Dateline: New York, New York-
I fell asleep last night before I had a chance to sit down and write anything about the day so I’m making up for it by lying here in bed, listening to the street noise drifting over from Park Avenue and trying to make my little grey cells work before I’ve had my coffee.
Yesterday was uneventful. Relatively short drive from where I was staying in Massachusetts to my cousin’s house in New Canaan. The family were all out other than my uncle who is visiting them from Seattle so I chatted with him for a bit before I caught the train from the New Canaan Station to Grand Central. I had forgotten how hot underground New York can get in the summer but stepping off the air conditioned train onto the platform was like stepping into one of the circles of Dante’s Inferno, only with more people. Then came the lovely job of wrestling two suitcases through various turnstiles, onto the subway, up and down stairs, and around speeding taxis. Fortunately, It’s a task I’ve handled before.
My cousin, Jack, bought his apartment on Gramercy Park nearly twenty years ago when he and his wife Betsy began to have success in New York (he’s a finance guy who is now CEO of a railroad company and she’s a high powered attorney). Later, they bought the house in New Canaan so there would be plenty of room for their growing family but they kept the apartment as a pied a terre and as a stopping off place for friends and family when they visit the city. It’s the rear half of the ground floor of an 1840s brownstone and includes the old stable courtyard, protected by a wall and the bedroom I currently occupy was originally the stable and carriage house. Every time I come down the entrance hall, I feel the ghosts of Henry James characters brushing past as they’re on the way to Delmonico’s .
I didn’t do much yesterday afternoon and evening as I was tired. Ate a couple of decent meals, walked around the neighborhood, dodged a rain shower under a construction awning outside the local CVS. Monday night is dark on Broadway so no theater. That starts this evening with the revival of Carousel.
Both Steve and I and Tommy and I made a number of trips to New York together and I’ve made others before I met either of them and during the period when I was single between them. Therefore, I have lots of New York memories over thirty some years. I’ll try to see what comes to mind as I wander through the city over the next couple of weeks.
Life, The Universe, and Everything 