New York Day Four - Monday

Monday July 4. One of the most important national holidays here, but of course, almost no-one is on holiday in the city that never sleeps. This morning, off to the Met, there just as it opened at 10, in through the south entrance few know about that’s always empty. This is one of the best art museums in the world – I like it much better than the chaotic overpowering jumble of the Louvre, and it has a greater span than the National Gallery in London, since the Met incorporates the kind of antiquities kept in the British Museum. An amazing place.

I went to an exhibition a New York friend had recommended, showing the relationship between high fashion done by hand and done by machine, a celebration of extraordinary design and mostly Parisian craftsmanship – amazing stuff no-one will ever wear and beautiful, handcrafted things – sequins! feathers! - that wealthy women did.

A dress made of straws

Exquisite

Adding this to my fall wardrobe.

Up to the second floor, to the magic room with FIVE Vermeers, the most in one place anywhere, I think. Again, his serenity and empathy, his exquisite detail – I love to sit with those 350 year old women and enjoy their company.  Toured through the Italian renaissance, though I feel I’ve done those geniuses thoroughly with Bruce, as he toured me through the museums and churches of Italy.

A quick lunch, a peek at the Sphinx, at the medieval rooms, and out into the day. From the sublime to the … sale at Bloomingdale’s. I needed a pair of black pants that were neither jeans nor dressy and found exactly that half price, Gerard Darel, a quality French designer. Also tried on bathing suits – definitely not. The salespeople are so attentive and polite, everyone saying hello and smiling as if they mean it – extraordinary when one has spent any time shopping in France.

Subway home, stopping at the Housing Works Thrift Store across the street where I found a $10 t-shirt to wear with my new pants. Resting briefly back at Ted’s now, and then out again to meet Gail, my uncle’s dear friend, at the Guggenheim.

Another sublime day.

9 p.m. It’ll soon be July 4 fireworks time in NYC, and it’s pouring with rain. I’m sorry for all the families out there getting wet. But I am in here with my feet up, because they really really hurt.

Walking up Madison Ave. to the Guggenheim, I could not help but notice – no, really, I could not help it – the Mephisto shoe store, with a Sale sign, right there. I have been wearing a great pair of Mephisto sandals for years, and now they, like their owner, are worn out. There, on sale, a similar pair in my size. This is why one comes to New York.

Well, this, and the museums and the theatre and the amazing everything. Gail and I had coffee in the miraculous Guggenheim, talking about the man we both loved deeply, her friend and bridge mentor and my uncle. Gail, who’s married with four children and 10 grandchildren and runs a huge bridge business, moved in with Edgar to care for him in his last months, as he died of cancer in 1997. “He was like a god to me,” she said. We discussed the intense, to me incomprehensible world of bridge. Gail fell in love with the game in her late teens and has been immersed in it ever since, which is just what happened to my uncle.

We toured the museum, especially the permanent collection with its luminous Kandinskys,

walked up and down the winding path inside, and then I walked Gail along 5^th Ave. for some blocks while we talked. She went home, and I walked in the park, where I saw a happy American family on a holiday outing – Mum and Dad so focussed on their phones they didn’t even notice me taking a picture, and two bored daughters with the controls of their sailboats on the pond.

On the way home, I heard a woman behind me admonish her two small children about being too patriotic; “Americans sometimes do bad things.” I turned around to smile at her and we ended up walking some blocks together, while she ranted. Seriously crazy, it turned out. Voting is just supporting the system, which is rigged and corrupt. We are just pawns. THEY want you to vote, and the choices are horrendous, she says. I saw a guy on Bill Maher’s TV show a few weeks ago saying the same thing, urging people “not to vote and support the system.” Jesus. She went on about the Peloponnesian War and the Athenians and how the Greeks invented history, and I thanked her and steered myself down another street. God help us if people who live on the Upper East Side of New York do not vote.

Home to put up my very sore feet, eat leftovers, finish the Pinot, pack. Tomorrow Cousin Ted reclaims his apartment and I’m moving my stuff to Lola’s for one night on her sofa, then lunch with my agent Richard Curtis, then MOMA with Lola and her daughter Patti, my cousin once removed, who knows a great deal about art. Maybe one more Broadway show tomorrow night. Wednesday – home. Full full full full.

