Manhattan Farewell, A Tree Grows... and Once Up!

Brisk fall day!  Where did our heat wave go?  Great weather for trekking around our Westside neighborhood one more time.  

The allure of free admission called me (and Ben tagged along) to see the American Folk Art Museum nearby.  It is so much smaller than it's former home near the MOMA and there was just one (modest but interesting) exhibition.  It featured the primitive art of Bill Traylor, who was born into slavery in Alabama.  

Traylor worked on a plantation as a freed slave until 1928 and then lived homeless in Montgomery

for many years after, even sleeping in a funeral parlor.  He was befriended by Charles Shannon who provided him with art supplies so he could sell art to passersby.  Mr. Shannon worked to preserve Traylor's art, which 85 years later is highly treasured.  Since we are headed to the South soon, this art exhibit gives us some context to consider.  Lynchings were a common event during Traylor's lifetime and his art slyly references the life of fear and degradation that befell so many black Americans before the Civil Rights movement.

Meanwhile, Garrett and Libby were visiting Chelsea and walking the High Line.  Garrett snapped this picture of one of the many murals that grace the High Line.  Libby tripped over one of the stylized benches, which though artful, are not so pedestrian friendly, and got some nasty scrapes.  They enjoyed their own visit to Sullivan Street Bakery.

We reluctantly said goodbye to our Westside home and are very grateful to Joan and Clifford for accommodating our stay in such a spacious home in a great location.  We plan to meet up for dinner before we depart NYC.  

Time to head to Brooklyn!

After dropping off our luggage at our new abode (delightful little apartment!) we strolled out for some excellent cappucino and a stroll down to the East River park nearby - great view of Manhattan from here.  We plan to take the ferry over soon, even though the subway is a little faster.  Suddenly time to head BACK to Manhattan for the Broadway show ONCE.

We had great seats at premium cost (ordered before we arrive - another rookie mistake) and Garrett and Libby scored side seats for $50 each.  They were happy enough with the seats and at almost a third of what we paid per seat, I think I could have been happy with them too!  The show has GREAT music and we really enjoyed being transported back to Ireland (earlier home exchange!).  Once is not an over-the-top show like Wicked or Book of Mormon, but it was a very enjoyable evening.

Back to the subway and posing with one of the cool murals underground.  We booked dinner down in Chelsea at Hudson Clearwater thanks to a suggestion by Julie Martin in SLO.  It was cooking with gas at 10 PM!  The restaurant has a speakeasy vibe and excellent service.  Everyone liked their orders - I splurged on duck - it was great.

A late night subway ride back and long chilly walk to the apartment.  Ahh, the apartment looks cozy!

Wildlife, Search for The Divine and Punjabi Eats

Garrett and Libby headed out for the Metropolitan Museum of Art this morning and Ben went along to walk with them through the park.  I stayed home and studied up on Better Blogging as last night I realized I was getting a cold.  Life is so unfair.

Ben then took off on his own to explore the North Woods of Central Park, which are described as "rural".  He texted me this picture and message - "This is a herd of some sort of wild animals being escorted on leashes through the park - bp".  This is Ben Parker humor.  

I decided I might be in need of some divine intervention and recalled a recommendation to visit the gigantic St. John the Divine Cathedral at 112th and Amsterdam.  I called Ben and we decided to reconnoiter, as he was just bumming around Whole Foods.  He headed south on Columbus as I headed North.  Somewhere around 94th we passed right by each other.  Thank God for cell phones.  
Holy Mother of Jesus, this cathedral is impressive and it is not even Catholic - Episcopalian! We wandered in just as an organ practice was about to begin and though we are NOT organ music lovers,  we enjoyed it.  Here is a small taste: http://youtu.be/8hiNKy_7StY.  

