It
was now our turn for some time together in New York City, choosing to stay at a
hotel in the heart of the neighborhood where we both once lived. The Lucerne Hotel is a venerable place, long
standing at the corner of 79th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Old fashioned but comfortable, we had an
unbelievably quiet corner room. However,
shortly after we checked in, one of its two elevators stopped altogether so one
had to queue up sometimes, but this posed no serious delays. Ann thought the complimentary wine offerings
every afternoon mitigated any real hard feelings.
The
weather in NYC can be so unpredictable towards the end of August and unfortunately
part of our stay was impacted by a typical NYC heat wave, high temperatures and
humidity, not much different than in Florida and, in fact, some days, even
hotter in the city. One learns to live
with it as NYC demands obeisance.
Until
one night there was a hall announcement in the hotel that Con Edison will have
to shut off the power to the hotel around midnight, all power, including our
beloved A/C in the middle of a heat wave, but it should be for only one
hour. We all know what a one hour
estimate means in NYC so I wondered whether we could even take the elevator down
from the 9th floor the next morning.
There is a good side and a bad side to the story. We lost air conditioning for a while as they
had to reduce the power but when we woke up, it was working, as were lights and
thankfully our one elevator. However,
the entire hotel was being run on a generator Con Edison brought in that night
in a trailer truck. We were told it was
temporary, until the next day and the day after that until we checked out a
full week later.
Luckily,
for us, we were on the other side of the building and could not hear the
constant drone of a powerful diesel generator which they kept going without
stop, bringing trucks to refuel it, while they ripped up the entire street
around the hotel. A major transformer
had caught fire with the heating demands and below the ground there was a
hundred year old infrastructure to deal with.
I talked to the Con Ed guy outside and he said “don’t worry bout it,
it’s gonna get better. We’re gonna have
dis wrapped up by tomorrow.” Tomorrow
never came, but credit due where deserved, that generator powered everything
without interruption.
This entry is actually a continuation of an earlier one,
just trying to catch up on the rest of our stay. That previous one covered
thoughts about the neighborhood, our visit to the Lower East Side Tenement
Museum, seeing The Band’s Visit, and
attending Downton Abbey: The Exhibition,
which we learned will next be seen in West Palm Beach so those in our area who
were fans of Downton are URGED to see
it. Truly unique.
Early
each morning, I would take a walk, choosing a different route to catch as much
of the neighborhood as possible. I note in photographs some of the eclectic
sights.
Unfortunately,
sometimes I passed homeless people who were still sleeping. These are just a couple, one in front of a
Victoria’s Secret store, the juxtaposition creating a sad irony, and another –
obviously a resourceful person, picking the perfect spot and surrounding
himself (or herself) with umbrellas for privacy.
Always
living in the past, I could not resist seeing my old apartment again at 66 W.
85th Street, seen here on the left. Nearby,
was a brownstone with a tenacious tree which thrived as a vine, growing from
the basement level right to and beyond the roof.
Also,
tenacious, the “shop around the corner bookstore” – right near where I used to
live on Columbus. It’s encouraging to
see the independent bookstores thrive again.
One
morning I snuck a look at the famous Dakota Courtyard, a building of such
historical significance and the home of luminaries.
Staying
on the Upper West Side entreated us to try some of the abundant alfresco
restaurants along Amsterdam. When we
lived in the area nearly 50 years ago, there were only a handful of
restaurants, and not a single one spilled out onto a sidewalk! Now, they are cheek by jowl. Obviously, no one cooks a meal anymore; everyone
in the area eats out, picks up their meals, or has them delivered. We ate several lunches at Bluestone Lane, a
restaurant with an Australian flair, loving their Bondi Burger and their Kale
Caesar or other yummy salad dishes (if you love avocado, as Ann does), this is
the place!
We
ate at the one on the East Side right next door to the Guggenheim Museum, adjacent
to the beautiful historic Church of the Heavenly Rest, as well as their new
West Side location at 80th and Amsterdam.
