NYC G Zero Report
We managed to be able to spend the last days of summer in N.Y. City. And boy, it was worth it. The days were just barely warm and the nights were just barely chilly.
We stayed on Park Ave. around 28th in a nice little hotel called the Giraffe. The rooms are well done, and we actually had a balcony on the Park Avenue side. Even though they say they have a Concierge, they don't. After the play on Saturday, we finally found a wine bar with a kitchen open late, but only after we had walked from the Eugene O'Neil theatre, down through a downright blinding and deafening Times Square, past the Empire State Building, all the way down to 30th before we finally found a suitable late night bar and cafe. Except for their favorites there in Grammercy and Murray Hill, the hotel was not a lot of help.
The night before, as we came into town from Newark, I remarked as we came across the west side that that building over there didn't seem as tall as it used to. It was the Empire State Building. That's what 60 story buildings in your own town do to your sense of things.
The first time I came to New York, I was flying to Europe as a 17 year old, so I saw nothing except the energy at JFK and the mass of humanity present there that night. A few years later, I would hitch hike to NYC from Texas. It was then that I first learned New York City.
But this trip was a thing of grace. I pissed off the cabby on the ride in from the airport, and after two shoulder holding moments of sincere apology , he finally let it go.
On the last night, as if we had somehow worked it out to the precise moment, we serendipitously ran into a young friend from Texas on 14th street in the old meat packing district. His teenage love affair has proven to be the linking genesis of my partner and I finding ourselves at a dinner party that warm fall night, almost five years ago. It was nothing short of that wonderful display of Soul that we are all graced to occasionally experience.
We walked all over town, and then we rented bicycles and rode all over Central Park. And by the way, the place to eat a late lunch on a beautiful Monday in Fall in NYC is at the Boat House on Central Park.
But the big event was going down to the WTC on Sunday. The place is totally haunted. Small surprise I know, but I had not gone to New York since that day nine years ago. You can tell from the video, we were moved. Here's our quick report:
The One World Trade Center development that is finally arising out of the wreckage of nine years ago is going to be pretty amazing. Who would have imagined after almost a decade, that the Memorial would be just now taking shape. But it is. And in my opinion, the large waterfall elements denoting where the twin towers stood, surrounded by a park full of trees is a significant testament to NY folks taking their time to do something probably very right.
I also like the One World Trade Center frame.
Because it is,
you know.
Even if we don't act like it.
Labels: the world
posted by oZ @ 7:55 PM
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