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How does one spend only $101 in New York City in three days, you ask? One travels on someone else�s tab. I have to say, that rather rocks�
New York was�busy exciting bustling fun scary crowded eye-opening expensive delicious rude welcoming rainy cold sunny warm tiring exhilarating tall expansive confusing beautiful romantic overwhelming eye-opening wonderful.
We walked what felt like every inch of Manhattan, although I know there are places Judy didn�t bring us. We visited the Museum of American Folk Art, where my mom dismissed the Henry Darger exhibit as �obscene.� I don�t think he was obscene, just perhaps questionably insane. Didn�t love his exhibit, though the rest of the museum was interesting.
We sat in the front of the first balcony at the Barrymore Theater and watched Valerie Harper, Tony Roberts and Michelle Lee in The Tale of the Allergist�s Wife, which I probably wouldn�t have understood if I hadn�t grown up Protestant in a Jewish community, but which we all found to be very funny. At the end of the play, Valerie Harper stood on the edge of the stage and thanked the audience for coming out and supporting American theater and the Broadway community.
We cruised through Chinatown, where I sought out and shopped through the much-discussed-at-Mediarama Pearl River Mart. Thanks to Danny�s writing about the place, I am now the proud owner of a collection of Winnie the Pooh-esque pencils that read, �For you, my love friend� on the side.
We took a horse-drawn carriage ride through Central Park, and then walked through the paths, stopping to admire the �Imagine� monument in Strawberry Fields and read through the succession of sponsoring plaques on the backs of benches throughout the park. We paused to watch a man take his girlfriend�s picture with the gorilla topiary at Tavern on the Green, laughing as she said, �But do I have to stand in his groin?� We wondered at the no-less-than-12 sets of Chinese bridal parties we found taking photos throughout the park, apparently taking advantage of the last day of the New Year celebration to marry. (Is this good luck? Does anyone know?)
We ate at the Palace Restaurant on East 57th, home of the $9 pasta special�it was delicious. One of the regulars sitting at the counter told us that the elderly man in the next booth was �the richest man in New York,� though his wasn�t the kind of name you mention out loud. He may have been right�the place had �that� kind of feel. The booth behind us was occupied by out-of-towners who had been sent there by the Four Season�s doorman. We just wandered in�a lucky find.
We had dinner in Little Italy, wandering up and down Mulberry Street, perusing the menus and listening to the Italian men�s dinner pitches until we settled on the Da Gennaro Ristorante. Again, a lucky find. Dinner was amazingly delicious. Eggplant Rolatini to start, with wonderfully crusty/chewy bread, followed (for me, anyway) by boneless chicken breast rolled with spinach, ricotta and prosciutto, covered in a Portobello mushroom sauce and served with green beans and roasted potatoes. For dessert, we split a cannoli and a peach sorbet, actually served in a frozen peach. Oh, and a carafe of the house cabernet sauvignon. Everything was incredible. Including our adorable waiter. Mom, after a couple glasses of wine, asked him how old he was. He blushed as he answered her. He was 27. She then (again, the wine talking) told him she was sorry she liked my fianc� so much, or she�d try to give him her daughter. It quickly became time to go.
Yesterday, before we got back on the train, we trekked out to the seaport and got tickets for the World Trade Center observation deck that�s been set up, and then walked down to the site.
It was important for us to go, not as tourists looking to gawk at the hole, but as mourners traveling to what�s become the world�s largest wake. We slowly read our way around the perimeter of the church-turned-volunteer center, which has been surrounded by tributes and well-wishes and expressions of sympathy and sadness from around the world. The comments and scribbles wound their way up the wooden walkway to the edge of the actual platform, where we were stopped with the rest of our group by a New York City police woman who recited the rules of the platform. Sadly, I lost most of what she said into the wind, but I�m fairly certain that the man on the cellphone, blocking other people�s way to the front edge as he made his afternoon plans, broke several rules himself. Some people are incapable of being anything but rude.
It�s eerie. Looking down, just at the giant hole in the city�s landscape, a hole full of construction equipment and trailered headquarters, people in uniform and piles of debris and dirt, I could almost mistake �Ground Zero� for just another construction site. Then, of course, I looked out at the broken windows and disaster-marked outsides of the buildings around the perimeter of that hole, and the illusion disappears. This is no ordinary construction area. And no one could mistake it as such.
We only spent a couple minutes on the platform. The heavy atmosphere and the appropriately biting wind chased us back out to the street. On the walk down, Mom and I read the memorial set up with the names of all the victims posted. She stopped and touched the names of Peter Gay, David�s childhood best friend, and Richard Ross, my dad�s old boss. I said a silent prayer for them, and for the people I know-but-don�t-know�Tim�s brother-in-law. Citygirl�s friend. The fianc� of a woman on the Hissyfit boards. And then, another prayer for the thousands of other names I don�t know and have nothing to associate with, except an empty sadness. At the end of the walk, a child�s drawing of the Twin Towers, the caption below it reading, �We lost 5,000 people, but we gained 5,000 angels.�
I walked away very thankful for what I have and the people I have to share it with.
It was a solemn but fitting way to end our trip. The city still lives, it still goes on, and so do we. We walked from the platform back through Chinatown and Little Italy again. Horns honked. People called to each other. The sun shone. We laughed together, ate lunch, spent some money. It was good.
Our train home left an hour late, so I finally fell into bed far too late last night, but the tired feeling I have today is worthwhile. It was quite a weekend.
Now, I find myself back at work, balancing my desk load with stolen moments to review the other Survivor contestant�s diaries. I�ll get those names up here soon. I feel honored to be part of the group�there are some excellent writers in there. It�s going to be a tough competition.
It�s nice to be home.
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