Boulevard of Broken Dreams
GOTHAM ain't what it used to be.
Used to be diners and liquor stores on every block. Now it's all nick knacks and shoe stores.
Of course, it is February, so alot of the stuff that would have been out on the sidewalks was tucked away inside, and people were even more alienated and closed off than usual. Still, it seemed . . . different.
Anyways, the architecture hasn't changed much. Aside from the one big change, and I'm not going to talk about that. We went there, just the Wife and myself, and we had completely different reactions. She was bowled over by the reality of it, and the whole thing suddenly came home to her. I was stunned by the unreality of it, the sheer, overwhelming absence, my almost complete inability to conjure the image of what had been there from this ugly, jagged scar in the ground.
(Just one hole. Don't know why that should bother me.)
Wall Street is Wall Street, beautiful and stoney white and running hot and cold. I'm always suprised how small it it. Such a small place, and it damned near all but rules the world.
Too cold for Battery Park, but the Staten Island Ferry is always a good ride (and free at that). And they took all the police, put 'em in a Police Museum. It was actually pretty nice, emphasized the role New York's Finest played in being New York's Finest. We dropped the "suggested donation" of five bucks a piece with no qualms, but the place didn't move us enough to make us want to buy a tee shirt.
Anyways, after Chris and Lauren joined us, later in the day, we started hitting the high points. Dinner at Katz's, pastrami on rye, corned beef on rye, no cheese, and-- get this-- Anchor Steam Beer. I had to have one, just for the sheer damned novelty of it. When they started serving beer there I know not. I only know I had a Dr. Browns the last time I went. (Cream Soda. Call me a mook.)
Chinatown, the Lower East Side. Like I said, February, so there were far fewer store fronts open until after 10. We did manage to find a tea shop where Lauren got a semi-authentic chai, but what we found out, through the course of the days, was that if you wanted to find something reliably open and warm, get thee to a Starbucks.
(Or a McDonalds. A McDonalds on the Lower East Side. Around the corner from a Synagogue. Oi.)
Speaking of Synagogues, Bialystocker. The walking tour we were following put us on Bialystoker Street, and passing the building itself, a helpful temple worker asked us if we wanted to go in. She led us to the administrator, who admonished us to cover our heads. (Good Southern boy that I am, I doffed mine on entering, and Chris followed suit. Later it was assumed that I didn't know the customs 'cause we don't have synagogues in the South. Au contraire: down here, the Yids frown on the lids. If it isn't a yarmulke, it's just a hat, and take it off!!!) He guided us around the place, uncomfortable at first and then gaining speed, and finally gouging a donation out of us before letting us go, rather grudgingly, back onto the streets.
Back to the HoJo on Houston to recouperate, where we watched Chinatown. "Forget it, Jake. It's just Chinatown.")
Midtown. NOW we're talking. The Strand, where you only conquor by going there two hours a week for the rest of your life (and then only just). The Flatiron, the building that shouldn't be there (and almost isn't). MoMA, which is all new, all blank, and laid out top to bottom, with the result that it's marginally easier to get lost in than it used to be.
Times Square, and yeah, that is what it says on the signs. Times Square is still Times Square, even without the hookers and the sex shops. Radio City and Rockafeller Center, where we got hot dogs off a cart for lunch (Sabrett's, the superior dog, mustard, ketchup, relish, Amen.)
Sure, I'm skipping around. That might give you the idea there are gaps. Nope. There are no gaps. The whole thing is one, long, continuous blur, punctuated by the occasional pause to refresh and the hotel room overnights. New York is a rock, and it gets me stoned.
Next: taking the train up alongside the Park to the Museum of Natural History, where, as always, I ended up staring at the diarama backgrounds way more than at the dead animals. Told Lauren and the Wifey something they didn't want to know: on some of the animals, if you look closely, you can see where they were shot. Never mind; never mind. I won't point out that this one was taken down by buckshot, that one took a .38 cal slug in the neck, the lion was taken down by a shot to the rump and had to be stabbed in the neck. Never mind. Place maybe oughta be called The Church of the Great White Hunter.
Central Park. Nowhere else on earth looks like the Park, and I say so, dammit. Halfway across, a kind maintenance worker offered us a map. I guess he thought we were lost. How do you get lost in New York? It's a FALKLAND ISLAND. (If you don't get that, ignore it; it's only funny if you know the routine.) We followed it, but we needn't have. Just walk across the park until you see this BIG FREAKIN' BUILDING. That'll be the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Of course, by this point, we were whipped. We hit the high points: Rennasiance & Dutch, the instrument collection. I didn't get to see my 19th Century landscapes, but that's OK. I still remember them from the last time. I'll get back there again one day. (And I do mean one day.)
