Travel Report: We Love New York

New York City is always such an exciting place to be. It is buzzing with activity, at all hours of the day and night; there is such diversity of peoples, and, oh, by-the-way we have a son, daughter-in-law, and soon-to-be grandchild living there. We got here early Friday afternoon. Son Number Two was practicing with JACK and a composer for the opening performance of Tribeca New Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall, so we tiptoed around the apartment and tried not to distract them.

While the quartet practiced, The Wife, who has never seen soil that she doesn't want to put something in, decided to do her part in beautifying Brooklyn by buying some plants at Home Depot and fixing up the tiny garden in front of the apartment building.

Friday evening, we had an excellent dinner prepared by our daughter-in-law, The Cellist, and then headed downtown on the subway with Son Number Two for a gig at The Local 269, where SNT was playing with a group he occasionally performs with called (for some unexplained reason)
the cellar and point .  They describe their music as "garage-chamber" music, which actually makes sense.

Saturday morning, we worked on assembling the crib we brought from Illinois.  It is hand-made by my father from a cedar tree cut down on my grandfather"s (the baby-to-be's great-great grandfather) farm and looks beautiful after stripping the old varnish and putting on oil.The crib needed two more rubbings of steel-wool and one more coat of oil, which SNT, TC and TW did on Sunday.  The crib is beautiful.  I just hope the baby is cute enough to deserve it.


SNT on Saturday morning also had to go to Manhattan to rehearse with another composer for the Saturday night performance.  He left for the subway station about an hour and a half before he needed to be there, but about a half hour later, he was back.  After waiting and waiting for the train, which is supposed to run every 24 minutes, an announcement was made that there had been a fire on the subway and the line was shut down in both directions.  So, we took off in our car for Manhattan via the Manhattan bridge.  The traffic was exactly what you've heard about Manhattan traffic.  About 40 minutes later, we had gone less than five miles.  The worst part was getting over the Manhattan bridge; we made pretty good time once we were actually in Manhattan, but SNT was still 20 minutes late for the rehearsal.

The quartet planned to practice from 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. and then take a three-hour break before doing a dress rehearsal at 5:00 p.m. for the 8:00 p.m. concert.  TC, TW and I headed downtown by way of subway (by that time, the line was open, although running slowly) and met SNT for some late lunch at a Korean restaurant.  By the time we were finished eating and had done some looking around, SNT needed to head to Merkin for the dress rehearsal.  It was very hot in Manhattan, in the low to mid 90s, but TC, TW and I decided we could walk from around 32nd Street where we had lunch to 67th street where the hall is located, which is a distance of about two and a half miles.    There are all kinds of interesting sights along the way.

A newly-wed Indian couple posing for pictures in Columbus Circle.










A limber street performer showing you can be limber and cool at the same time.







The concert was well received.  There are some things I could say about it, but a New York Times reviewer and a photographer were there, so I will wait until the review comes out; probably Monday or Tuesday.  We came home late on the subway. 

Sunday morning, we slept late, ate some excellent french toast and then made shopping trips to Ikea, Trader Joe's and The Home Depot and then TW, SNT and TC futzed around in the garden and rubbed the crib with more steel wool.  Tomorrow morning, we head back to the Midwest. Depending on the traffic getting out of here, we may try to make it in one day.