This weekend was a combination of winter and spring with little in-between. The influx of warm air on Sunday felt about as appropriate as Tracy Morgan’s comedy show on Friday night. The BF and I met some friends at Carnegie Hall, a venue I have never visited (like so many in this home-for-four-years city of mine). The Hall (we’re tight now, I can abbreviate) is ENORMOUS. Since I’m not good at numbers when it comes to crowds, weight, or bills, I can’t tell you how many people were there, but it was probably only slightly less than the number who watch 30 Rock each week. I wondered if, like me, those in attendance who watch the show left wishing it had been Tracy Jordan on the stage. Look, I can see the effectiveness of a well-placed curse word every now and then. But I don’t see the necessity of making “mother f*cker” the subject, verb, and object of every sentence. Call me old, but between that and the barrage of sexual jokes I was longing for a little “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” action.
Surprisingly, fall Saturdays in New York mean the same thing they do in the South: football. And day drinking. Which is why the Hog Pit, with its specials on buckets of PBR and Natty Light, was the perfect destination for game day activities. Afterward, the BF and I ran into the same problem that hit us the night before prior to Carnegie Hall: the seeming disappearance of all available cabs from the street. This was understandable last weekend, when it was Halloween AND raining, but a repeat performance seemed cruel and unnecessary. As I shifted from one leg to the other, wishing I had peed at the Pit and murmuring the mantra Atlanta under my breath, the BF finally managed to flag a taxi. We took it to the Standard Hotel, where we were due to meet two members of my Yankee family. H. is my brother-in-law’s cousin, and A. is her husband. The BF and I got to the hotel first and quickly realized that it was one of those overrated places where you pay $15 for a drink but have to sit on a red retro stool six inches off the ground. No thanks. We ended up sitting with H&A at the Vento bar and catching up there. At one point, I headed downstairs to the bathroom and was reminded of the former glory of Level V. I am thankful for the BF for so many reasons. A big one is that he invalidated my Single Card, which had been issued to me when I moved to New York and carried with it a requirement to spend a minimum number of hours in velvet rope clubs and the Meatpacking District. Will not be missed.
On those rare warm days in the colder seasons, everyone in the city gets the same idea: the Central Park Boathouse. Here, New Yorkers go to commune with nature, drink, and forget they live in a city teeming with people…all while standing in a restaurant teeming with people. And paying $15 for said drinks. And there’s not even a velvet rope or red stools. Just a pretty view and your own two legs to keep you standing.
It’s not every weekend that I venture to so many neighborhoods. I usually keep to the New York that is contained within Murray Hill. (Especially now that there is an apparent cab shortage.) The reminder that the city is bigger than ten square blocks was nice, but it’s also nice to come back home. So I took the long way home from the gym today and checked out my street, 29th, from Broadway to 3rd Avenue–and remembered why it’s so cool to come home to.
Broadway and 29th Street–a building that makes me want to know more about architecture so I can actually describe it
Marble Collegiate Church on 29th Street and Fifth Avenue
The Church of the Transfiguration, also known as “The little church around the corner”, on 29th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues
Late 19th-century house, with a carriage house next door, right across the street from my apartment. HISTORY!