NEW YORK, NEW YORK, WHAT A WONDERFUL TOWN

What makes New York so unique:

OUR WELCOMING SPIRIT

beautifying our buildings

beautifying our women

beautifying our streets

beautifying our store fronts

                 

beautifying our parks

                                         

8:00 a.m. Sunday Morning

Two girls waiting outside the St. James Theatre on West 44 Street, waiting to get tickets to see SOMETHING ROTTEN!  Only 4 more hours to go until the box office opens.  

The purpose of the board game MONOPOLY is to force the player into bankruptcy, the perfect game to play while waiting to see a play on Broadway whose tickets can cost as much as $147.00 each.  

They must have taken the "railway" to get there and "rented" the "property" they're sitting on, otherwise they would have had to "Go directly to jail." But, on the other hand, they might have been lucky and got "free parking" so they could sit outside the theatre for another 4 hrs. Now if one of them gets "4 houses" she can buy a "hotel" and they can stay the night!! Or just buy the old, historic theatre!

Girls, a word of warning: "Keep that 'Get out of jail free card' in your pocket, just in case the police arrive and give you any trouble!"

When was the last time you played the board game MONOPOLY?

A NEW YORK TREASURE

I was walking down 9th Avenue and 39th Street in Manhattan when a sweet smell caught my attention. I couldn't place it, it wasn't the aroma I'd expect from a restaurant or a pastry shop, it intrigued me so I followed it, which led me to... a carved wooden Indian, the symbol of a tobacco shop. It was the sweet sweet smell of cigars the had caught my attention. I discretely peaked into the shop that seemed off limits to me, a non-smoker. A row of men and one woman, sitting comfortably, lined one of the walls, 

their faces still visible behind a thin cloud of smoke, their mouths filled with stogies. It's probably the one place in New York where you can smoke indoors, other than in your home. On the other side of the shop was a glass case overflowing with... the treasure, hand made cigars. You could tell it was the neighborhood hang out, above the case of cigars, was a box of Entenmann's coffee cake, a coffee maker and a half filled pot of steaming coffee, and plastic containers filled to the brim with snacks. On the opposite wall was a television set and tonight was "the fight." These guys looked ready, and really happy, happy to have a home away from home to hang loose and commune. If there were an empty chair, I just might have joined them!

NYC Fine Cigars
506 9th Avenue

Manhattan

(permanently closed)

AN' IT WASN'T EVEN A BOOKSTORE

April 8, 2015

Quick, go take a look before they take it away, 2nd avenue on the SE corner of 54th street, a window display that was...I thought I was passing a bookstore, or an independent library, (an independent library, hmmm, that's a good idea). The window display was made originally for Harrods Department store in London, but when the marketing person of this establishment saw the display, I'm told he said,  "I want it!" so adamantly that they got it. I passed the window and did a double take, had to go back and look at it again.

If libraries had window displays like this one, there'd be a lot more of us in there reading. The books, or similarities, were laid out helter skelter, stacked high, piles of books everywhere, like on my living room floor; the typewriter, yes typewriter, brought back the music of tapping keys, and returning carriages. And the empty bottles once filled with amber warmth.... I lingered in front of the window display, daydreaming... nostalgic for the era, before television and computers and all things electronic... Oops, excuse me a second, there goes my phone!

MOVE OVER, I’M COMING THROUGH

1st week of March, 2014

There sure are a lot of people in New York City and the subways sure are crowded, and sometimes you can’t even get a seat, not even on the bus! But if I can stop complaining for a minute I can look around and begin to wonder, who are these people? Might even be a lot of interesting folks up to something. If I can stop complaining for a minute, I can begin to imagine and get in touch with what it takes to be who we are and the extraordinariness of us!

I got to admire the guy who gets up every day, the same time, day after day, to go to work. That takes something. Maybe he’s doing it for the money, and maybe not. But it takes something to honor your word and show up, just because you said you would. And the mother, who decided, or maybe not, to become a mother, and once the toddler arrived, she has to feed it, dress it, and try to understand it, day after day, teaching it how to be a person in this wild, wild world we live in. That takes something. And then there are those who work out in the cold, and those who work out in the heat, and under the ground, and in very high places, and those that box themselves up in an office, and those who are confined to being at home. We sure are a special breed, making it all work. And then there are those who besides doing their due diligence, they’ve got big plans for the planet. And we might be standing right next to them on line at the supermarket or sitting next to them at the local restaurant, and we have no idea. And if we knew what they were up to we’d be in awe, ‘cause they look just like you and me, they ARE you and me! We sure are a special breed!

SNOW! SO?

February 13, 2014

Snow and New York City are not a marriage made in heaven. Especially if you have a car, or a baby in a stroller, a cart for grocery shopping, a cane or a walker for support. So how do we New Yorkers deal with it? We cuss and we curse and we growl, and we growl a lot! Except…if you’re a kid. The kids in the street, in the playgrounds, giggling, gushing, cooing with delight, just kick it, roll in it, bury themselves in it, snatch it up, throw it at someone, and erect obese snowmen, while their parents yell, “Stop it!" "Don’t do that." "Get out of there you’ll freeze to death.”

And after a few days, when the snow looses its heavenliness, and becomes a dirty dark mess of slush, and if you’re lucky enough that the snow fell around the Chinese New Year, make your way down to Chinatown to see the prettiest snow on the streets, scattered with sparkling, dazzling, shimmering radiant colors of red blue, purple green, gold, glimmering confetti that showered the New Year festivities and now blankets the snow covered streets.

“TEARS AND LAUGHTER”

It’s been a year since I last posted, a year since mom began to get ill. I knew she’d get better and put all my attention on making it happen. Mothers don’t pass away. My mother has always been in my life, no matter where I was I knew where to find her, she was a constant I could count on, so I knew this illness would pass. It didn’t matter she was almost 91, she was my ageless mother, with flaming red hair, an adorable body and a youthful attitude. As I cared for her, I lost interest in writing, in discovering the interesting, intriguing, humorous about this place where I now lived. All I wanted was a healthy mother with whom I could enjoy this city. And she did get better, after four days in the hospital and a few weeks at home. And then she grew ill again, and was less and less available, by then it didn’t matter what city I was in.

I didn’t know, until my mother’s death, what impact it would have on me. I haven’t written, I haven’t wanted to write; it all seemed so inconsequential, until few days ago.

I was looking for a tailor on the Upper East Side that I had read about, and suddenly I heard a whistle, the kind we associate with construction men admiring pretty young women. And then I heard it again.  I couldn’t help but to smile, it had been a long time since I was a recipient. As I continued up the street in search of the tailor, instead of seeing a construction crew, outside a hair salon was a rather sizeable bird cage housing two large and beautiful multi-colored parrots who seemed to be having as much fun whistling as I was listening to them. For a moment I forgot my sadness and remembered how unique New York is, how creative the people who live here are, and remembered why I even thought I could fall back in love with this city, and write about it in this blog.

New York, New York, what a wonder full town!