NB: Izzy would like this called “Listen, Barnaby” which is a somewhat obscure reference to New York
City. You’ll have to watch Hello Dolly
to get it, or maybe this will help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdAZtMhLFjQ
Sunday, May 29, 2016
The Greatest City in the World: New York, April 2016
Check out the posts below and follow along as the Laskins take Manhattan, following an immigrant trail from boat to Lower East Side, noshing quite well, and seeing a big show.
The Greatest City in the World: New York, 4.21.16
If you are going to New York City, it is a good idea to listen to the
soundtrack of Hamilton on the way there.
First, it is awesome. Second, it
is long so it uses up a lot of the ride.
Third, the whole thing takes place in New York City, and by the time
you’ve heard “the greatest city in, the greatest city in, the greatest city in
the WOO-OOO-RRRLD” several times you are totally pumped. You can also learn that in New York you can
be a new man, in New York you can be a new man, in New York you can be a new
man! (Three-peats are big in
musicals.) We love Hamilton the Musical,
but it is not a spoiler alert to say that we won’t see it because we aren’t
made of money, you know. The soundtrack
will have to do.[1]
There are any number of ways that you can get to New York City from
Cambridge, Massachusetts but we drive to Stamford, Connecticut and take a train
into the city from there because it is cheap and doesn’t really take much
longer than flying. But it does require
driving through Connecticut, which as far as I can tell is the most useless
state in the Union. It is nothing but
highways and strip malls. Its motto is
The Nutmeg State! Why does anyone live
there? Connecticut is basically just IN
THE WAY if you are trying to get to New York City from Massachusetts.
Bill and I had a super fun time last summer when we went, but the kids
have not been since they were quite small, so really don’t remember much of
anything. I think Izzy in particular is
going to love this trip, but she is pretty blasé going through Grand Central
Station, which is the greatest way to arrive in the greatest-city-in-the-world,
like she does it every day. I bet she’s screaming
inside.
Still we soon hit something guaranteed to get that girl going: an exhibit on a fave children’s book author,
Mo Willems, at the New York Historical Society.
We all learn a lot about Knufflebunny (pronounced: ka-nuffle bunny) and Elephant and Piggie and
of course, Willem’s master creation, the supremely self-absorbed Pigeon. Willems was an animator before he turned to
books, and it shows in the clean lines and movement of his creatures. He also grounds many of his stories in Brooklyn,
which is sort of New York to us foreigners, so it is a sweet kind of way to
start our visit.
Historical societies are funny places because if they are big like
this one, they have vast collections of things like Tiffany lamps, the world’s
largest Picasso mural, Al-ex-and-er HAM-il-ton ephemera, and the
Batmobile. Why the Batmobile? Who knows, but there it is.
We are based once again at the Park Central Hotel, from which you
don’t have to practice at all to get to Carnegie Hall because it is right
across the street. It is indeed pretty
central, we can walk to a lot of places and being Laskins, we do. From the It’s A Small World Department: on our way to get some (pretty awesome) pizza for dinner, we ran into
Izzy’s friend Ruth and her family, just walking down the street. It’s school break week, so of course everyone
in Massachusetts has gone somewhere else, and here’s Ruth. Peter tells us that that Cambridge Rindge and
Latin School Latin class is in Italy and the French Club has gone to
Paris. But we are in the greatest city
in the world according to Alex-an-der HAM-il-ton so we don’t feel too sorry for
him.
It was a given that we’d see a show while here, but what show? Kinky Boots made a strong play, but lost in a
close last-minute vote to “Shuffle Along, or The Making of the Musical
Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed.”[2] Hamilton may be totally awesome and tout la
rage, but Shuffle Along promised TAP DANCING and a lot of it, and Audra
McDonald, and is in the lovely little Music Box Theater so you feel like you
are almost on stage even up in the balcony.
Izzy is worried about the 8 p.m. curtain: what if she falls asleep? She does not, because she is mesmerized by
the tapping. Peter, on the other hand,
takes a power nap during the third quarter.
