The Fredösphere

Julie and I took the kids to New York.  Here's my diary.

Thursday we skirt the city in quest of our hotel on Long Island City. I'd say our location--just a block from a subway stop that will get us to Manhattan in five minutes--is near-perfect. Arriving in NYC around 5:30pm is not so perfect, and the traffic across the George Washington Bridge was coagulatory, but that is expected.  The hotel pleases. The neighborhood  real estate scene is in the process of flipping up and we congratulate ourselves on getting in on the ground floor. Or the 15th floor, actually, where we can see the ESB and, better, the Chrysler Building from our room. We are living La Vida Longislandista! We loose our subway-riding virginity. Few other people are crazy enough to bring children here, but amazingly we will see a few people pushing strollers. The sister-in-lawösphere escorts us to a little greek restaurant. I enjoy lamb and spinach stew:  not a carbohydrate in sight! The sister-in-lawösphere tells about her volunteer work combatting modern-day slavery. Evil people piss me off.

Friday I move my car to a parking garage to avoid weird NY fines for parking on the street on Friday morning. The lot attendant is one of the few genuine rude New Yorkers I encounter. I love it when they reinforce my prejudices! It's raining and this is the day we have tickets for the Statue of Liberty (the Maharincess' chosen destination). This is not a good combination. I even forget my hat. We purchase outerwear for me and the kids on Liberty Island. This means wearing glorified trash bags labeled "ponchos." A street vendor also sells us umbrella hats for the kids. Nothing says "sophisticated New York native" like an umbrella hat. The wifeösphere locates her grandparents' names on the Wall of Honor at Ellis Island. They both came over as young children as part of a group of Wolgadeutsche (Germans living in the Volga River region of Russia). We postpone our trip to the top of the ESB and go to MoMA instead, spotting a subway rat along the way. He lacks the typical New Yorker sense of urgency. In NYC, only the rats can afford an andante. Speaking of music, I do not see either Alex Ross or Terry Teachout no matter how hard I look, but what are the odds? Der Drübermensch goes ga-ga for MoMA; the Easter egg hunt quality of the kid's audio tour plays a big part of the appeal. Smart move there, mister museum curator guy! My fav is Rousseau's Sleeping Gypsy. Our lunch in the museum cafe is easily the best food we eat in NYC. Notice I did not say cheap. Meanwhile, it just keeps raining. We return to the hotel and lie about exhausted for two hours, warm and dry.  The sister-in-lawösphere (hereafter SILöS) takes us to an Italian restuarant in Astoria for pizza.  The owner is gregarious, helpful, teasing, and very very old school. NYC pizza is, admittedly, superb.  Admittedly as good, in its way, as Chicago-style.

Saturday is clear and we spend an hour in four different lines to get to the top of the ESB. (We were too savy to wait in the ticket line.) We are no fools; the King Kong posing for pictures in the lobby is obviously a man in a suit. Seeing the ESB in person, I finally get why its architecture is admired, but I remain loyal to Chrysler, and wish I could crawl around in its metal crown. We meet SILöS and walk to Rockafeller Center and St. Pat's. We eat vendor food. The Maharincess loves chicken in all its forms so Mediterranean spices are not a deal-breaker, but a Philly steak sandwich is the trip's culinary low point for Der Drü's hyper-picky palate. We ride to the Museum of Natural History. Each subway use is a ride of horror-movie logistics; the leap from the platform must be choreographed so No Child is Left Behind. We read Teddy Roosevelt's Deep Thoughts while standing in line in the museum lobby.  ("I want to die in my sleep, like my grandfather; not screaming in terror, like the passengers in his horse-drawn carriage.") I see a skull of an Indricotherium, a house-sized mammal: cool. SILöS is meeting friends tonight, so we dine in at the hotel's restaurant.  What a joke. A very expensive, microwaved joke.

Sunday we search for church. The earliest service at the mega-church two blocks away is 11:00am, so we attend the Catholic church that is next to our hotel.  Or try to.  Its website misinforms us of the service times, and mass is almost over as we walk in.  Say what you will about the mega-church phenomenon; from this vantage point its customer-service orientation looks like old-fashioned courtesy. (This assumes the mega-church's website was better maintained; just an assumption on my part. Still, probably a safe bet.) We enjoy a family devotional in our van, parked three cars down from a Camry with a freshly smashed window. We revise downward our opinion of this neighborhood. At least the parking is free. The SILöS takes us to FAO Schwartz. We see a short little old nun admiring the Lego statue of Harry Potter. She is from central casting. She can't keep her hands off Harry. Both are exactly the same height.  Both are wearing black.  I kick myself for not bringing the camera. Der Drü insists on descending into the Apple Store, it having the most arresting retail entrance I've ever seen. At this shrine, on this Sunday morning, cultists worship God in their own way. It smells like a horse barn. (I grew up on a farm, so I know my barns; when I say horse, I definitely do not mean cow, sheep or pig. We are near the corner of central park, so horse manure tracked into the store is not an impossibility.) We walk around Central Park. The kids play a game in that Chess and Checkers House seen in Searching for Bobby Fisher. A retiree waits for a Godot-like opponent. A yuppie couple play nearby, possibly on a first date. Further up the park we see toy sailboats on a pond and Der Drübermensch plans to become a toy yachtsman. We walk too far north and see the Metropolitan Museum of Art through the trees.  Its walls mock me, as our failure to visit it is my biggest regret. We return to the subway, walking past swanky apartments and a man sleeping on the sidewalk, picking a pizza place at random for lunch. Even random pizza in NYC is excellent. We escape from NY without problem, using my map memory to find the route to the Verrazano Bridge and across Staten Island all the way to Harrisburg, Pa.  Everything in this state looks surprisingly not crowded. I can now relax. Don't get me wrong, NY was a blast--but this was the most nerve-wracking vacation ever.

Monday we eat our free hotel breakfast while watching some infotaining show called Good Morrow or some such. The hosts debate the virtues of crunchberries vs. waffle crisp. You can't parody this stuff, but you can thank it for confirming yet another prejudice! We drive to Fallingwater. At the cafe we pay ten bucks for some turkey and lettuce on two uninspired cantilevers of bread. The house, however, is yummy.  All of Wright's usual virtues and vices are on display, in extreme. The tour guide plays just the right mix of reverent courtier and court jester, and she and I share a laugh over the Wright Attitude. The gift shop's powers are too much for us, and we buy some stuff. The kids claim to enjoy the visit. We drive home. Today is Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday.

Tuesday we take a vacation from vacationing.

Labels: Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wrong, Holiday