New York, Part 2

I decided to go to see the site of the World Trade Center. I knew that the clean-up had finished and that construction of the new World trade Center had begun and that nothing remained of the tragedy, but I was drawn there. 9/11 had affected me and I wanted to pay my respects to the victims, if only to visit the site of their deaths.

I headed south by subway (subway stations were conveniently placed all about Times Square, one just outside my hotel entrance at 47th and 7th, getting off at City Hall and wandered about City Hall Park, checking out the Jacob Wrey Mould Fountain and the statuary throughout before making my way to the World Trade Center and Financial District. I followed my map, walking the short distance down Broadway to Versey Street, rounding St. Paul’s Chapel to where the World Trade Center once stood, and still does in my memory.

I was not disappointed. It was a construction site with barriers up all around it, cutting off any and all view of what was. Trucks rushed here and there, delivering steel and concrete and what have you, drills and jack hammers and hydraulics and pneumatics threw enough dust and noise into the air that I retreated to St. Paul’s Chapel again.

What was remarkable was how little damage was done to the surrounding structures. St. Paul’s Chapel, just across Church Street was unscathed as far as I could see. So too all the other buildings across Church Street, but I suspect they were and had since been repaired and cleaned up. They would be. Business beckoned. Retail abounds at Century 21 and Wall Street is but a few blocks to the south. They would not have spared any amount to refurbish St. Paul’s, bringing it back to its former glory; it’s where George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the Nation, after all.

I walked down past Zuccotti Park to Wall Street, then back on the subway where I got off in Greenwich Village for lunch. I was terribly bohemian while there, trying sushi for the first time, listening to musicians talk trade at tables around me.

I spent the afternoon touring Radio City Music Hall. Primarily a cinema, it found its way to movies as well. Visions of a thousand films passed my mind as I approached it, its neo marquee rising high up its flanks, its lights ablaze day and night. Radio Days, Home Alone 2, Quiz Show, and most memorably, The Godfather, with Michael Corleone and wife Christmas shopping, Michael reaching for and grasping a newspaper bearing news that his father had been shot and expected to die.

Inside, it’s an Art Deco palace. The Grand Foyer, its staircases a cascade of Oriental murals, plush VIP lounges, the mezzanine and balcony and the great proscenium arch, over 60 feet high and 100 feet wide, a huge semi-circular void, its steam powered stage, so top secret during WW2 that the FBI had to guard it, lest its mechanics reveal how the Navy’s aircraft carriers dispatched its fighters.

Of course, there were Rockettes. I met one and had my picture taken with her.

I had time for another show. But which? I didn’t want to pay full price though, so I stood in line at TKTS and looked to see what was on sale. I recommend TKTS. That day’s shows could be on sale for as much as 75% off. If you’re willing to wait. The line is long. Some lengthy time might be spent waiting. But only for musicals; should you wish for drama, there’s a much shorter line on the other side. I was waiting on the much longer side. I didn’t have to wait too long. No sooner did I resign myself for a full morning of inching forward, a young lady in a short tuxedo danced up to me and presented me with a pamphlet for “Chicago.” Go to the box office and get 50% off your ticket price it said.

Done. Time and money saved.

I was off to see the city from up on high, atop the Empire State Building. A must. It too is an Art Deco wonder (can you tell whether I’m a fan of Art Deco?), all marble and arches and decidedly 1930s. King Kong surveyed the city from that vantage, so did Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan when so sleepless in Seattle that they had to fall in love atop it, as did Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr while having an affair to remember, not to mention Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne; even the Daleks and Doctor Who chased about the observation deck.

The lines were shorter than I was led to expect. I was up top in no time, eschewing the topmost deck, being informed that it wasn’t worth the extra cash. I beat the rush, the lines decidedly longer when I was leaving than when I arrived.

I had to visit J.J.’s Hat Center while I was in the Neighborhood. I bought a couple while there, a straw and a fur felt. I ought not to have. They were more expensive than those I’d bought from the Hatter in Toronto, but their selection was larger, their ambiance more lush. Long, tall, lazy ceiling fans, it smelled of wood and wool and fur and the ages. Glossy wooden display cases, glassed display doors glowed under the soft overhead lighting. Leather seating. An aura of style and a bygone age. It screamed masculine.

My final day was spent wandering up and down the city, taking in this and that and not really seeing much. I was too rushed. I snapped Pen Station and Grand Central and Madison Gardens from without, the formers from within a little.

June and I had shared a few drinks over the course of our mutual stay, but we spent our time crossing paths, odd for such a large city, but as we were staying at the same place, not impossible. We’d yet to have the dinner we’d set.

We finally did, that final evening. I’d caught sight of an Indian restaurant while wandering the streets nearby and suggest that. She like Indian, so a time was set. We were sat, were mistaken as a married couple as we both wore wedding rings, ordered and ate. And talked like Euro pals sometimes do. We discussed our pasts, our presents, what the future what might hold, and whether it was what we expected and desired. Family. Friends. Regrets. Defeats. Triumphs. And our separate glory days of old. Backpacks and flannel and Doc Martens and mosh pits and what was. And what would never be again. The past is past, we decided, best left there and not pined over.

I suggested a club I’d seen that morning, in the basement of the Edison Hotel where I’d seen a curious display, a sousaphone with a speaker set within, the horn throwing Louis Armstrong out into the space before it.

I noted the plaque before it. The famous Vince Giordano and the Night Hawks were playing there that night. Never hear of him or them. I looked them up online and saw that they’d written and recorded a number of movie scores. A few of them even wrote television scores. This was their under the table job, so to speak. Special guest Saul Yaged, a New York jazz clarinetist from the 40s and 50s.

June said that she liked swing and Big band. Go figure, two middle-aged ex-punk, new wave, grunge backpackers who’d mellowed so.

The bar was Art Deco, funneled to coax the music to the back of the hall. There were a couple dancers all decked out in ‘40s attire, bow-tied and tweed, floral and red lipped.

We shared an antipasto plate, danced a little even though we really had no clue what we were doing. I complimented Saul after his numbers. He was good, but he was 80 as well, so his lungs weren’t up to more than a couple songs at a time. He thanked me. And for the next hour I was his favourite fan in the front row.

We caught a set, no more. We both had flights in the morning, mine so early to necessitate a 4 am wakeup call.