We had a couple of sidewalk dinners at The
Chirping Chicken (naturally, their Chicken is great), but as we sat outside
watching all humanity pass by, kids, dogs, you name it, we marveled at The
Chirping Chicken’s cadre of delivery folk on their bicycles, one peeling off
with the regularity of LGA take offs carrying a delivery order, one after the
other, the last one leaving as the first one returns for the next order. What a business on 77th and Amsterdam!
We
both loved Sweetgreens on 75th and Amsterdam for dinner as well, my becoming
addicted to their Caesar Kale salad with tender pieces of roasted chicken. Then across the street from our Hotel was a
new Greek restaurant, Kefi, where we ate lunch once savoring a well seasoned
chicken kebab and Greek salad. We
enjoyed the atmosphere and food so much, we returned for dinner as well, all
these places jumping, throbbing with a sense of youth and energy.
Perhaps
the most “happening” place was Jacob’s Pickles at 84th and
Amsterdam. The sound level alone
announces you’ve arrived at a vibrant place, but, the food, Southern Style, is
unusual, especially in NYC. Way too much
of course and even though we were twice the age of anyone in the place, they seated
us anyway!
Then
there were others, Italian and Mediterranean of course, but we were not there
to simply eat, although one would be hard pressed to believe this.
Our
original idea was to concentrate on theatre and museums, which we accomplished
in abundance. Luckily we had secured tickets early on to see My Fair Lady at the Lincoln Center
Vivian Beaumont Theatre. I’ve always
felt that Lerner and Loewe lived in the shadow of Rodgers and Hammerstein,
their collaboration being a little later putting them at a disadvantage as far
as reputation is concerned, but My Fair
Lady has to be one of the few really great Broadway musicals. And this particular production at the more versatile,
deep stage Vivian Beaumont, gave rise to a stunning production as we’ve never
seen, a revolving stage with multiple scenes, and the ability to bring a two
story study of Professor Higgins from the back of the stage to the front and to
recede as well.
Oh
and I would be remiss in failing to mention a most spectacular lunch beforehand
at Lincoln Ristorante, a glass walled dining room elegantly serving delicate seafood preparations and other
delectable Mediterranean dishes. A memorable
experience.
Lauren
Ambrose who plays Eliza Doolittle helps one forget the Audrey Hepburn film
version and Harry Hadden-Paxton, who was in Downton Abbey, was the perfect
Professor Higgins. It is remarkable how
closely the show follows George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, but the show departs
from the movie at the end, a more modern, sophisticated interpretation of how
this stars-are-crossed love affair (Eliza’s out in the open and Higgins’
suppressed) would end today. To me the
entire production was breathtaking and the first thing I did when we returned
home was to break out the score and play it on my piano.
But
that is not the only score I broke out. The
other overlooked songwriting team I admire is Kander and Ebb.
Chicago is now one of the longest running musicals on Broadway. It is now a show mostly for out-of-towners. I suppose that is what we are now, although
we’ve both lived in NYC and never think of ourselves as anything but New
Yorkers.
Ann
saw the original show on Broadway early on in the run. It’s the kind of musical we would normally
avoid, but my love of the music prompted me at the last minute to get tickets
the day before we left New York, having a pre-theatre lunch at The Glass Tavern
on West 47th Street, one of our go to places in the theatre district
now, reasonably priced, good food, a quiet ambiance.
We
expected little of Chicago but
surprisingly it totally exceeded our presumptions by the startling
performances. Anyone looking for the
fireworks of the movie adaptation might be disappointed, but this is live
theatre, and in so many ways superior.
Amra-Faye Wright, in the role of Velma Kelly, has played the same part since
2001! Think of playing this role for
such a long period of time and STILL bringing on the pizzazz. Michelle Dejean who plays Roxie Hart performed
the role on Broadway nine years ago and returns to the role now after raising
her son. As she says emphatically in the
program, “Hey, Broadway! It’s good to be back!
Her performance says it all.
If
you ever watched Seinfield, you’d immediately
recognize John O’Hurley as “J. Peterman.” He is a very credible Billy Flynn and
I’d argue that he has a much better voice than Richard Gere in the film. Special accolades go to Evan Harrington who
plays Amos Hart, singing one of my favorites from the show, “Mr.
