father’s world, but I knew it best as a place where I hung out in the company of no one.



from inside the glass tower of the Secretariat
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looking out from the UN cafeteria
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Out on the streets again, I move rapidly to reconnect with Ed. And now I am in his world. From the midtown law firm, we walk to Union Square, with suitcase, backpacks, my cameras, all of it. Hobos in black and blue, past the shadowed streets of a city rushing to call it quits for the week.



42nd street
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We spend some time with his cousin. Ed has family business stuff to talk over and I listen to them speak in that familiar way that you have toward those you needn’t pretend anything anymore. You’ve been through it all, childhood, bar mitzvahs, funerals, and now you talk in short cuts, with references to facts and faces that are understood.

And then I am tired. It’s evening and I do not want to go to the free MoMA exhibits. I want to go to Brooklyn, leave our bags and find dinner.

I know very little of Brooklyn. I used to go swimming at St. George hotel somewhere in this borough, because they had a pool open to the public. End of Brooklyn experience.

Now we are in a neighborhood that is very much as it may have been forty years ago.



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Except for the occasional brownstone that is being renovated (for example, our B&B on Sterling Place)...





... it is still a place for people who are just hanging in there. A place where meats are roasted outside a grocer's and people hang out casually, in pairs or small groups.



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Our hosts recommend Cheryl’s soul food and it is a good choice, even though I think it says something about Brooklyn that we should be in a basically Black neighborhood, with African American restauranteurs, serving food to mostly White people. Distinctly New York types. A family with a son who reads during the entire meal. Grandparents with a college kid who brags about her ambitions all evening long. Three couples who call themselves troublemakers, sending back the by-the-glass wine, complaining of too much spice in it. Who sends back house wine?

At the b&b, I struggle with the Internet, but not for long. I have never known the night life of New York, not the part that continues past midnight. And I wont know it this time. And that’s a good thing. New York was at its best for me when I was a kid. That’s the part that’s pleasurable now as well. The bars, the nightclubs—that’s someone else’s New York, not mine.

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Such a challenging place! I think I would be slightly more at peace with its peculiarities if the b&b Ed and I are in had reliable internet. In the absence of that, we are left to muse (gripe?) about what it is that we do and don't like about the city.

I'll get back to that topic, for sure. For now, enjoy, as I did, the approach to the New York on a bright bright autumn day.



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