we managed to keep going despite hardships.
I think it was on Wednesday, when we were in the theater district, that I looked up and saw a giant sign advertising, "Kiss Me Kate -- it's the show of the season!" I turned to Darin and said, "Yes, but unfortunately the season is 1955."
I'm not the first person to notice that Broadway is having a bit of a problem coming up with anything new these days: everything appears to be a revival or a revue of previous shows. These things go in cycles; in a few years Broadway will be going like gang-busters with a plethora of new and exciting material. This is the down cycle.
So, where were we?
Friday
We walked up Broadway to Zabar's, at 80th. Darin wanted to check it out, and we wanted to bring lunch with us on our day's excursion. By the time we got there I had no appetite for anything, so Darin bought a few things that sounded tasty to him. I went to H&H Bagels across the street and picked up a couple of sesame seed bagels. Turned out this was a fortuitous choice: evidently H&H is quite well-known, mostly because they make a damn good bagel. Yum.
We took the subway down to Battery Park, there to get on the ferry to go to the Statue of Liberty. Midway through the ferry ride over to the statue Darin said, "We forgot the camera!" We forgot the camera most times during this vacation, which is why I have no pictures. We're never going to be able to prove we went anywhere.
We walked around the Statue without waiting in line to go through the museum in the base. Darin said he'd rather spend the time on Ellis Island, which his dad had said was a fantastic museum. So we ate lunch -- he ate the crawfish pasta salad from Zabar's and I noshed on a bagel -- and avoided the extremely ravenous and not at all shy gulls that have zeroing in on tourists' lunches down to an art.
Periodically we commented on the statue, which is an impressive sight -- you know, we're just not building gigantic memorials anymore. (Can you imagine the public hue and cry?) I always get choked up with things like this -- the idea of coming to America fills me with the worst excesses of sentimentality, the likes of which no one would ever expect from my detached, cynical self. But I am rather excessively proud of my nation, especially its position as the place to which people come in order to make something of themselves, because they can't in their native lands. (Whenever someone says something disparaging along the lines of, "Do you know what immigrants bring to this country?" Darin always replies, "You mean, economic growth?" They're a plus, folks, honest.)
We then got on the ferry again and went to Ellis Island. I found myself wondering why my family hadn't visited Ellis Island the time that we'd visited the Statue (and my sister and I had climbed all the way to the crown -- hey, I was 10 or 11 and didn't know any better, 'kay?). The reason was, the American Museum of Immigration didn't open until 1990, after several years and a $100 million restoration.
Ellis Island is pretty cool -- they have a stage play (okay, that was kind of hokey), and tons of exhibits, with photographs, documents, and exhibits from immigrants, particularly during the first few decades of this century. Ellis Island is where the Great Unwashed entered the country, the people who could only afford steerage class travel. The descriptions of steerage class travel were enough to make me a)nauseous and b)excessively glad I was no longer having morning sickness. The rigamarole they had to go through at Ellis Island was both cursory and ridiculous -- examinations of the way they walked up a staircase to see if they were infirm or of unsound mind.
And there was plenty of documentation of what happened to the immigrants once they got here -- plus ça change. Discrimination, banding together in insular communities, working themselves much harder than natives. You know, the usual. All very powerful stuff.
We finally admitted to exhaustion after a few hours of going through the exhibits and took the ferry back to Battery Park. From there we walked to the World Trade Center, having briefly consulted a map on how to get there. "Gee," said Darin, "you think we'll miss it?" Well, no, but there didn't seem to be a direct route.
We found it all right -- busy and crowded and gigantic. I can't imagine what it must have been like to be anywhere around there when the bombing happened. We snaked our way through the underground mall -- like all malls, elephantine and sprawling -- and made our way to the TKTS booth. TKTS is where you buy half-price tickets to Broadway shows, the catch being that there have to be tickets available and you have to get them first. While I waited in line, Darin went to replenish our dwindling cash supply, because you have to pay for the tickets in cash. (Why does everywhere in New York City require cash? Is everything a laundering operation?)
Our first choice, The Scarlet Pimpernel, was sold out, despite its still being on the board, so we bought two tickets for Ragtime instead. Didn't know anything about it, just decided to try it.