This is a church we could love as they do an annual blessing of the bicycles, which is attended by hundreds of cyclists including bike messengers, who are an especially endangered population.  They also do a blessing of the animals, including bumblebees and camels.  Not sure who has a camel in their back yard in Manhattan...
Being holy really works up an appetite.  Doesn't it seem like we are always eating?  We called on our friend Yelp and the first place that got over 4 stars nearby was Busters.  Busters is about 8 feet wide but it was also closed on Mondays.  Next Yelp spot to pop up was Doaba Deli for vegetarian Indian (Punjabi region) food.  As one reviewer says, "Holy smokes!"  There is no way we would have ventured into this tiny hole-in-the-wall without the assurance of a bunch of other reviewers.  
Our patient chef explained the menu and we each selected 4 dishes to try and splurged on an upgraded order of Garlic Naan.  Lunch, without the upgrade was $6 each.  Food was delicious.  A New Yorker stopped by to ask us how we liked it and told us it is the best place in the neighborhood.  She had never heard of Yelp, but was a natural born restaurant reviewer herself.  She told us to go to Busters tomorrow, because it is really good, fresh food.

The view this evening from our fire escape!  Our last evening in Manhattan!

Garrett and Libby met up with her friend Stoddy Blackall from high school, a talented musician who now lives in NYC and works as an improv pianist.  After dinner at Klong, a Thai restaurant in the East Village, Stoddy took them to see his apartment.  They describe it as dorm-like and Stoddy's room is perhaps 7 X 10.  In this room he also had a small fridg and hot plate.  All this luxury for $1000 per month.  Hello!  Life in NYC can be cramped!

They hope to see him play piano in Brooklyn this week.  He and Libby had fun doing their own sing-a-long!

MOMA Mia, Goodnight Moon and SRO

Garrett and Libby arrived last night after midnight after a rookie wrong way turn on the subway and late night skirting of revelers.  It was fun to see them arriving pulling their suitcases from way down the block.

For Dilara's last day we decided on the MOMA and an early start meant an uncrowded morning there.  

However, Garrett and Libby decided to detour over to Book of Mormon to see if they could win the ticket lottery for the 2 PM show (for all performances 25 tickets are available in a lottery for $27).  

They joined a friendly line of folks who were doubling their chances by also standing in the Standing Room Only tickets line (20 available for $27).  This meant a short wait for the lottery and a 2 hour wait for SRO.  They lost on the lottery, but they managed to get the SRO tickets (Book of Mormon tickets can be over $300 a piece).  They were so excited.

Meanwhile Ben, Dilara and I explored the MOMA starting on the 6th floor and working down.  The art is amazing and the museum is one large art piece as well. 

  Often we gazed from windows that framed the views inside and out perfectly.  We were stunned by many of the iconic artworks and enjoyed the experiential installations.  Describing great art is hopeless!  Suffice it to say, the museum is wonderful.  

Art appreciation makes us hungry so we hopped a taxi to Nam Pang - a fabulous Vietnamese inspired sandwich shop.  Double WOW on the food and the great folks who work there.  We insisted Dilara take the subway from Grand Central Station so she could see it, but she was distracted by the time crunch of getting back to the apartment in time to pack up and catch her shuttle.  She did fine.

Now just two, Ben and I started walking and realized we were right in front of the New York City Library.  How could we resist going into this spectacular and friendly building?  Necks craning, gazing all around, we were drawn right into a special exhibition on children's literature and a tour that was just beginning.  What a fascinating and cleverly staged exhibit.  Move over Met!  The Library is world-class!

We learned that child education theories greatly influenced children's literature.  For example, the Puritans believed the Bible was the purpose of 

learning to read, so early primers featured Christian rhymes and vocabulary designed to scare children from a life of sin and simultaneously prepare them to read Bible text.  

New theories came into fashion - children needed to learn about the "real world", then they needed to learn to develop their imaginations, then they needed to learn to confront fear.  Each idea spawned children's books.  Did you know Goodnight Moon was written under the influence of a child development theory that children found most comfort in reading about real life objects and people? 

Hence:

In the great green room 

There was a telephone 
And a red balloon 
And a picture of 
The cow jumping over the moon

An hour passed by in a blink in this exhibition - we and our tour mates kept exclaiming over books we read as children or read to our brothers or our own children.