Something borrowed, something blue: dinner one night was Ray's Original Ray's Famous Pizza, slices of sheer audacity. We ran the gammut, from pepperoni, onion and black olives to a spinach-based architectural piece with huge slices of garlic studding the surface. The next night we hit something called the Heartland Brewery, which is a chain and completely new to me. The Wife and I had had a late lunch at the South Street installment, where I had a beautiful, creamy stout and a fried cod sandwich and the Wifey chowed down on popcorn shrimp. At the Midtown version, on the ground level at the Empire State Building, everything but the beer was two bucks more expensive, so we splurged: two samplers of beer, enough for 3 (da Wifey don't drink beer), a rack of ribs (or nearly), fish and chips (the same lovely cod as had been in my sandwich), a salmon burger, American food. Huzzah!
Then, on our (to-be) last evening, the Curse of Manhattan strikes (it's always something). The flakes danced menacingly, tauntingly, teasingly, suggestiong that they might fall, they might not. We ducked into an ersatz Irish joint for dinner, and when we came out, the hammer had fallen: the snow is really coming down outside, I wish you wouldn't make me leave. We went back to the hotel, watched it fall, went out singly and in groups to watch Manhattan fill up with snow. The next morning, the city was dead. We ventured out like shell-shocked survivors, walking wounded, looking for any sign of life, trading laughs with the few others we crossed paths with. I threw thumbs up to the plow drivers, and they cracked their stoney faces for brief smiles before turning back to stone and guiding their beasts around the road. 27 inches of snow, so they say, and it slammed the city shut.
We took the train to Queens and spent a very mundane and gratefully mundane day at the Pan American hotel, watching questionable TV, playing cards, eating diner fare at the hotel restaurant. The airlines had cancelled everything, and tried to re-chedule everything the next day. I bitched about having to go trhough Chicago to get to Charlotte, but where it took us four hours to get home, it took Chris and Lauren twenty. If they tell you you have to go through Reagan International, ask them why. No good can come from it. The place is cursed.
And now I'm here, I'm home. Our winter has passed, we have blue skies and 60 degree days.
But I'm still stoned by Manhattan. Always have been. Always will be.
Amen.
Used to be diners and liquor stores on every block. Now it's all nick knacks and shoe stores.
Of course, it is February, so alot of the stuff that would have been out on the sidewalks was tucked away inside, and people were even more alienated and closed off than usual. Still, it seemed . . . different.
Anyways, the architecture hasn't changed much. Aside from the one big change, and I'm not going to talk about that. We went there, just the Wife and myself, and we had completely different reactions. She was bowled over by the reality of it, and the whole thing suddenly came home to her. I was stunned by the unreality of it, the sheer, overwhelming absence, my almost complete inability to conjure the image of what had been there from this ugly, jagged scar in the ground.
(Just one hole. Don't know why that should bother me.)
Wall Street is Wall Street, beautiful and stoney white and running hot and cold. I'm always suprised how small it it. Such a small place, and it damned near all but rules the world.
Too cold for Battery Park, but the Staten Island Ferry is always a good ride (and free at that). And they took all the police, put 'em in a Police Museum. It was actually pretty nice, emphasized the role New York's Finest played in being New York's Finest. We dropped the "suggested donation" of five bucks a piece with no qualms, but the place didn't move us enough to make us want to buy a tee shirt.
Anyways, after Chris and Lauren joined us, later in the day, we started hitting the high points. Dinner at Katz's, pastrami on rye, corned beef on rye, no cheese, and-- get this-- Anchor Steam Beer. I had to have one, just for the sheer damned novelty of it. When they started serving beer there I know not. I only know I had a Dr. Browns the last time I went. (Cream Soda. Call me a mook.)
Chinatown, the Lower East Side. Like I said, February, so there were far fewer store fronts open until after 10. We did manage to find a tea shop where Lauren got a semi-authentic chai, but what we found out, through the course of the days, was that if you wanted to find something reliably open and warm, get thee to a Starbucks.
(Or a McDonalds. A McDonalds on the Lower East Side. Around the corner from a Synagogue. Oi.)
Speaking of Synagogues, Bialystocker. The walking tour we were following put us on Bialystoker Street, and passing the building itself, a helpful temple worker asked us if we wanted to go in. She led us to the administrator, who admonished us to cover our heads. (Good Southern boy that I am, I doffed mine on entering, and Chris followed suit. Later it was assumed that I didn't know the customs 'cause we don't have synagogues in the South. Au contraire: down here, the Yids frown on the lids. If it isn't a yarmulke, it's just a hat, and take it off!!!) He guided us around the place, uncomfortable at first and then gaining speed, and finally gouging a donation out of us before letting us go, rather grudgingly, back onto the streets.
Back to the HoJo on Houston to recouperate, where we watched Chinatown. "Forget it, Jake. It's just Chinatown.")
Midtown. NOW we're talking. The Strand, where you only conquor by going there two hours a week for the rest of your life (and then only just). The Flatiron, the building that shouldn't be there (and almost isn't). MoMA, which is all new, all blank, and laid out top to bottom, with the result that it's marginally easier to get lost in than it used to be.