We went back to the hotel and collapsed for a few hours -- talked to my parents about what they'd done that day, watched a little TV, snoozed. Then it was time to get some dinner, fast. So we went downstairs to the Dallas BBQ, which is certainly a place you have to visit once. I think I've actually visited it before, but probably 10 years ago. I knew they'd serve food fast but the place was packed. I was worried.
Not to be: they seated us quickly. Then we couldn't get any waitress's attention. Finally one of them paused briefly at our table to say, "I'll be right with you." Eventually she came back and we ordered. Darin added, "We're kind of in a hurry."
I'm not sure, but I think what happened is that the waitress took our order to the kitchen window, waited a minute, then picked up our plates and brought them back to the table. It was that fast.
We ate quickly -- the food wasn't that great -- and headed down to the theater. We got there early (not surprising) and walked around a bit. We discovered another Dallas BBQ just down the block from the theater. I stopped in a Carvel's because of the lure of nostalgia and discovered that nostalgia is pretty much all Carvel's has going for it. We went into the theater and discovered we were sitting in the balcony seats, which was pretty cool -- good view and lots of wiggle room, which turned out to be necessary for the squirmy Coughing One (that'd be me).
Ragtime was pretty good, but thin. Good performers, except Darin really disliked the singer who played "Mother" -- thought she didn't have the talent for it. The main star, Alton Fitzgerald White, was great, as was the actress who played his wife. But I think the musical was meant to cover the entire book, which meant any individual moment got about 30 seconds and then it was on to the next. Hardly any emotional resonance. And I can't remember any of the tunes, which I've always thought was key to a musical.
We went home and did our best to sleep. Although I was really very annoying with my tendency to cough incessantly.
Saturday
Darin, who hadn't been feeling great for the past few days, woke up definitely sick on Saturday. So much so that we got a late start out the door to our luncheon date in Brooklyn at Peter Luger's. We followed the Frommer's guide instructions on how to get there and took the A train to High Street/Brooklyn Bridge. We got out and checked the map of the Brooklyn Heights area, where we were. The address for Peter Luger was nowhere near the subway station. In fact, it wasn't even on the map.
I asked the station attendant and he looked at me as though I were nuts. (Probably not uncommon in New York, but disconcerting all the same.) He looked through a book of directions and then came back with, "Okay, get back on the subway to Manhattan, then take the J train..."
Oh criminy.
We decided to take a taxi. First, we had to find a taxi. Eventually we did and when we told the taxi driver where we wanted to go he regarded us as though we were crazy. Eventually we learned that Peter Luger's is in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, nowhere near Brooklyn Heights. The Frommer's guide was so wrong as to be ludicrous, and Peter Luger's, 100 years old, probably hasn't moved recently, if you know what I mean.
Finally we made it to the restaurant. Very old-fashioned: wooden tables that get soaped down between patrons, wooden floors (ditto), and nothing nouveau in the layout. Just forks and knives and plates and cloth napkins. I had the disconcerting experience of being totally ignored by the waiter, who took his instructions solely from Darin.
None of this mattered, because Peter Luger's is great. I think it also makes Darin's list of Top 20 Meals. Terrifically tasty Porterhouse steak, cooked perfectly. Darin liked the steak sauce, I didn't care for it. But we didn't leave too much of the beef, let me tell you.
I insisted on having dessert, because now that I can eat chocolate, I want it at every opportunity. I ordered a slice of the chocolate mousse pie and a cup of tea. "With honey, if you have it," I said.
The waiter smiled shyly and said in all seriousness, "Oh no, that's too fancy for a place like us."
He delivered the pie and a big bowl of whipped cream. "This is schlag," he said. "It goes with everything." Which went a long way to confirming for Darin that this was a real German place. The pie was magnificent -- Darin wished he'd ordered his own dessert, just because everything we had there was so good.
Afterwards we discovered there was a subway station (Marcy Street?) about two blocks from the restaurant in a funky little neighborhood. We took the subway across to Manhattan, where we transferred to the F and went to 14th Street to check out Balducci's, an upscale gourmet good store. It was probably good that we were stuffed to the gills and did not feel the need to buy all the delicious-looking food.
Then we walked around the neighborhood -- West Village? -- and decided that would be a nice place to live. A while back I mentioned that authors always list that they divide their time between X and Y, and I asked Darin where we'd divide our time between. He immediately said our first house would be in San Francisco/the Bay Area and the second would of course be in New York. So we looked at a lot of the neighborhoods in Manhattan with that in mind. Not that we're planning on doing this any time soon. More like, when I've got a couple of million from screenwriting I don't know what to do with.