Heading out into the late afternoon, the air was warming, the sky was crystal clear and Manhattan just glowed with people happily strolling, shopping, kissing and posing.

We met Garrett and Libby post-show and they were just "over the moon" themselves about Book of Mormon. They loved the irreverent humor and said the time flew by. They did not mind standing a bit and said they had a great spot for watching the show.  Ben and I are now thinking of doing it ourselves, though I had been swearing I can't do SRO!

Libby and I sashayed into the Ritz Carlton to use the loo (EVERYTHING about the hotel is posh).  Garrett and Ben chatted up the doorman who recommended an Irish Pub for a pint.

Nice Irish waitress charged my iphone (which I drain daily from overuse).  Kids decided to find dinner and Ben and I finally walked through Central Park to get home.  Blissful Day!

The kids messaged this picture to from their perch in a bar high above Times Square.  More bliss!

Chelsea morning, a Tyrant and Poetry in Motion

We heard from the young New Yorkers that we had walked right past Chelsea Market yesterday with no clue what we were missing.

We decided to head back down this morning, though there would be better times to visit than with the Saturday crowds.

This historic site is the old National Biscuit Company where the oreo cookie was born. It now houses dozens of trendy shops and restaurants and oreos have been replaced by French macaroons.

Most notable shop was 3rdware where budding woodworkers can operate woodworking tools in a trendy studio under supervision of carpenters.  Same general idea as paint-your-own-pottery studios.  Novel concept!

Our mid-day event was attending the Off-Broadway production of Breakfast with Mugabe.

Robert Mugabe is the current 89 year old President of Zimbawbwe, and this week's CCN Report will give you an inkling of his hold on power.

The play is a fictionalized "event" which supposes that Mugabe's wife calls in a white psychiatrist to treat him as he threatens her and her children and he is  haunted by the spirit of a murdered former ally.

The play is a interesting study of power, psychology, guilt and racism.  It was an intense experience and required focus on the dialogue.  Devastating ending.  Excellent acting by real pros.


We fiddled around for a while.  Bought Dilara a discount ticket to Jersey Boys at TKTS so that her earlier theatre experience of the day could be rounded out by a buoyant musical (Ben and I saw it last time we visited).

While waiting for her to head to her second show of the day, we whiled away some time in a Rockefeller Center coffee shop.


A bit earlier on the subway, I had noticed a beautiful poster with a poem, entitled Voyager.  It captivated me, so I took a picture - turns out that MTA has a Poetry in Motion project (subway riders get culture on the way to work, lucky dogs).

About the same time I noticed that poster, Dilara discovered that the back of her subway pass also contained a poem.  It is  appropriate to her life right now and the lives of some of the young SLO New Yorkers (and others everywhere) who are struggling to make it in the new world economic order.

Back at the apartment where Ben is making soup, I got a text and pic from Dilara - she loves Jersey Boys!

Garrett and Libby arrive after midnight for their week with us in NYC.  They are very excited to about their first visit.  Dilara leaves tomorrow evening.

We will be at the Upper Westside apartment until Tuesday afternoon and then we move to Brooklyn for the next 6 days.  Lots of fun ahead!

Get a Loaf and Trek the High Line

Every morning we get out and about a little earlier.  Good tourists!  As we started down the stairs to our nearest subway station, 2 cops came rushing up towards from below shouting, "Station closed!  Go to 72nd!"  We backed away quickly, especially since fire trucks and cop cars were screeching up with sirens going.  This was our second subway scare.  On 9/11 we were on a subway downtown when we noticed that a package had been left on a seat.  Some guy nearby said, "Oh yeah, a guy just left it here and walked off..." No one around us except one other lady seemed too concerned.  I insisted we get off the train and take the next car.  Paranoia?  Yeah, probably, since no explosions were reported in the news... but Hey!

Our big outing was to the High Line and we took the bus (just subway averse for the morning).  A few blocks before we approached the stairs to High Line down in Soho, Ben and I realized we were near Sullivan Street Bakery and we decided to pay homage to Jim Lahey, founder of the bakery, author

of My Bread (the Bible for no-knead bread fans like us) and buy lunch for the High Line picnic.