Times Square, and yeah, that is what it says on the signs. Times Square is still Times Square, even without the hookers and the sex shops. Radio City and Rockafeller Center, where we got hot dogs off a cart for lunch (Sabrett's, the superior dog, mustard, ketchup, relish, Amen.)
Sure, I'm skipping around. That might give you the idea there are gaps. Nope. There are no gaps. The whole thing is one, long, continuous blur, punctuated by the occasional pause to refresh and the hotel room overnights. New York is a rock, and it gets me stoned.
Next: taking the train up alongside the Park to the Museum of Natural History, where, as always, I ended up staring at the diarama backgrounds way more than at the dead animals. Told Lauren and the Wifey something they didn't want to know: on some of the animals, if you look closely, you can see where they were shot. Never mind; never mind. I won't point out that this one was taken down by buckshot, that one took a .38 cal slug in the neck, the lion was taken down by a shot to the rump and had to be stabbed in the neck. Never mind. Place maybe oughta be called The Church of the Great White Hunter.
Central Park. Nowhere else on earth looks like the Park, and I say so, dammit. Halfway across, a kind maintenance worker offered us a map. I guess he thought we were lost. How do you get lost in New York? It's a FALKLAND ISLAND. (If you don't get that, ignore it; it's only funny if you know the routine.) We followed it, but we needn't have. Just walk across the park until you see this BIG FREAKIN' BUILDING. That'll be the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Of course, by this point, we were whipped. We hit the high points: Rennasiance & Dutch, the instrument collection. I didn't get to see my 19th Century landscapes, but that's OK. I still remember them from the last time. I'll get back there again one day. (And I do mean one day.)
Something borrowed, something blue: dinner one night was Ray's Original Ray's Famous Pizza, slices of sheer audacity. We ran the gammut, from pepperoni, onion and black olives to a spinach-based architectural piece with huge slices of garlic studding the surface. The next night we hit something called the Heartland Brewery, which is a chain and completely new to me. The Wife and I had had a late lunch at the South Street installment, where I had a beautiful, creamy stout and a fried cod sandwich and the Wifey chowed down on popcorn shrimp. At the Midtown version, on the ground level at the Empire State Building, everything but the beer was two bucks more expensive, so we splurged: two samplers of beer, enough for 3 (da Wifey don't drink beer), a rack of ribs (or nearly), fish and chips (the same lovely cod as had been in my sandwich), a salmon burger, American food. Huzzah!
Then, on our (to-be) last evening, the Curse of Manhattan strikes (it's always something). The flakes danced menacingly, tauntingly, teasingly, suggestiong that they might fall, they might not. We ducked into an ersatz Irish joint for dinner, and when we came out, the hammer had fallen: the snow is really coming down outside, I wish you wouldn't make me leave. We went back to the hotel, watched it fall, went out singly and in groups to watch Manhattan fill up with snow. The next morning, the city was dead. We ventured out like shell-shocked survivors, walking wounded, looking for any sign of life, trading laughs with the few others we crossed paths with. I threw thumbs up to the plow drivers, and they cracked their stoney faces for brief smiles before turning back to stone and guiding their beasts around the road. 27 inches of snow, so they say, and it slammed the city shut.
We took the train to Queens and spent a very mundane and gratefully mundane day at the Pan American hotel, watching questionable TV, playing cards, eating diner fare at the hotel restaurant. The airlines had cancelled everything, and tried to re-chedule everything the next day. I bitched about having to go trhough Chicago to get to Charlotte, but where it took us four hours to get home, it took Chris and Lauren twenty. If they tell you you have to go through Reagan International, ask them why. No good can come from it. The place is cursed.
And now I'm here, I'm home. Our winter has passed, we have blue skies and 60 degree days.
But I'm still stoned by Manhattan. Always have been. Always will be.
Amen.
posted by Bobo the Wandering Pallbearer at 7:21 AM
2 Comments:
Narrative offers us myriad ways to deny our culpability in the complex weave of events, as any lit crit student will tell you.
This entry is a classic case in point. What Bobo fails to mention in this "account" would shed a whole new light on the events in question.
For instance, nowhere does Bobo discuss how much trouble we had with NYPD after his deliberate and unprovoked assault on a mounted police officer, and mount, as we trekked to The Strand. The event goes completely unstated, masked by the mere mention of having gone to The Strand. (Nor does he admit candidly our utter failure to find anything passing for smut in this allegedly comprehensive bookstore.)
Another, and shrewder, omission tells still more of his unreliability as narrator and his general moral incontinence. He tells us that we went to the Museum of Natural History, dispassionately observed dioramas, and discussed their contents. But nowhere does he tell of his leaping into the dioramas and riding the stuffed Giant Elands shouting "Yee-hah! Yip! Yip! Hee-yah!" as though he were Slim Pickens.
Under the cover of "telling a story of a trip to New York in February," Bobo hopes to hide from these dastardly deeds. Shocked! Shocked I am!
I just wandered in, and found myself totally captured by this guy. Very cool. Very, very cool. I feel like I have been in New York City now. Seriously. I'm checking back often.
Post a Comment
<< Home