Cellophane.” Add to that song some of the other iconic ones, "All That
Jazz," "Cell Block Tango," "When You're Good to Mama,"
the tongue in cheek "All I Care About," "Razzle Dazzle,"
and my very favorite "Nowadays,” and one can see why Kander and Ebb were
at the top of their game when they wrote this musical.
I
enjoyed sitting next to a young couple from London, seeing their first Broadway
Show. Their wide eyed wonder was worth
the price of admission.
One
night we went to see the Emmet Cohen Trio perform with great tenor saxophonist
George Coleman in a Generations of Jazz Fest @ Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola. This is from their Lessons from Our Masters
series which features a master of jazz alongside a younger multigenerational
band.
We
got there early enough to get a front bandstand table but at an angle where we
could view the young but extraordinarily talented jazz pianist’s interactions
with the established great in jazz, George Coleman. This was more than an interaction but true
love and respect. It was a night of awe. Bassist Russell Hall and drummer Bryan Carter
brought it home as well. No video can do justice to the evening but here is a sample and some photos.
Aside
from those shows, one museum almost every day was on the agenda during our two
week marathon visit. I wanted to see the
Museum of the City of New York at 103rd and 5th. This is sort of out of the way, but one of
the best museums to spend lots of time in, not only for its permanent
collection of New York City history but when we were there it featured a
special exhibit of the photographs of Stanley Kubrick who was a photographer
for Look Magazine before he was a
filmmaker.
Some
of the photos reminded me of those of Diane Arbus but most were simply great
photojournalism. I might add (back to
food), their café has some delicious selections.
One
photo was taken at the 81st Street stop, juxtaposing a couple
kissing to a homeless man sleeping below the subway stop sign.I
took one of Ann in the same place, the mosaic sign unchanged.
Another
day we did too much, starting at the Guggenheim which had a special exhibit of 175
sculptures, paintings, and drawings by the Swiss artist Alberto
Giacometti. His elongated figures all
reminded me of him. Everything he
sculptured and painted had him in it no matter what the subject.
He
was never satisfied by the finished piece of art as, so he said in a
documentary shown there, if he had a thousand years to complete a work of art
it still would not be finished.
Fascinating art and artist. There are better shots on line but here are
some that especially caught my eye.
Only
a few blocks down the street is the mammoth Metropolitan Museum of Art. Maybe if we had a year we could properly see
everything, but tired already, we decided to head to the Japanese art section,
less crowded, but impressive, reminding us of the days we used to go to Japan
on business. I love Japanese minimalism
and sense of simplicity.There we met Jonathan, our son for lunch and the museum.
We
decided to stick close to the hotel during one of the hottest days, out of the
subways (although they were fine, air conditioned cars and easy to get around),
so a typical touristy visit was in order for the American Museum of Natural
History. I think the last time we were
there was at least 45 years ago, probably taking my older son there. We enjoyed the 3-D film “Amazon Adventures”
about 19th-century naturalist and explorer Henry Walter Bates – and indeed, we
had never heard of him; one thinks Darwin when it comes to cataloging the
species. Here we are with our 3-D
glasses.
The
Hayden Planetarium Space Show Dark
Universe was equally enjoyable especially as it is
narrated by the erudite Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Well worth the price of admission.
Unfortunately, for us, the rest of the
exhibits were unappealing, dark, and not clear exactly how one thing related to
another. In fact, the exhibits seem
little changed from decades ago. Better
lighting and organization would be a good investment for the future.
The following day, Thursday I think, there
is Mah Jongg in Bryant Park. Ann had
brought her Mah Jongg card so we took the #1 subway from Broadway and 79th
downtown to Bryant Park. Ann found the
gathering and a group willing to let her sit in with their game and I headed
over to the New York Public Library.
The library’s special exhibit drew a very
large crowd: You Say You
Want a Revolution: Remembering the 60s. Strange to look back at that time in history
but it was a time one lived through. Of
course a lot of it was a blur but now it’s been nicely dissected and mounted
and can be explained. At the time it was
a roar, not unlike today’s.
But the special appeal to me of the New York
Public Library was to visit its collections, to look for some of the books I
published during my 40 year career. I
found one after another in the reference section.