We are all completely thrilled by the fantastic dancing and singing, and
feel that our choice of show was well-made.
And cheap(er).
[1] Izzy particularly likes “You’ll Be
Back” in which a petulant King George III tells the colonists just what he’ll
do to them if they try to leave. Damn
her eyes for being a royalist!
[2] Yes, we looked into Hamilton.
And then looked away, temporarily blinded by the $900 tickets. Some of us actually considered – for about 10
seconds – how we could make that work.
Other members of our party did not.
The Greatest City in the World: New York, 4.22.16
Despite falling into bed at the for-Izzy-outrageous hour of 11 p.m.,
we do have to get going the next morning because we have reservations on a
10:15 ferry to Ellis Island. Which takes
a really long time because they pack about ten thousand people onto these tubs,
so even though the distances between Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and
Battery Park are not vast, you have to wait for practically the entire boat to
disembark at the Statue, then fill up again for the next leg. It takes like an hour to get to Ellis Island.
There are a lot of French tourists in New York this week, and about 12
million teenagers at Ellis Island. We
hear them all on the ferry and like us, they are yearning to be free of this
boat. Or maybe just their
chaperones. But it is a nice day, and
the views of the lower Manhattan skyline are spectacular, and we are on
vacation in the greatest-city-in-the-world so who cares?
I tried to generate some emotion by telling our offspring that this is
how their ancestors might have arrived, on a boat, right here, at this dock,
what do you think of that? Not much
apparently. But I think it is pretty
cool! The main buildings at Ellis Island
are these great Victorian beasts, all turrets and massive solid brickwork. You really do go in the door just as the
huddled masses might have done, and up the (rebuilt, it appears) staircase, where
the medical officers watched to see if you could handle the climb – were you
healthy enough to come to America? If
you couldn’t make it up the stairs, off to the medical exam and maybe back to
the old world with you.
We opt for the audio tour, which is great, guiding us through the
exhibit halls about immigration and arrival during the Island’s heyday, with
all kinds of good detail and oral history that we all like. It is possible that one or two of Bill’s
people came through here. The Island
operated as an immigration center from 1892 to the mid-1950s, and I think my
folk were all here before that, but he says maybe his mother’s grandfather? About 12 million people came through Ellis
Island, a number disturbingly reminiscent of the number of Africans forced onto
the Middle Passage. Those coming through
Ellis Island, for all their woes and fears, had – and one might argue still
have – it a lot better than the Africans.
But that lesson is for another time.
The place is of course completely fascinating. If you arrived first or second class, you
might have your immigration exam (health, papers) on board your vessel, likely
by customs officers who boarded at the Verrazano Narrows. Because, you know, if you were rich enough to
travel that way, you must be planning to be a contributing member of our
society, right? Health, schmealth, no
staircase for you! The teeming masses,
on the other hand, were ferried out to Ellis Island, to be examined physically,
mentally, and politically. If there were
questions, you stayed there until they were resolved – via a hearing if there
was a political situation, or medical exam, or quarantine. The most interesting looking places are the
long-shuttered dormitories and medical wards that line the other side of the
U-shaped island. Here is where you
stayed if you were waiting for relatives to confirm your existence, or if you
were sick, or if you were waiting for some kind of hearing. Some folks stayed weeks. Some, sadly, just until return passage could
be secured. One of the oral histories on
our recording is from an Italian-American woman whose grandmother was sent
back, all alone, because she had some health issue. The old woman on the audio cries like it was
yesterday, and it is quite heartbreaking.
Anyway, you can’t go in those buildings, although there are vague
plans to restore and open at least some of them. As for the main hall, it is late
Victorian-American institutional: all
frosted glass globe light fixtures and white subway tile. You can sit on some actual wooden benches
that the immigrants would have waited on.
The whole place wasn’t structurally damaged during Hurricane Sandy, but
the AC and electrical systems were destroyed, and they say that a number of
artifacts and exhibits suffered in the ensuing lack of climate control. Every once in a while you come upon an empty
display case or spot on the wall where a Sandy-artifact lived.