We walked around NYU and Washington Square. We didn't find any chess players, despite Darin's expressed desire to search for Bobby Fischer, but we did find a performance artist who did a long song about not doing crack -- ostensibly to raise money so that he could buy crack.
Then we toured Greenwich Village a teeny bit but decided to pack it in at Christopher Street and go home. We went back to the hotel and totally collapsed, spending the evening watching baseball games. I can't even remember what we had for dinner.
I went to bed earlier than did Darin, who stayed up to watch Saturday Night Live. When he did come to bed, he was miserable: he had a fever and the chills. There were no extra blankets -- the Hotel Olcott is not big on amentities, and the blanket and comforter were way too thin and small to consider taking my share and putting them over him. So I got my overcoat and Darin's overcoat and his leather jacket and piled them on top of him.
We had a miserable night, keeping one another awake. Either Darin was delirious -- he criticized my method for getting in and out of bed, saying people who grew up in cold-weather climates knew how to do it better -- and reacting badly to an involuntary sighing noise I made when dropping off to sleep, or I would start on a coughing jag just as he was falling asleep.
We didn't get to sleep until 6am.
Sunday
We woke up at 11. Good thing we didn't have anything planned for the day.
Darin decided to stay inside for the day. I made plans to finally get together with Kymm and Tracing. I made our getting together much more difficult than it had to be, not pinning down a day and time until the last moment. I had finally asked them if they'd come up to the Upper West Side, even before Darin had the chills.
Tracing showed up at 3 and chatted with Darin and me until Kymm showed up 40 minutes later and the four of us chatted for a while. After a bit the three journallers headed out, leaving Darin bundled up on the couch. We picked up some munchies on Broadway and walked over to Sheep Meadow in Central Park. There we sat on the grass and talked about any number of things, not the least of which were a)other journallers and b)the bugs. I kept freaking out at the bugs crawling around. We must not have bugs in California. We sure don't have mosquitoes, which they have in Central Park. (And if you don't think I thought, "West Nile disease" every time I smooshed one, think again.)
It started to rain and both Kymm and Tracing whipped umbrellas out of their bags, which cracked me up. We walked over to the carousel, which was just ending its day, and took some photos. (Which will be uploaded at a future entry, 'cause I'm lazy.) Then we walked down Central Park South to Central Park West and up to 73rd. I wanted to stop at Starbucks for a hot chocolate, which was probably terrible for me with congestion and bronchitis but I wanted it anyhow. We all had hot chocolate and talked some more. I wish I could remember what about, but it was entertaining all the same.
Then I went back to the hotel and buckled down for the evening to watch more baseball. At some point in the evening my mom and I walked over to Patsy's Pizzeria to pick up a pizza, which Darin and I split. After the game was over -- I think this was the 15 inning Mets game -- I headed off to bed. Darin followed shortly thereafter.
At 4am Darin woke me up, so congested he couldn't breathe. He had to go get some Sudafed at Duane Reade. At 4am. I asked him if he wanted me to come with and he said no. I lay awake while waiting for him to come back. He came back just fine -- evidently the city that never sleeps dozes around 4.
Monday
We got up at 8 in order to help my parents down to the subway with their bags. My mom wouldn't let me carry any bags, so Darin had to do it all. It was quite clear after we saw them off that toting their relatively light bags had done Darin in -- doing our bags was completely out of the question. So we finished packing our bags, took them downstairs to the checkout desk, and scheduled a car to take us to the airport.
We had a couple of hours to kill, so we walked across the park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We decided that we didn't have enough time to do anything in the museum, so we looked at it appreciatively and kept going. We walked down Fifth, and then moved over to Madison. Eventually we settled at E.A.T. for lunch, where Darin got some soup and we split a grilled ham and cheese.
We walked down Fifth some more and then cut across the park again, looking at the statues and generally enjoying a nice, if cold, day.
Then we headed back to the hotel, got our car, and got our flight to California. We spent 6 hours slightly dazed -- Darin read Ender's Shadow, I mostly sat there with glazed eyes.
We had a limo waiting for us at LAX, which was great because we arrived at rush hour. We were exhausted by the time we got home, finally. But we were there.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com