Monday, February 28, 2011

An Urban Excursion. Part Two

We entered the Public Library through a small side door, where my bookbag was immediately “searched” (I use this term loosely – she just glanced inside it) by a bored security woman with a voice like chainsaw on gravel. The library itself was magnificent – it reminded me of an ornate temple, carved from solid granite with vaulted ceilings. Our whispers carried far, bouncing around the cavernous rooms. We swept through the cartography room and the scriptorium, then stopped for a while to admire the Rotunda. Here a magnificent depiction of Prometheus graced the ceiling and along the wall Moses condemned the idol-worshippers at the mountain’s foot, his eyes like fire and stone commandments in hand. We peeked into the main reference room, but many people there were actually studying. So we just looked at each other, nodded, and left without a word.

Strangely enough there was a subway right beneath the Library, so we grabbed it and moved speedily underground until we reached Union Square. This time when we emerged from the subway station our noses were greeted by an intoxicating scent: apple cider and cider donuts. We were smack in the middle of a farmer’s market. Honeycrisp apples, various cheeses, local meats, produce, cider, and countless other delicious things. We had to force ourselves to get through it, otherwise we would have lingered too long. Oh well, such is life.

A short walk down the street deposited us at Max Brenner’s, a restaurant built around amazing chocolate dishes. We basically walked in, took in the glorious chocolatey smell, then left. At the end of the block we found Strand’s Bookstore and went in. All three of us – Taylor especially – were suckers for old books. Unfortunately what we found was a city street, with all its crowded craziness and strangeness, packed into this bookstore. The shelves were stacked five high and the ceiling not much higher. I managed to lay hands on a copy of Les Miserables as well as Crime & Punishment, but the suffocating warmth and absurd amount of patrons compelled us to leave.

The sun had set by this time, and we emerged from the bookstore into a lit-up city fully engaged. Another subway ride and we had moved downtown into the Lower Village for dinner, north of Houston Street (pronounced HOW-stun, according to Kris. “A New Yorker will yell at you if you say hewston”). We had read in this tourist book that a certain restaurant called “Comaje” would be a classy and inexpensive place to dine. The place was certainly classy. It was a swanky bistro with no overhead lights, only small candles on the tables. This ambient atmosphere was note-perfect for a romantic date, which was the case for the couple at the table beside us. We felt sort of dressed down and out-of-place in the joint, which apparently showed. We were received very differently by the two waiters that served us (and they were the only staff – this place was about the size of a comfortable bedroom). The one I’ll call Stiffster – he eyed us in a way that made me feel sort of unwelcome, and he just came off as detached and passive. The other I’ll call Mr. Friendly. Like Stiffster he was a young man, but overjoyed that we were able to secure a table (we had traipsed in without a reservation. When we told him this Stiffster looked at us like we had smacked him in the face). Mr. Friendly kept joking around with us and telling us how we were especially cool and that we were “keepers”. My guess is their normal patrons are cold and rude, but this is just conjecture. Friendly even gave us our jasmine tea on the house – which was a good thing, because something went wrong with the making of that tea. Too late to make this long story short, but the food was good and warm and gave us a spring in our step that was much needed. We may be young, but we had already walked a great deal and were exhausted.

And so we embarked on our final subway ride. We sat there and knew we really wanted some Starbucks, but also knew our chances of finding one by the ferry were slim. Just as the subway was stopping Kris suggested we get off then – a few blocks early – and walk the rest of the way to the river in hopes of spotting a Starbucks. This meant we had to make a decision in the two second span that the train doors were open. Our answer was “Yes, let’s get off” but we were too late, for as we stood up from our seats the doors closed on us. We were saddened by this. But then we had a stroke of luck, for some reason the doors opened again for a split second. Kris managed to wedge my bookbag in the door; this caused the door to reopen for one final second. In an impulsive moment we all threw ourselves through the door – Taylor almost getting stuck – as the only other family on the train cheered us on. But we made it through.

After a brief jaunt past Trinity Church, where Taylor was overjoyed to find the actual tomb of Alexander Hamilton, and a short visit to the Wall Street Bull statue, we arrived back at the Staten Island ferry. There we discovered our boat didn’t leave for another half hour. We spent this time wandering the Wall Street area, which was completely deserted. There we stumbled upon a small Vietnam War memorial and a Starbucks which was (predictably) closed.

As we boarded our return ferry and stood on the balcony watching the brilliantly lit New York City skyline retreat into the distance, it seemed a fitting time for reflection, though at the time I could think mostly of a greatly anticipated full night of sleep.

The city is a strange thing. It’s a place of corners, and little nooks begging to be explored; it’s a place where the air is full of smells good and bad – the telltale scent of burgers and fries or the cigarette smoke of a crosswalk-sharer or even just a general “city” smell. There are so many sounds that they all blend into a sort of hum. The voices are many and most have traveled through air or over sea. In some moments you glimpse tragedy – a small girl glumly eating ice cream while her mother sits on the far side of the park bench, smoking her cigarette and staring away with a detached look upon her face; in other places you spy hope and joy, mostly in the children at park playgrounds or a couple leaning on one another in the subway. You see a human people depraved and real and self-focused, but trying to learn even if it’s the wrong way. You find a people of action. Such as those gathered in protest before City Hall, chanting along with voices as one to a woman with a megaphone, their signs and beliefs held aloft; and you find an apathetic generation unwilling to look one another in the eye or cleave to anything beyond their work. And suddenly there you are, returning to your life on the ferry, Lady Liberty glowing in the dark and that giant complex knot of humanity, its glories and struggles, slowly being abstracted into a lite-brite cityscape where there are no people, no problems, only a beautiful vista.

It was a good, long day, all told.

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