9.30 Massive explosions despite the rain – the fireworks. Happy Fourth of July, crazy country. 9.45, still going strong, both rain and booming.

New York Day Three - Sunday continued

Sunday July 3. Walked across the beautiful park, with its old trees, hills and winding paths, always a surprise around the corner – including a vista that looks like the middle of the country – 

to the west side. My whole New York life was lived on the west side until my uncle died and I had to move to the east. I still consider myself a west side person in NYC. In Toronto, I am a rabid eastsider.

There’s a farmer’s market now on Columbus, stretching for blocks, many artisanal delights. I went to the Green Flea market, held on Sunday mornings, to look for my friend Jay Kavi, an elderly man from India who had a jewellery booth stuffed with sparkly goodies. I bought many little things from Jay Kavi through the years. On my last visit, he wasn’t there, so I was concerned, and this time I found out that Jay died. New York shrinks for me, yearly, but I guess everywhere does. Cousin Lola told me she has no friends left. They’re all gone.

More memory lane – I walked to the Clifton House on W. 79^th, where my grandparents lived till they moved to Sarasota in 1963. I told the doorman they used to live there, he asked their names and when I told him, he exclaimed, oh yes, I know that name, there’s still junk mail sometimes. I find that hard to believe more than 50 years after they moved away, but why not?

And then I walked up to W. 94^th to look at #39, my uncle’s house, sold in 1998. He would hate it now, with cutesie decorations and a forest of little American flags all over the steps. 

But I’m sure it’s in better shape than it was when he lived there and the place was crumbling. He ran Bridge World magazine out of the third floor and didn’t care the paint was flaking from the walls. The wine and food, on the other hand, were treated with scrupulous care.

Back across town to eat the last of my fish from Eli’s with a bit more Pinot, then down the street to Lola. We got an Uber to the matinee, there almost an hour early, but that’s a good idea when you’re with a 94-year old. Lola is marvellously feisty, though sometimes it’s a bit embarrassing  – she comments loudly on everyone around her. “Look at him, so fat!” she exclaimed about a man sitting almost right in front of us. “The poor person who has to sit next to him!” “Shhh!” I said.

The Humans is a family drama, parents drive in to NYC from Scranton, Pennsylvania with his mother who has Alzheimer’s to have Thanksgiving dinner with their two daughters, one who has just moved in with her boyfriend on the Lower East Side and the other, a lesbian lawyer who has come in from Philadelphia. The dialogue is note-perfect, funny and very real; we see unfold over and over the tensions beneath every family, the way parents nag out of love, how disappointed they are in their kids’ choices despite that love, how predictable their comments are, the way kids roll their eyes about their parents yet need them deeply. It hit uncomfortably close to home; I resolved to try to stop sending messages about health to my offspring. There’s a haunting sense of menace; 9/11 lurks in the background, and the new apartment has unexplained noises and lights going off, as if poltergeists live there too. And again, a secret must be revealed. Terrific acting and direction. Not my favourite kind of theatre, realistic family drama, but terrific nonetheless.

Lola and I got the 8^th Avenue bus uptown to get out of the Times Square area as quickly as possible; she knows all the bus routes so we headed for the crosstown bus at Lincoln Centre. I offered to take her for dinner, and as we approached the bus stop, there across the street was a Chinese restaurant called Shun Lee. It was one of my uncle’s favourite places; I ate there several times with him, the last time when he was suffering the effects of chemo and in rough shape. Lola and I had a delicious dinner there and toasted him. What a pleasure that was. She said, “He loved you very much, you know, your uncle.” And I, him.

Got Lola home. It was such a beautiful night that I went for a stroll around the streets – the sidewalk tables of the restaurants packed – and then went up to the roof garden here to watch the sunset. Sublime. 

New York Day Three

I'm at the little Italian cafe around the corner on 2nd Ave., where I go in NYC to get wifi and a cappuccino. It's 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, another beautiful day - have I mentioned that, apart from the thunderstorms on Friday, the weather has been perfect, mild and sunny? This city can be beastly hot, so I feel very lucky for the breeze.

Today I am going to Central Park - walking across the park to the Green Flea Market at 79th and Columbus, a fave destination full of interesting things, and then I'll walk up Columbus to 94th, to look at Uncle Edgar's brownstone and then to visit him in Central Park. I scattered his ashes inside the park at 94th and I go to visit him when I'm here, to have a chat and tell him how things are.