The heyday of Ellis Island coincided with the Progressive Era in the U.S.,
when people started to think about how to take care of the less-fortunate,
through social organization, service work, and eventually political reform. You can see all of that at play here. Manhattan do-gooders from every part of
society – religious, ethnic, and social groups – sent representatives to the
Island to help immigrants make their way in the new world. There were translators and medical doctors
and social workers all offering services to immigrants. Now, a big question in academic treatments of
this era is: what was the real purpose of all this good-deed-doing: to help or to sanitize? Give immigrants a hand up, or tamp down their
ethnic differences and make them (the Progressive’s version of) American? I’ll straddle the fence here and say a bit of
both. Certainly there was enormous
goodwill demonstrated toward newcomers – until they started to get organized
and unionize or vote for the wrong fella, that is.
Yet another story for another time.
Bill is particularly taken with the fact that Fiorello La Guardia,
future mayor of New York, worked as a translator at Ellis Island because he
spoke four languages in addition to English, including Croatian. We’re still trying to figure out where he
learned that.
In addition to the main exhibit, we visit something called Journeys or
somesuch that chronicles the coming of peoples to America prior to the 1890s,
as well as the movement of various groups around the country during the years
from First Contact up to the late 19th c. It is quite well done, incorporating white,
black, and Native American movements in equal measure, to and from and around
the US. But we are huddled with a lot of
masses here, and yearning to breathe free we escape outside to admire the view
of lower Manhattan and the budding trees around the Wall of Honor. This is an impressive list of thousands and
thousands of names, and you might think, how amazing, they have a monument to
all the people who came through here.
But you would be wrong, because anyone can get their name on the Wall of
Honor, you just have to pay for it.
Still, it is said that over 100 million Americans today can trace their
ancestry to someone who came through Ellis Island, so that’s not chicken feed.
Once you got through immigration, you might head to the Lower East
Side, as did Bill’s great-grandfather on his mum’s side. And as do we, but I’m pretty sure that the
immigrants did not get to stop for a ride on the Sea Glass Carousel in Battery
Park to take their minds off of their troubles.
If they had, how happy they would be, as were Izzy and I, to drift
around inside giant pastel fiberglass fish, which kind of glowed on and off,
all to a soundtrack of something that sounded like what Prokofiev’s Romeo and
Juliet might sound like if played underwater by a bombastic piscine
orchestra. It was pretty fabulous, and
if you want to see it, check out my Facebook page, where there is a video of
our experience.
After a trek over to the 9/11 Memorial and a frustrated attempt to get
inside the Santiago Calatrava boondoggle-I-mean-PATH-station, we cab it
(finally) to the LES for lunch at Russ and Daughters Café. So happy are we to be there that we take
goofy pictures and order the trifecta of egg creams: chocolate, malt, and something called Buxar
that tasted a bit like molasses. Peter
liked it at first but then wished he’d just had chocolate. I had a cucumber soda that I would very much
like to make at home.
It is pretty late in the day and we are pretty exhausted so we trek
back to the hotel and collapse in a heap until dinner.
According to an article in today’s New York Times that I haven’t read,
the subways of the Northeastern cities are in terrible shape, and basically a
disaster waiting to happen. But I think
those in New York City are pretty great.
I’m sure that if I had to ride them daily I would not think so, but I’m
mad for the mosaics that decorate some of the stations, particularly the giant
fish (herring no doubt) that adorn the walls at Delancey Street.
We are delighted to connect with the New Jersey Lauterbachs for
dinner, who lead us to Le Relais de Venise for steak frites. Ironically, it is a branch of a restaurant
that I wanted to go to in Paris last summer, and here we are in New York. But it is great, and a perfect place for
Peter because they bring you seconds of steak frites mit secret sauce, which
makes him very happy.[1] And they have gorgeously classic desserts
like profiteroles. My brother says that
they fly the sauce in from Paris.
Oo-la-la.
The Greatest City in the World: New York, 4.23.16
We’re continuing our immigrant trail journey the next morning, but
much discussion ensues about breakfast.