We walked into this beautiful bakery and were immediately salivating.  We had to order potato pizza and cauliflower pizza, as we needed to compare it to our efforts to produce it at home.  While waiting, I noticed Jim Lahey in the back bakery.  The nice salesgirl knew we were big fans and went and asked him to come out and meet us.  WOW!

We have met a mega-star of the food world (in our food world, anyway).  We chatted with Jim for several minutes and he told us he loves California and the Big Sur area.  We immediately invited him for a visit and he gave us his "personal" email address (!!!).

We met up with Dilara and started the walk on the High Line.  She was like, "Jim who?"  That is what happens when you give up bread...

The High Line is fantastic.

It is a modern, elevated garden walk on an abandon- ed, historic elevated freight rail line, that was no doubt an eyesore before landscape architects came up with this project.  The plant species selected are native to the area and beautifully tended.  Bright Coreopis, sage and elderberry were planted amid small trees, grasses, etc.  integrated into the garden walk.

Art and murals are effectively scattered throughout.

Ben offers these facts about the High Line: 1.45 miles long.  Last train ran in 1980 and carried frozen turkeys.  Park opened in 2009.  More that 300 species of plants.

We met up with Joe Hewes-Clark, a high school contemporary of Dilara and Noah - Joe has lived in NYC for 8 years.  He and his Dad are working on a play script about aging Viet Nam vets.

Ben and I left Dilara and Joe to reminisce and we walked to REI through Soho and Greenwich Village.  We happened on the Fest of San Gennaro in Little Italy.  On the surface it looked really cool, but we were put off by the funnel cakes booths, Cuban cigar booths and fried pickles.  We had started out with the quest to go to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, but all the interesting distractions along the way made us decide to put it off until another day.

Back at the apartment, Dilara decided to sit out on the balcony AKA fire escape.

Tonight we are having a little get together with the some more of the SLO transplants from our kids' generation.

Look forward to catching up and hearing their insights on life in New York.

Super Ben and Queens for Fair Trade

Big news - thunderstorm today!  Managed to wake up an hour earlier than yesterday, so making progress on that jet lag issue.

Ben (AKA Beno the New York Super) was just returning from a trip down Amsterdam Avenue to the nearest True Value hardware store.  Our toilet needed a little plumbing assistance (it is interesting how many times during home stays that Ben has played plumber).  A little plastic do-hickey part had snapped.  All better now.  This always gives Ben a big lift - he loves fixing things (when it goes well).

Our big adventure for the day was to visit Alison Cebulla at Handcrafting Justice (HJ) and see her new place of work.  Alison is famous in HumanKind Fair Trade Store circles for being the savior Store Manager who turned HumanKind into a profitable non-profit.  She has taken her incredible energy field to New York and is now working for HJ in Queens.  She kindly invited Ben and me to a tour of HJ and lunch.  Dilara sat out this adventure (have not asked her how late she slept in!).

 Ok, Queens.  First of all, it is a world apart from Manhattan, not the least because the subway train emerges above ground into sunlight.  We got off the subway into a Greek subculture.  At one point, I asked Ben if he felt as I did that we were in a foreign country.  We detoured into a Mediterranean market and I never realized there were that many kinds of feta!  Olive prices were half that of New Frontiers in SLO.  After wandering the aisles we got back on track and found HJ just before the rain started pelting down.

Alison made us a lovely salad lunch and we met her boss, Sister Maureen, her intern and other employees.  Alison has a big challenge at HJ because she is tasked with developing a national wholesale market and they are used to selling products at the retail level at small parishes around the country.  Alison gave us a tour of their back stock and it was interesting to consider whether HumanKind would be able to market their products.  Overall, probably not.  I never gave much thought to how you develop a product line that a third world artisan can produce but will still sell to our discriminating Western palate.  All I can say is, thank God I was a career government employee and never had to take the risks that small business owners take.