I'm taking Cousin Lola to see The Humans, this year's Tony award winner for Best Play, this afternoon. Lola is exactly the age my father would have been had he lived; it is my great pleasure to take her to the theatre and for lunch or dinner. At 94, she is still living in a studio at 71st and 3rd and goes often to the theatre and the museums for almost nothing on a senior's pass. Full of energy.

Tonight - walking? Working at Ted's? Not much planned once the theatre stops - there's none on Sunday nights or Monday. Just this city. I think I'll find something to do. I hope to make it back to the Cafe Noi. Stay tuned.

New York Day Two

Saturday July 2. Sometimes I love this city so much I could croak. This just might have been the most perfect day I’ve ever spent in the city of my birth.

At 9.20 a.m., I intended to get the Lexington subway uptown to the Museum of the City of New York at 103rd and 5th, but when I got to the subway, it was closed. Just closed, no explanation, no uptown service. No problem – the Madison Avenue bus got me there. I was early for the museum, so I walked in Central Park, a part I didn’t know way up north – the Conservatory, the Vanderbilt Gate – such an oasis, this huge green rectangle of sanity.

I was at the museum as it opened, to see its exhibit on the Yiddish theatre. And there is was – the bronze bust of my great-grandfather Jacob Gordin that I used to see in my grandparents’ hall on W. 79^th. It’s magnificent. He’s magnificent. It's odd to see family - even family I never knew - in a museum. The exhibit is well done, extensive and beautifully put together, covering the whole era, from just before Gordin to the resonance the Yiddish theatre has had through the years. I bought the book from the exhibit, which I’m proud to say lists my book in the bibliography. But I’m sorry to say that while I was touring the exhibition, I had it completely to myself.

He was only 56 when he died. Doesn't he look about 80 already? Probably about 54 when this was taken. Ageless.

Watched a great film about the history of the city, from when it was a wild lush forest purchased from the Indians for approximately $24, to now.

I got the bus back to Ted’s, stopping on the way at Arche shoes, one of my favourite shoe stores on Madison Avenue, where there was a sale, a word that is music to my ears. And yes, there was a pair of comfortable, pretty red shoes in my vast size calling to me.

After a rest, back downtown - in my new red shoes - by subway to TKTS to see what I could get for the matinee. Times Square even more insane, and so many tickets – too many - on sale at half-price there. There are also a lot more empty stores than I’ve ever seen. Things are not right. People are struggling. People work incredibly hard and are all exhausted; everyone in this city looks exhausted. But many are going bankrupt in any case, and the rest are getting richer. Many of the rich, however, are Japanese. They seem to be the ones buying everything. And most of the tourists are French – I hear French everywhere. I think that if nothing else changes France, the fact that so many of its citizens are visiting New York will do so.

I went to see The Crucible, directed by the acclaimed Ivo van Hove, with a star-studded cast including Ben Wishaw. It has had mixed reviews, and for good reason – it’s not a very good production. Van Hove had all kinds of half-assed ideas – setting it in a school so people can scribble periodically on a blackboard, for example, brief flashes of weird stuff, several key roles miscast, and worst of all, the Theatre of Mess. Those who follow this blog know what that means – as I’ve written before, whenever directors start flinging junk around the stage, it means they're lost. And there’s a mighty pile of junk on that stage by the end. Poor stage-managers.

But the actors were all good, and nothing can kill this superb play, a clarion call for tolerance and justice against religious bigotry and hidebound prejudice. It could not be revived at a more important time. I just wish the production had worked for it and not against it. But I’m still glad I saw it.

Home again, rocketing up Madison Avenue in the fastest bus ever – now I know which street to use to get uptown. Had my fish and Pinot and a brief rest, and set out again, this time walking from 77^th and 3rd down to 45^th and 8^th for the evening show. A long interesting walk, and again, I was early so went to sit on the steps in the middle of Times Square to watch the unbelievable jumble of humanity. Eventually, the woman sitting next to me and I began to chat and guess what? She was from Toronto. Riverdale, in fact, five minutes from where I live. Ain’t that the way.

heaven

hell

purgatory

And then I went to see one of the best musicals I’ve ever seen, an explosion of joy: The Color Purple. I would not have been much interested if I hadn’t seen an excerpt on the Tonys. It was truly glorious, spectacular, with the best voices – Jesus, the singing! The music! – and three of the best singing actresses I’ve ever seen, especially the stupendous breakout superstar, Cynthia Erivo, a tiny Brit who has everything, a fantastic actress and singer with charisma, sweetness and grace, mesmerizing. I have never been in a theatre where people rose shouting to their feet after a number, or at the end, heard such cries of approval. I, of course, wept. Oh my God what gifts this city can give you. 

