We’ll Take Manhattan

Afternoon in Central Park 

We set out to take Manhattan all right. Judy and I decided to do something a little different this year for the annual birthday trip. We were between a resort in Tulum and Manhattan. The stinky seaweed lost and the pizza rat won!

A bonus factor is that we each have a son in Brooklyn. Doesn’t everyone’s millennial live there?

As much as both of us love New York, neither of us had spent a full week there.

Cousin Fred and I always joke when I am in New York that I am trying to “have it all.”  When I'm there I overbook and over-schedule and try to "pack it all in.” You might think that with a full week I would feel a little less urgency. No I did not.

To wit, here was a typical day:  Two mile morning run. Bagel breakfast with Max in Madison Park. The Museum of the City of New York.  Dinner at a restaurant. Three and half hour performance at the Metropolitan Opera. Meet the star after the show. Yup, that’s just one of the 7 days. And we maintained this pace for a week.

Judy and I have always prioritized an afternoon siesta on our trips. Judy calls it Twelve Oaks, from the scene in Gone with the Wind when the girls take a nap between the BBQ and the ball.We managed to incorporate a little Twelve Oaks every day. But this is the city that doesn’t nap. Sometimes we couldn't even rest, we just talked constantly and ate chemically flavored Blue Diamond almonds to pump up our blood pressure so we could go out again in the evening.

We stayed at the Mondrian Hotel which is in a great location (Park South and 30th) and was perfectly nice and comfortable and modern. The interior was designed by Phillipe Starck; no wonder I found it stark.  There was no place to sit in the lobby except for a big slab of fake rock. (One review describes this touch as "whimsical.") Fatal flaw—no coffee maker, no coffee service until 8 (gasp) on Sunday and 7 on weekdays. Of course I was a stone’s throw away from a Starbucks. But I couldn't walk there in my bathrobe.

The service there was also a little stark.

During our rest we liked to share a Coke. One afternoon we found that the Cokes had not been replaced in the mini-bar. I called housekeeping to try to rectify this. We waited and we got Zero Coke. Judy called a second time. Zero Coke. Next thing we know a hotel staff member arrives at the door prepared to remove the mini-fridge. Zero Coke.

The bright light of the hotel was the bartender at Cleo  We met there for drinks on the first night, my birthday. God was he great, nonstop cheer, huge smiles, maximal service, and I was presented with a dessert with a candle on it during Happy Hour. He also became the rescue hero during the incident of the missing Coke.

At Theodore Roosevelt's Birthplace

On day one, we got a guided tour of Theodore Roosevelt’s birthplace, led by Max who is a volunteer docent there.  Such an interesting way to learn about American history with our own guy/guide. We had dinner at a Spanish restaurant called Huertas. And we had Peter knowledgeably ordering everything we loved. boquerones, manchego, Spanish tortilla, and my beloved octopus.  And we were in a big booth and it wasn’t too noisy and the food was good and I was surrounded by loved ones. Kickass birthday dinner.

Birthday dinner at Huerta's

On day two I had an excellent Sunday morning run in the village, around the NYU campus, through Washington Square and it was quiet and people were setting up farmer’s markets and fairs. 

Then we walked to the The Morgan Library and Museum—another magical place I have overlooked all these years. The gilded age, John Pierpont's “study” and his personal library is like a cathedral of books. The oldest, the finest, the most well preserved, every author, every language, every Bible. God. Plus they had a John Singer Sargent exhibition of portraits in charcoal.  

That afternoon we went to the Tenement Museum. We went on the Under One Roof apartment tour and spent an hour and a half sitting in real people’s bedrooms and kitchens over three decades, and getting to feel what it was like live in another time in a small, small space. There was a recreated garment factory at the end of the tour. 

Wax at Gemma, Bowery Hotel

From there we went to lap up the excessive splendor of old New York at Gemma at the Bowery Hotel.  We sat the bar and had a cheese board and a bunch of cocktails that cost about week’s wages at the garment factory. It was grand and rich and dark.

Day three the weather was perfect. We strolled up Madison Avenue where Judy guided me through a gilded tour of high end retail, with which she is intimately familiar. We went to Barney’s hoping for a great close out sale but found that everything was only reduced by 10%. That means you could snag a $2440 jacket for only $2200.