We took our leave of HJ, with the plan to host Alison, and we hope some other SLO transplants, for wine and appetizers tomorrow evening.  We stopped at the California Farmer's Market (!)

for groceries and picked up fish at a Greek fishmongers.  The dinner we devised from these ingredients was delicious, as is the sound of thunder and flashes of lightening that are rumbling all around us.

This NYC trip has a more leisurely feel than our previous whirlwind trips.  We are settling in and loving the pace.  It feels luxurious to know we have 10 days ahead of us to take in the culture and the startling mundane here in NYC.

High Art and Puppet Nudity

Advice: If you want to get over jet lag, don't stay up playing Sudoku on your computer until 2 AM every night.  It makes morning a b@#%.  Yes, it is 3 hours earlier in California -get over it!  This is what I have been telling myself all day, but here it is 12:30 AM and I am typing a blog entry.  This explains why it was after 11 AM before we actually left the apartment today, even though there is so much to see and do.  Ben gave up on getting me and Dilara up early and made a run to Trader Joe's.  He is a good, if somewhat disgusted, provisioner.

The weather today was hot.  We strolled through a muggy Central Park with downtown obscured in a hot haze.  Rounding the corner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we took a pause on the iconic stairs and gazed up at the impressive entry and the revolving doors which were about to deliver us into the refreshing air conditioned splendor of the museum.  Membership has it's privileges and we had no line to get our member tickets and free members-only entry into the new Interwoven Textiles exhibit.

First we had to visit the Impressionists galleries so Dilara could see her first paintings by Gauguin and Degas.  I asked each of us to select a work that really impressed us (to impress you later when writing this blog).  I kept changing my mind but settled on a Van Gogh flower arrangement.  

Dilara was captivated by a Rodin sculpture in marble depicting an artist who fell in love with his own sculpture which then came to life in his hands.  Ben kept dallying around and would never settle on one piece of art. After 3 hours in the museum he still could not identify just one piece that moved him (hard assignment).

 A stern matron was guarding the entrance of the Textiles exhibit and gave me a little lecture about not being allowed to bring in a guest, but then she relented and let Dilara in with us.  I won't launch into a long description of the exhibit because words cannot express what incredible skill and artistry was on display in these intricate and gorgeous fabrics from around the globe.  The point of the exhibit was to demonstrate how trade between cultures then influenced textile design and execution.  It was fascinating.  The gift shop out the the exhibit tempted us but we resisted.

We left the museum after several hours.  Along the way Ben asked me to take his picture with a street tree because he liked it (this was apparently a response to my request to pick a piece of art to feature - this day he prefers the trees). 

Newly invigorated with a bite to eat,  we decided to head to Broadway to see if we could get lucky at the Book of Mormon ticket lottery (25 winners a day for front row tickets for $25 each).  This is how lucky we were - by the time we arrived, the lottery was over (we has misunderstood the time).

Not letting it get us down, we headed over the the last-minute ticket broker TKTS

to see what shows were being discounted.  We were excited to see that Avenue Q, the off-broadway show starring adult version Muppet-type puppets, was available.  We got 4th row seats at a 40% discount.  

The show was great fun.  The stage set was like Sesame Street if Sesame Street had been in Detroit.  The puppets and their masters had lots of personality and indulged in adult humor and some sexy rendezvous.  The story, with jobless and underemployed puppet characters, rang true to the fates of a generation of Millennials.  Great cast, music and lots of creative staging.

We returned home to our 'hood and Ben led us to Beer, Biscuits and Pickles. A place where it's easy to spend $50 on 2 beers and a few southern sides. All really good, not that we won't be getting plenty of southern food in a couple of weeks! 

The night was still so warm as to make us prefer to sit indoors but it was delicious to walk home on wide, treelined sidewalks on a warm night.  True to form it is now 1:15 AM and time to sign off so I get up earlier tomorrow!

The Whale and The Moth

Our New York home exchange hosts, Cliff and Joan, spent a leisurely morning with us and we enjoyed discussing recent travels and hearing their recommendations in the neighborhood.  Cliff set up his camera and took a great shot of all of us.  It almost seem amazing that our paths have not crossed sooner as we have been to many of the same places, got married the same year and have many interests in common.  In looking at photos, one of their close friends, a Turkish woman who now lives in France, could be Dilara in 20 years.  It looks like Dilara will be a stunning 47 year old!

