NYC: there and back again
If Sartre is right that "Hell is other people," then New York is a truly infernal place indeed, with the Museum of Natural History on a schoolday morning as one of the lowest circles. (Certain stretches of I-84 in Connecticut on Friday afternoon were well south of Purgatory too, I might add.) But we had a good time.
Item: The Tenement Museum. Turned out to be much more interesting than it sounded. Back in the 1930s, the owners of 97 Orchard Street closed off the residential floors rather than fireproof them per new city regs, and rented out only the storefronts; rediscovered in 1988, the building was a perfect time capsule and is now a museum of the immigrant/tenement experience. Different tours on different floors concentrate on different eras. The staff create a wonderful sense of family: they can point to pictures of residents and say "That's So-and-so, he was a captain in the Union Army; that boy is So-and-so, he grew up to be a lawyer; see So-and-so's name on these petitions, he was involved in these political organizations until his wife died." Like I said, much more interesting than it sounded at first; recommended.
Item: The Grey Lady bar/restaurant next door to the museum. (Note the tentacles in the logo.) It was just what we needed at the end of a warm city day: we lingered over drinks until they started serving food, and then we lingered over soups and whelk-and-bacon lumps and runny-cheese-and-walnuts. Discovered a new drink in the process, the Mykonos Mule: Ya Mastiha, gin, and ginger beer; further consumption recommended. Reviews describe the Grey Lady as Nantucket preppy surfer chic, which I guess it is, but we liked it for the drinks, the food, and the playlist (classic rock while we were there, but they do lots of reggae and other genres). Recommended.
Item: the High Line, a former elevated rail spur on the lower west side, recently converted to a linear park. A mile or so of walkway, with beds of flowering plants, of grasses, and of small trees. Very exposed to the unexpectedly summery sun (I got a bit of a burn) and full of the aforementioned other people, but cool and neat and full of surprises. Recommended.
Item: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike-David Hyde Pierce, Kristine Nielsen, Sigourney Weaver, and Billy Magnussen respectively. A Chekhovian story of three dysfunctional siblings; explicit references to Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, The Seagull, and The Cherry Orchard (do nine or ten cherry trees count as an orchard?)-the parents had been heavily into community theater. Act One is mostly wild and zany (comparisons have been made to Monty Python); everyone gets a powerful monologue in Act Two (except Sigourney Weaver's Masha oddly, but then she does get to dominate every dialogue she's in in Act One). The play itself doesn't quite come together as anything more than the sum of its parts but those parts were both solid and brilliant, David Hyde Pierce and Shalita Grant (Cassandra the cleaning lady) especially. Highly recommended.
Item: The American Museum of Natural History lingers in my memory as a quiet cool place. Evenings and weekends maybe, but not recommended for school days.
Observation during the drive: Cersei Lannister from Game of Thrones is really just Fastrada from Pippin, only without the song and dance and fun sense of self-awareness. Not a recommendation, just an observation.
Bookended by stays at Tyringham at either end. If we do this again, must definitely allow another day for decompression (and quiet!) after the city, not before.
Item: The Tenement Museum. Turned out to be much more interesting than it sounded. Back in the 1930s, the owners of 97 Orchard Street closed off the residential floors rather than fireproof them per new city regs, and rented out only the storefronts; rediscovered in 1988, the building was a perfect time capsule and is now a museum of the immigrant/tenement experience. Different tours on different floors concentrate on different eras. The staff create a wonderful sense of family: they can point to pictures of residents and say "That's So-and-so, he was a captain in the Union Army; that boy is So-and-so, he grew up to be a lawyer; see So-and-so's name on these petitions, he was involved in these political organizations until his wife died." Like I said, much more interesting than it sounded at first; recommended.
Item: The Grey Lady bar/restaurant next door to the museum. (Note the tentacles in the logo.) It was just what we needed at the end of a warm city day: we lingered over drinks until they started serving food, and then we lingered over soups and whelk-and-bacon lumps and runny-cheese-and-walnuts. Discovered a new drink in the process, the Mykonos Mule: Ya Mastiha, gin, and ginger beer; further consumption recommended. Reviews describe the Grey Lady as Nantucket preppy surfer chic, which I guess it is, but we liked it for the drinks, the food, and the playlist (classic rock while we were there, but they do lots of reggae and other genres). Recommended.
Item: the High Line, a former elevated rail spur on the lower west side, recently converted to a linear park. A mile or so of walkway, with beds of flowering plants, of grasses, and of small trees. Very exposed to the unexpectedly summery sun (I got a bit of a burn) and full of the aforementioned other people, but cool and neat and full of surprises. Recommended.
Item: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike-David Hyde Pierce, Kristine Nielsen, Sigourney Weaver, and Billy Magnussen respectively. A Chekhovian story of three dysfunctional siblings; explicit references to Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, The Seagull, and The Cherry Orchard (do nine or ten cherry trees count as an orchard?)-the parents had been heavily into community theater. Act One is mostly wild and zany (comparisons have been made to Monty Python); everyone gets a powerful monologue in Act Two (except Sigourney Weaver's Masha oddly, but then she does get to dominate every dialogue she's in in Act One). The play itself doesn't quite come together as anything more than the sum of its parts but those parts were both solid and brilliant, David Hyde Pierce and Shalita Grant (Cassandra the cleaning lady) especially. Highly recommended.
Item: The American Museum of Natural History lingers in my memory as a quiet cool place. Evenings and weekends maybe, but not recommended for school days.
Observation during the drive: Cersei Lannister from Game of Thrones is really just Fastrada from Pippin, only without the song and dance and fun sense of self-awareness. Not a recommendation, just an observation.
Bookended by stays at Tyringham at either end. If we do this again, must definitely allow another day for decompression (and quiet!) after the city, not before.