There were two purposes for this trip- to visit Michael
and Jeanie (and Caillou) (I can’t believe Michael has been living here for a couple
of years and we haven’t been here yet), and to get Connie on her way to Moscow for 3
weeks.
It was cold and wet both in Richmond and in NY when we
left, and the plane sat on the runway in Richmond for two hours. Eventually we
had to go back to the gate to refuel, and it seemed like about half the
passengers left to find other ways to where they were going. The cold and drizzle at
LaGuardia was a shock. We found our way to the taxi line and were sent to one.
The taxi driver could not get his key to open the trunk at first and then his
meter would not count at first. Welcome to NY.
Michael lives in Brooklyn Heights and our hotel, the
Even, a “fitness hotel” was near there. Near the elevators they have a two
floor fitness room with machines on one floor and weights on the other floor.
In our tiny room (no room to sit, and no room for both of us to stand and move
around) there was a fitness bar on the wall with three different sets of fitness
cords, a yoga mat and a couple of different foam things to stand on or to roll
around on as well as a fitness ball.
For dinner Thursday night we met Michael and Jeanie at
French Louie’s restaurant, a cold 20 minute walk from the hotel. Ellen Miller,
John’s daughter in law, is the manager of the restaurant and, though not
working that night, must have seen the reservation and ordered up a couple of
complimentary appetizers for us. They were excellent and much appreciated. Our
waiter named Barnett was from the Tidewater Va area and made us feel at home.
In the morning we walked (again very cold to me- I wish I
had brought a stocking cap) to Prospect Park to meet Michael and Jeanie for the
dog party. Every morning the park has a set time period when dogs can be off
leash and so it is a big crowd and a little bit of mayhem as the dogs chase
balls, stick and each other around. Caillou has several friends in the group
and so she loves her morning outing.
Then we picked up a couple of breakfast
tacos and walked to Michael and Jeanie’s apartment on Park Place (I think Jill
lived on Prospect Place in the same neighborhood back in 1999 or 2000).
The apartment is a cozy 1 1/2 bedroom on the bottom floor
of a brownstone. It even has enough of a yard to require cutting with a push
mower and that, along with trash and snow removal, is part of Michael’s renter
duties in return for a little break on the rent. As might be expected those
jobs are never done well enough for the other tenants.
We were piling up the walking steps today- next we walked with
Michael to see his office which was back toward our hotel and then beyond it.
We saw Ethan Hawke walking his dog on the way. We met Noah and the accountant
whose name I have forgotten at the office. The DoMP just moved in and so things
are not settled. The accountant lives in NOLA and is only in Brooklyn
temporarily and actually staying at the office, so there were towels and
groceries around as well as boxes of office equipment. DoMP is not spending the partners' money lavishly.
The next item for the day after getting cleaned up was to
meet Michael for lunch and then the Tenement Museum in Lower Manhattan. This
involved my first solo trip on the NY subway system in a very long time and I
have lots of suggestions for the MTA if they ask, starting with more and better
placed, bigger subway maps. I don’t see how someone for whom English isn’t the
first language and not from NY can find the way around.
Our first choice for lunch, Russ and Daughters, would
have involved an hour and a half wait so we moved on to a tiny place called
Dimes which was excellent. There was a crowd there too and I think it was due
to people coming out for the Tribeca Film Festival.
The Tenement Museum was way beyond my expectations. I did
not know it existed but Connie had heard of it as had Michael. Our tour was
called Hard Times. There are actually 9 other tours like Irish Bar and Sweat
Shops all in different apartments of the same building. We went into an
un-restored tenement lived in by a German Jewish family in the 1870s and then
went to a restored tenement next door occupied by a Sicilian family in 1930. We
learned a lot about how they lived and the family histories. Our guide Darryl
was terrific! The museum also had a great little book shop specializing in
immigrant stories. I would definitely go back.
More walking to dinner- I still haven’t looked at my
mileage for today but Connie said she logged in more than 20,000 steps. Dinner
was a French place called Claudette and also was excellent.
Our final activity on this long but great day was going
to the Broadway show called Dear Evan Hanson. As a total surprise we ran into
Nancy Spencer G Hartt, away from her twins for the first time, in NY to visit
friends. The musical show won Tonys in 2016 and was good but very disturbing- a
high school nerd digs himself an email hole that is pretty much impossible to
get out of. It says a lot about the internet and Facebook, and it made me glad
I don’t have teens any more in this era.
We all 4 took the subway home. I was a little reluctant
to separate from M&J since a few stops before we got off, the prototypical
crazy schizo got on our car and sat right across from us, with all the expected
ranting against different groups of people and super coarse language.
The next morning M&J&C came to our pet friendly
hotel for breakfast. Caillou has been very shy around us but was very friendly
with another person staying in the hotel, who actually started tearing up a
little because she lost her dog, a Golden, 9 years ago, from cancer after
getting her thru her cancer.
Then M&J&C left and Connie did her final packing
and left for JFK and Moscow on Aeroflot. She texted me a few times during the
rest of the day until her plane left about one hour late.
Later I met Michael in Mid town for a walking tour of
some of the historic buildings like the Waldorf-Astoria, the Citibank building,
the GE building, Grand Central, the Chrysler, Daily News, and others. Our guide
James had loads of old photos from the internet of the area before the building
and then as the buildings were going up as well as lots of stories. Because it
was Saturday we could not look in on the Grand Central lost and found-
everything from hundreds of cell phones to suitcases and prosthetics. About 60%
get found.
Michael and I then met Jeanie at Rose’s a small
restaurant between his apartment and my hotel. Burger, French fries, beer and
gelato. I walked back to the hotel by way of the
Barclays Center where everyone was all duded up for a big league boxing event
of some sort, but not for me.
Sunday- The most interesting event of the day was getting checked and rechecked at TSA security because of an object in my carry on bag. No such objections were raised in Richmond on the way up. I thought the problem was something related to the knitting Connie gave me to carry back, but it wasn't- it was a miniature version of one of those Leatherman multipurpose tools that i had stuck in my Dopp kit who knows how long ago and forgotten. Anyway, now I am back home and fending for myself.