The
NYPL call numbers covered the imprints on the bottom of the volumes,
obliterating most, but I could easily recognize the distinctive black panel and
gold foil we used to highlight the book titles on the spine. Every such volume I pulled out was indeed one
of my publications. I started to
photograph them, but stopped. Just too
many and to what end? But here are some
of the recondite titles I published, all those years ago.
Another fascination was just to walk the
halls again. Early on in my career we
had worked with the NYPL to republish their precious collection of Edward Curtis’
20 Volume The North
American Indian.The work comprises narrative text and
photogravure images. New York Public Library would not let the work leave for
reprinting until properly prepared so I went there every day, I forget for how
long, and went down, down, into their rare book collection to prepare the
work.
The images are startling and today one could
easily access the work on the Internet to appreciate Curtis’
accomplishment. In the mid 1960s,
reprinting was the only option (other than microfilm). So special attention was paid to the
preparation and the final product to reproduce it as faithfully to the
original. I remember ordering a special
“300” year heavy printing paper, neutral pH for longevity, calendered to
highlight the numerous photogravure images.
It was one of the proudest achievements in my early years in the
industry, on the production side. I
remember them fondly, and the NYPL was a big part of those days.
So a visit there, concurrently with a 1960s
exhibit, was a double pleasure.
Afterwards, I picked up Ann at Bryant Park after an “exhausting afternoon”
of Mah Jongg in Bryant Park. Well it was
in the 90’s with 100 percent humidity.
She had suffered.
Perhaps we saved the best for last. Another organization I worked with in my
publishing days was the New York Historical Society. Their collection and museum is stunning.
But it was a special exhibit I wanted to
see, one that was closing that following weekend, Rockwell, Roosevelt & the Four Freedoms. First, Norman Rockwell is among my favorite
artists, and Roosevelt among our greatest Presidents and the topic of this
exhibit doesn’t get more relevant than in times such as these. “The traveling
exhibition, which was organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge,
Massachusetts, explores how Rockwell’s 1943 paintings—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship,
Freedom from Fear, and Freedom from Want—gave visual voice to
Roosevelt’s call to the defense of freedom worldwide and took their place among
the most enduring images in the history of American art. “
But with those four freedoms comes a
responsibility, so the museum also had on display Langston Hughes poem, How About It, Dixie. Ironically, it was written in 1942, the year
of my birth, and, still (unfortunately) relevant to our day, maybe as relevant
in these times as the day it was written in response to the Four Freedoms:
How About It, Dixie
The President’s
Four Freedoms
Appeal to me.
I would like to
see those Freedoms
Come to be.
If you believe
In the Four
Freedoms, too,
Then share ’em
with me —
Don’t keep ’em
all for you....
Looks like by
now
Folks ought to
know
It’s hard to
beat Hitler
Protecting Jim
Crow.
Freedom’s not
just
To be won Over
There.
It means
Freedom at home, too
—
Now — right here!
Langston Hughes
But many other Norman Rockwell paintings and
drawings were on exhibit. One forgets
what a great prolific artist he was. I
love his work, one that captures the essence of the American spirit, one that
is struggling to survive in these times.
What would a Rockwell painting look like today? He wasn’t averse to taking on highly charged
political themes, such as this one “Murder in Mississippi,” painted in
1965. This was an unpublished
illustration for Look. One does not think of Rockwell in this light
of reality.
Well and here I go again, but there is no
way I could not mention the remarkable café that is attached to the New York
Historical Society. Caffè Storico is in
the most pristine space surrounded by all white ceramic dishes lining the high
walls up to the ceiling. They conjured
up the most amazing crispy but juicy chicken and vegetable dish as well as
mouthwatering salads. It is worth slipping into this restaurant just to enjoy
the food even if the Museum doesn’t interest you.
One would think that once we arrived at LaGuardia
our history lesson would be done, but no, Jet Blue flies out of the old Marine
Air Terminal where the Pan Am Clippers first flew. The old luncheonette is still there, 1940s
style showcasing walls filled with memorabilia from those days. It was the right place to leave the memories
of the prior two weeks.
