The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down…

I didn’t schelp my camera around yesterday, so here’s a quck rundown:

Breakfast donwstairs at the Barking Dog – it was adequate.

Park Ave was closed to auto traffic until 2PM – bikes and peds only, so we walked up and around Grand Central, took a left at the Seagram’s Building and went to the matinee of Next to Normal.  It knocked our socks off – can’t recommend this show highly enough.

The kitchen in our hotel room... Actually, part of the installation we saw downtown.

Quick subway ride down to SoHo to the Black Acid Cooperative, where they have a full-building art installation of a meth lab.  It was like a home-made haunted house for grown-ups.

A late lunch in the garden  at Barolo (an amazing house-made burrata con prosciutto followed by an unremarkable insalata Cesare and a just OK tortino de seppie).

"What recession?" Hordes of theater-goers thronging the Palace Theater to see West Side Story.

Then a quick shower at home before West Side Story – which was, in a word, disappointing.  Still very enjoyable – dancing was fantastic, music as lovely as ever and Maria had a beautiful voice.  But Tony was miscast in my view – his singing was too pop; he tended to sound nasal and sang with his head voice rather than his chest.  In other words, he’s no Larry Kert.

And there was a horrible German woman in front of us, who was continually translating what was happening onstage to her decidedly unsightly child. Chris and I both asked her separately to stop talking – which minimized, but did not stop, the offending chatter.  Plus, she gave me a dirty look – like I was being unreasonable.  The usher was called during intermission…   That seemed to do the trick.  I was tempted to announce loudly, “Wasn’t it bad enough that you exterminated six million of my relatives?  Now you have to ruin West Side Story?”  But that seemed out a bit out of proportion to the situation.

Chris racks 'em up.

Then a whirlwind of gay bars with a liberal smattering of hot bartenders, followed by a good night’s sleep.  Up and at ‘em today – going to Katz’s Deli and Billy Elliott…

The city so nice, they named it twice…

The view from our hotel room. Le sigh...

Why have I stayed away so long?  New York is in many ways unrecognizable from when I was last here more than ten years ago…  Yet it is also the same.  I’d really sort of forgotten what its like to be in a real city.  I still love SF – but NYC is the shit…  And SF could take a lesson on how a real city gets it done – the streets are clean, transit is fast and efficient, there are tons of bike lanes separated from auto traffic, streets are being closed to cars and opened to pedestrians.  Despite the giant buildings and roaring traffic, the city feels amazingly people-focused…  It’s great.

Chris at the High Line

At any rate, we slept in today, rising at the crack of 10:00 after going to a play last night, having drinks with our old friends Mikey and Justin and then hitting a few gay bars.  Big fun (especially getting to break it down on the dance floor to Madge’s “Celebration”).  After breakfast, we took a stroll down the High Line, the new park on top of the old elevated train tracks on the west side of the Meatpacking District.  It’s a fantastic space and being 30 feet above Manhattan gives one a previously unseen view of the town.

Nice ice cream lady. But ice cream just OK...

Saw the  Van Leewun Ice Cream truck once we finished our walk down the High Line.  I’d read about it and it sounded great – essentially a Bi-Rite Creamery on wheels.   But the ice cream was just OK – my strawberry was decidedly unfruity.  But the lady who scooped for us was very nice and we chatted about SF and ice cream.

Ambled through MePa with a detour past my old digs on West 15th – the palladian staircase is no more, but the building itself looks a lot nicer than back in my day.  Jumped on the subway and headed to the Met for a quick run-through: sculpture garden and Temple of Dendur were as delightful as always.  Then a long walk down Mad Ave (we tried Fifth but it was so gross and mobbed, we hightailed it back to Madison after a block).  Now, wine and naps at our hotel before we head out to see “South Pacific” tonight.  So, set your watches to about 8:30 EDT – that should be about the time Emile starts singing “Some Enchanted Evening” and I’ll be weeping like a baby…  Well, actually, I’m already getting teary-eyed thinking about it…

“Meh, whatever…” Apparently one of my ancestors.

The view from our hotel room. Le sigh…

Chris at the High Line

Nice ice cream lady. But ice cream just OK…

Quote of the Day

From Richard Lawson on Gawker:

All Diane von Furstenberg wanted when she built an enormous glass igloo on top of a building in the most populous city in the United States was a little privacy.  Is that so much to ask?

Be sure to click through to the post on Gawker – the comments are priceless…

from Gawker

Quote of the Day

I don’t have any particularly strong feelings one way or the other about Caroline Kennedy’s throwing her hat in the ring to be appointed senator from New York.  On the one hand, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool old-school tax-and-spend Democrat who aspires one day to be a limousine liberal – so “Senator Kennedy” has a distinctly pleasant ring to it.  On the other hand – entitlement!  Eh, what’re you gonna do?

But Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) had this to say about Ms. Kennedy:

I don’t know what Caroline Kennedy’s qualifications are.  Except that she has name recognition, but so does J-Lo.

Don’t be fooled by the rocks that she’s got; she’s still Senator Lopez from the block.   And imagine how much better C-SPAN would be…  “I yield the remainder of my time to my booty-licious colleague from the great state of New York.”