From there we went to the Jewish Museum and started with a delicious bagel brunch at Russ and Daughters which is in the basement. The exhibition was about Edith Halpert—a powerhouse woman who helped everybody who was anybody in American Art get their start, show their work, collaborate with each other, and produce. For 40 years starting in the 20s.

We then took a perfect walk in Central Park because all the stars aligned, well, mostly the sun aligned with the earth, making it warm, the day aligned with the holiday, making it full of people reveling in leisure activities on an autumn day.

Dinner at Cosme

That night we took our boys to dinner at Cosme. Max has a worthy goal of dining at all the New York restaurants Obama went to when he was president. The cuisine was Mexican only in the loosest sense, like the loose fitting guayabera. The chips were blue and the size of a small drink coaster. Oh man, the fluke tostada, no fluke at all, the mole, the black bass, and the piece de resistance, the duck carnitas. The flavors were transcendent, every time they brought out a new dish we were dazzled by special salsas and more coaster size tortillas. For dessert the husk meringue corn mousse. Cinco estrellas!

Day four we went to the new Nordstrom. Our customer service gal was Autumn. We told her she was Autumn in New York and she had never heard that before. When I said it was a Frank Sinatra song I really lost her.

The store is glam and big and accommodates even the most restless shopper with a bar and restaurant on every floor. We left with with some cashmere gloves for my cold California girl and a teddy bear coat for me.

In the can at the Whitby Hotel

We met one of Judy’s friends for tea at The Whitby Hotel, so very British and chintzy and luxe.

That night we dined at Il Mulino Prime, elegant Italian. At all meals the conversation turned to “Trust the art, not the artist." Discuss.  Turns out this subject has legs.

Thai Basil Rigatoni--pumpkin seed pesto with burrata at the Modern

Day five we had lunch at the Bar Room at The Modern which is a beautiful restaurant in MOMA where the food looks like art. We shopped at the MOMA Design Store so I could get a present for Max and Kristina who had us over to their apartment in Brooklyn for a divine Mexican feast. And that afternoon we saw a matinee of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish. It was fantastic (English subtitles provided). "Sunrise, Sunset" made me cry. I normally don’t cry, but you know anything about children growing up and time marching on, well, that’s crying material.

Day six we went to Saks Fifth Avenue, briefly, just to have a Mrs. Maisel Moment and then we met dear friend Matt Raush for lunch at the Rock Center Cafe at Rockefeller Center, a restaurant with a view of the ice rink normally, but this time a view of the under girding of the Christmas tree which would go up later that week. Matt is a divine conversationalist who can cover old and new Hollywood, actors, theater, politics with incisive charm and wit.

Then we went to MOMA which now features a massive expansion of the collection with a great diversity of international artists, sculptors, painters, and architects. And a performance arty-thing. It was all interesting,  but I still couldn’t wait to get to Starry Nights.

That night Peter and I went to see David Byrne American Utopia (and before that a truly, but fortunately the only, bad meal at Cafe Une Deux Trois.) David Byrne, God love him, is just as talented and witty and brilliant as he was 35 years ago with The Talking Heads. He looks good, he sounds good. Talk about aging with grace, or simply not aging. With grace. He and his band all wore shiny gray suits and marched around the stage barefoot, and were invited to burn down the house as long as we didn't do it in the aisles.

And day 7 was described above—breakfast, museum, dinner and the opera and meeting the star of the opera. The Museum of the City of New York was like the last chapter in the history course I had been taking all week. And Mediterranean dinner at Ousia with Peter and Sahil was fun. For the third time that week I was presented with a dessert with a candle in it. I was about out of wishes. And breath. What's New York without a celeb siting, fortunately walking to the Met we saw Hasan Minhaj shooting a commercial.

A night at the opera

And oh yes, we went to the Metropolitan Opera to see Philip Glass' Akhnaten about an ancient Egyptian king. There was juggling. Some of the songs were in ancient Egyptian, Hebrew. Yes they were. With no subtitles.  And it was a spectacle I will never forget. Best of all I got to see Cousin Fred in his milieu. The star had invited him backstage after the show, because Fred is a Big Deal in the opera world. And Peter and I got to go with him. Right, backstage at the Metropolitan Opera after midnight on my last night in Manhattan. If that’s not a topper what is?

So there you have it. That’s all we did in a week. The list of things we didn’t do is almost as long. But those are for the next time we “take Manhattan.”