We said our goodbyes and Cliff and Joan left for Long Island today.  We look forward to getting together for dinner before we leave NYC in a couple of weeks.  Once we figured out our plan for the day and headed out, we could see in full daylight what a striking neighborhood we are in.  The ginko trees that line our street (85th) are tall and beautiful with that lilting sparkle that is so unique to their leaves.  The apartment building in impressive and ornate - Cliff had showed us the exit window to the fire escape, but seeing it all from the street level, craning my neck upward, I am hoping for no need for an emergency exit.

Cliff and Joan generously offered us the use of their 3 museum membership cards, so our first destination today was the The American Museum of Natural History, which faces Central Park and occupies an entire city block.  Thanks to the membership, we not only got in free (Dilara cost $10) but the membership also allowed us free entry to the special Whale exhibit.  We did a quick calculation and the membership saved us almost $100.  Grateful!

Here are some of our most memorable museum facts:  Whales and hoofed animals are related.  Whales used to walk on land and still have vestigial hind legs.  Whales can dive as far down as 5000 feet to scoop up prey.  In the Ancient Peoples exhibits Dilara and I were most impressed with the Semai people of Malaysia who abhorred violence and extolled happiness. An interesting Semai saying is  "there are more reasons to fear a dispute than a tiger."  Another saying,  "Unhappiness causes bad luck."  Hmm... we are a long way from the Semai.  Perhaps we Americans also only have vestigial peace-loving tendencies.

In late afternoon we got our subway passes and headed to Soho to find the Housing Works Bookstore and Cafe and to secure our places in line in time to get good seats for The Moth's Story Slam event at 7 PM.   If you are not addicted to The Moth podcasts, I highly recommend you find them online and start listening.  Moth story events are defined as "true stories told live."  Ben got in line at 5:30 - by the time Dilara and I joined him in line at 6:30, the line was to the end of the block.  Once we were allowed inside, the chairs filled up quickly and people lines up on the stairway and across the small balconies.  A festive atmosphere filled the air.  Almost everyone who works at Housing Works is a volunteer - all of their proceeds go to provide housing and healthcare to AIDs patients.   We were surprised to learn that every single book in the bookstore was donated so that all proceeds could benefit the mission.

Storytellers were chosen - 10 out of 22 who put their hats in the ring - and the stories began.  Three small groups within the audience were chosen as judging panels and so each story received  3 scores to be averaged and compared.  The subject was "Rules" and each storyteller told a story that somehow related to this theme.  Our 3 favorites involved a child magician, an Oscar Meyer Weiner truck driver, and finally, a Brit who became a US citizen.  The winner... the Brit!  She will move on and compete in the Moth Grand Slam event at a future date.

Subway ride home, 2 block walk to the apartment, up the elevator 5 stories and we were "home".

New York State of Mind

Dilara and Ben and I converged on NYC within minutes and reunited at baggage claim.  Ms. M was traveling light with carry on.  The weather - beautiful!

A $90 taxi ride, sparkling views of the City as we careened in our taxi (hitting 60 mph on city streets) and we seemed to arrive at our home exchange destination in no time.  Up 5 flights of stairs and we were warmly greeted by Joan and Clifford into their classic apartment building which was constructed in 1888.  Dilara comments that Turkey was not even a country in 1888!

The apartment is filled with art and comfortable rooms that each are off a long central hallway.  Joan has lived here since 1971!  After chatting a bit, we walked down Columbus to a vegan restaurant for dinner.  We were confronted by amazing choices and every place still busy after 10 at night.  So different than SLO where restaurants are closing up after 9!

Joan and Clifford have museum passes for us for the biggies and tomorrow promises warm weather, perfect for strolling in Central Park (ONE block away), getting our week subway passes and securing tickets to our first event - Story Slam at The Moth (if you don't know The Moth podcast - live storytelling without scripts - check it out - we love it.