(After dinner, of course, because per the Rule of Bill, you can’t talk
about the next meal until you are finished with the last one.) Slightly shamefaced, we slink back to R&D
since we have to be down the street at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum
later that morning. “I thought you
looked familiar!” says the same hostess who seated us yesterday. Izzy has something fantastical called chocolate
babka French toast, and Peter murmurs “perfect” as his plate of eggs, Scottish smoked
salmon, and latkes is set down in front of him.
Interestingly, if you are in Russ and Daughter’s Café, you can get on
Ryan Gosling’s wifi network. Swear to
god, there it is, ryangoslingswifi right there as a non-password-protected
option on my phone.
Who is Ryan Gosling, asks Bill.
And so it goes.
We wander the LES for a while since our tour doesn’t start until 11
and I can tell that things may be going downhill morale-wise since it is a
little bit cold and rainy, so this tour better be good.
Of COURSE it is. If you haven’t
been to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, you should get yourself there toot
sweet. It is way more than just a
building; during the thirty years or so of its existence, the staff have
researched many of the 7000 individuals who lived in the building at 97 Orchard
Street. They used artifacts, municipal
records, census, church – all the usual stuff, but mapped on to the building
itself to give a really incredible sense of place. A few families and businesses left
particularly strong records, and theirs are the stories that are told in guided
visits to various parts of the building.
What is extraordinary is that the building itself, built in 1863, really
offers a microcosm of the US immigration story – Germans, Irish, Jews,
Italians, shopkeepers, sweatshop workers, pushcarts, political organization,
saloons, food, religion – you can learn about it all RIGHT HERE.
We took a tour called Shop Life, during which we learned about a
German family that kept a saloon, a kosher butcher shop, an auction house, and
a discount garment seller who really specialized in undies. If you wanted Pucci panties cheap in the
1960s, 97 Orchard was the place. I was
blown away with the broad knowledge of our “educator” (the slightly pretentious
term for tour guide but he did indeed do a lot more than just show us the rooms
so OK), and by the fascinating touch technology piece with building
artifacts. Cooked up by those crazy kids
at MIT, this involved a table onto which you put a brick or an apron or a wallet,
and then with touch and infrared lights, bubbles appeared that told you more
about it, and offered additional anecdotes and facts. Each object was keyed to one of the shop
stories we’d been learning about. You
know how you do the push button thing at a museum and half the time it doesn’t work,
or some little kid is sitting there whaling away on it so you can never get a
turn? Not here. The system worked flawlessly and we all were
engrossed with our stories. I had Max
Markus, the auction king, which was great because they had some oral history where
you could listen to him actually talk about his great success, the end of
pushcarts, the building of the Essex Street Market and so on.
Now we could have gone anywhere for lunch after this, especially
considering we were still pretty sated from breakfast. But when on the LES, and with the human
hoover Peter, where else but Katz’s Deli?
You approach Katz’s with some trepidation. The line outside is long, and there are big
bouncer-like men at the door controlling access. Then when you get inside, it is all
chaos. People shout at you to say go
this way if you want table service (ie. to sit and be served by a waiter, at
additional expense), go that way to order.
If you want the full Katz’s, you find
a short-ish line at one of the sandwich makers behind the counter and wait your
turn. You can send your family to scout
a table because who is going to get out of that sandwich line, and dame fortune
smiled on us today, with one opening up right in front of us. (Line?
There’s no line for tables. It is
every man for himself.)
Once your turn comes, you tell the man slicing your meat what you
want, and he starts your sandwiches by forking a ginormous steamy hunk of fatty
meat out of a warmer, slicing off the extra fat and giving you a little slice
of pastrami or corned beef or whatever on a plate. Which you try to savor because it is small
but you can’t really help yourself and you inhale it. Then you place a little slice of money back
in his tip jar and everyone is happy.
You are mostly happy because now you know what warm, spicy, juicy deliciousness
is coming your way. Rye is the bread of
choice, as is mustard for your condiment.
You can get a Rueben, or melted cheese.