New York Day One

Friday July 1. An hour and a half to get from Toronto to Newark; two and a half hours to get from the Newark airport to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. By the time I got to my cousin’s, I was ready to go home.

At Penn Station, where the train from the airport arrives, I tried to get the subway but ended up bewildered, looking for the E train that was there on the map but not there in reality – and the subway was incredibly hot. So I walked out into the morass of New York, to make my way, with suitcase, east along impassable 34^th Street to 3^rd Avenue to get the bus uptown. Crowds on the street, massive, overwhelming crowds, muggy oppressive heat, and 3^rd Avenue was gridlock. A nice lady – so New York! – chatted gaily, telling me about twelve blocks up, the street would clear. It took three-quarters of an hour for the bus to crawl 40 blocks uptown. At one point, the driver said over the P.A., “ 59^th is next, if we can ever get there.” There was a black man or woman in a glittery turban stretched out asleep on the seat nearby, and a mother and daughter chattering in Parisian French who got off at Bloomingdale’s.

Voila, enfin – Cousin Ted’s at 77^th and 3rd, where I have been staying since my Uncle Edgar, who lived at 94^th and Central Park West, died in 1997. Ted has a weekend house in Northport where his spouse Henry lives, so this two-bedroom apartment is empty every weekend. Cousin Ted has worked for Sotheby’s, he knows about antiques, and he and Henry tour the world looking for antiquities and treasure. The apartment is jammed with priceless acquisitions – hundreds of pre-Colombian pottery and Chinese burial figures, petrified dinosaur eggs, 17^th century British drinking glasses - though most of the collection is in Northport.

OMG, I am glad not to be out there. It has been heavy and threatening all day and finally the sky has exploded, a teeming rain with thunder. Trying to manoeuver around NYC in a bad rainstorm … the only thing worse is snow. Once when I was visiting and 7 months pregnant, my husband and I were desperate to get to the airport in a snowstorm, and when a cab finally stopped, a man nearly shoved me to the ground to get in first. And then the driver threatened to dump us in the middle of Central Park when he realized we were going to La Guardia and not to Kennedy.

Anyway, I’m safely here. There’s no wifi – no wifi! – so I am writing this in Word and will post when I go at some point to the little Italian café around the corner.

The narrowest skyscraper in the world.

I went up 3^rd to Eli’s, a gourmet takeout place, which was a mistake – I bought staples and a few treats, cold soup, baked fish, milk and delicious bread – and a jar of organic peanut butter which turned out, when I got to the cash, to cost $12. I spent $63 on a few staples. But at home, the soup – cold carrot and lime – was superb, with a glass of the Pinot I bought at the wine store on the corner, and blueberries from the Puerto Rican fruit stand across the street. And now I’m sitting here waiting for the rain to stop, or at least die down, so I can go to the theatre.

10.30 p.m. Never have I been so grateful for a cab. I started walking after the play tonight, heading back to 3^rd Avenue, but after much walking today decided I was tired and the Times Square area was too insane, so I stuck out my hand as a cab went by and he stopped. Miracle! Four minutes after I got in, the heavens opened, lightning, downpour. By the time I got out, I’d put on my rain poncho and opened my umbrella and then I ran the quarter block to Ted’s, but even so, I was soaked. Thank you, God - that cab was heaven sent. Times Square in a thunderstorm – let’s not even think about it.

What I do want to think about is the wonderful show I saw tonight: Fun Home, based on the graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel. A new genre continues to bloom – the autobiographical musical, done by the same team that did Carolyn or Change, the brilliant musical about Tony Kushner’s childhood. And this is a brilliant musical about Alison Bechdel’s. Deeply moving, the story of a sensitive young woman growing up in a family damaged by its big secret – that Dad, the father of 3 kids, is gay. And Alison is too. It’s tender, funny, beautifully directed and acted, and heartbreaking.