And you can even get a grilled cheese, but in the She’s-Growing-Up
category, Izzy opts not for safety but digs into pastrami with me. Clever girl.
Peter is a great vacation companion these days. He may look
bored and long-suffering (stuck with us fossils and Miss Annoying, what teenage
boy would not?), but he is actually a font of arcane facts that enliven any
activity, and his rapidly developing extra-dry sense of humor is enlivened with
a touch of the ridiculous that makes me wish he wrote more. Particularly delightful, he’s a great eater,
always up for a good nosh of the local specialty – until he hits his wall, that
is, which is usually about three-quarters of the way through any trip. This happened at Katz’s, and Peter sat there
looking sadly at the second half of his Rueben, wishing desperately that he
could finish it, but knowing it would be folly to eat more. Fortunately he usually recovers from this
temporary state of inexplicable satiatedness, and finishes a trip well.
How could I not check out Il Laboratorio del Gelato, right across the
street from Katz’s? That’s America,
right there, on the Lower East Side.
Some basil lime sorbetto sets you right up after a pastrami on rye, but
my family opts for black-and-whites from the Russ and Daughters’
mothership.
Bill, as you know, is a museum hound, especially for contemporary art,
so he’s been hankering to visit the not-so-new-anymore Whitney for a
while. The rest of us are a bit grumpy
about it, despite his springing for a cab to rest our weary feet. It’s not that we don’t like art but when you
go to a museum with Bill, you need to just be prepared to take a while. He looks at everything, and he reads
everything, and if you have a short attention span, you might find this
excruciating. Then you feel bad that
you’re not paying closer attention, so you put on your big girl knickers and
try to learn something. Which of course
you do, so then you are glad you went.
The interior of the Whitney isn’t that interesting – just big boxy
white space – but it has lots of balcony and outdoor space climbing up all six
stories, so you can get some swell views of busy New York City roofscapes. And the exhibits range from thought-provoking
to unexpectedly relaxing. We check out a
sober investigation of post-9/11 America from Laura Poitras, called Astro-Noise,
which makes everyone think about the involvement of the state in personal
lives, as well as an exhibit of portraiture and portraiture-related art from
the permanent collection. In the latter, I’m excited to see a work by Annette
Lemieux, who teaches at Harvard and I got to know at the Summer School. That is pretty awesome. There’s also a big exhibit on the music of
so-famous-you’ve-probably-never-heard-of-him avant-garde jazz pianist Cecil
Taylor. There are notes from concerts,
and recordings, and photos and detailed music notes and there are apparently
concerts from the man himself in that very room. It is all a bit overwhelming until you get to
the end of the gallery, which is just enormous windows looking out on the
balcony, and the High Line park, and the roofscape. There you find comfy couches and listening
stations with very high-quality headphones so you sit down and put them on to
listen to some fine music and really kind of bliss out.
You’ll need all that zen and more if you take a walk on the High Line
afterwards on a warm Saturday afternoon because apparently everyone else in New
York City is taking a walk too and it is absolutely jammed with people. Where the path narrows you trudge along in a
mass feeling like you are at the Vatican going to see the Sistine Chapel.[1]
Following another excellent Lauterbach lead we dine at Eataly, the
Mario Batali multi-restaurant Italian food emporium in the Flatiron District. (True to form, Peter recovers for a fritto
misto.) It is similarly crowded to the High Line but we get a table pretty
easily. We also realize that it is an
Even Smaller World than two nights earlier because we also run into Ingrid
Wright and family AGAIN[2]
– are they stalking us? – and compare vacation plans to see where we will
jointly be going next.
[1] See “Quo Vadis Laskins? Roma,
April, 2011” for this ghastly experience.
[2] Ingrid’s daughter Sophie is in Peter’s class, and her other daughters
dance at DMSD so we are on friendly terms.
But not so friendly that we knew they’d be in Paris last summer when we
were, so we were amazed to just come run into them in the metro one night. (I can’t believe I left this out of “Over The
Top with the LEF in France: August,
2015.”) They say they’re off to Iceland
this summer but we will not be surprised if they show up on the Vineyard.
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