Earlier this month I spent few days in New York, my first real vacation since the pandemic, but I didn’t end up blogging it every blessed day. So now that the trip has ended — when I wrote this I was sitting in the lush and plush Metropolitan Lounge at the glistening new Moynihan Train Hall — here are ten new things I saw or did that made the trip extra special. There were familiar friends and places that made this trip special, too, but I want to focus on what was different this time. In chronological order:
Hangin’ with Tiny Marie Antoinette at the Campbell.
1) FIRST FIST BUMP: Wednesday night, Bastille Day, I was supposed to be hanging out with a friend who ended up being called out of town for work. I rolled with the punches and trotted over to the Campbell Bar at Grand Central with Tiny Marie Antoinette for a couple drinks, and then walked back to my hotel in Chelsea. En route I stopped at a corner deli to pick up some sustenance, and wouldn’t you know it, a man there with his wife was very impressed with my new shoes (off-white wingtips with sneaker soles; I laced them with purple laces.) So impressed, in fact, that he just had to give me a fist bump. After that I felt that no only had I arrived, I had a place here!
1a) The hostess at the Campbell saw my citrine pendant, which led us into a very excitable discussion about crystals — she makes jewelry — and the presentation of her card. I’m sure she’ll be my new best friend until I don’t buy anything.
Rita! How discreet not to include dates of birth . . .
2) GRAVE MATTERS: On Thursday another schedule change allowed me to do something I’d comtemplated for awhile: take the 1 train all the way up to 157th Street, ankle over to 770 Riverside, the Trinity Church Wall Street Uptown Cemetery, and search out the grave of Rita de Acosta Lydig, “the fabulous Mrs. Lydig” who so captivated Cecil Beaton, and her sister, Mercedes de Acosta, who spent her life having relationships with celebrities like Greta Garbo.
Thursday morning it was hot, and I was both wearing long pants and carrying a jacket. This trip I really made an effort to walk slowly, to try to cultivate the “peculiar drifting ease” Willa Cather used to describe Lady Longstreet in her short story “The Old Beauty.” That came in handy at the cemetery, which is many things, but few of them are flat. I knew from the internet that I was looking for a flat stone slab. Trudging up a steep winding path in the sun, I spotted something, but . . . “No,” I said, “that isn’t it. No wait . . . it is! It IS it!” And so I found scandalous Mrs. Lydig and her scandalous sister Mercedes, buried with their unscandalous mother and their aunt. And I felt great joy.
It was so hot.
2a) This is also important to me because the grave of the love of her life, Rev. Percy Stickney Grant, is in my neighborhood cemetery at home. I pay a call on him whenever I’m in his area.
Amber Cowan, Dance of the Pacific Coast Highway at Sunset, 2019
3) AHTSY CRAFTSY: The Museum of Art and Design on Columbus Circle turned out to have some very thought-provoking exhibitions, including a beautiful dollhouse in the style of a Venetian palazzo created and furnished during the pandemic, a celebration of craft, and some eye-popping displays of glass. It was great to see what all the fuss was about.
4) POWER LUNCH: Thursday included lunch with a professional etiquette colleague, conveniently at the restaurant (like me, named Robert), atop the Museum of Art and Design. That’s why I was wearing long pants and toting a jacket. We didn’t rise from the table until almost 4 PM, and the conversation had not flagged. I had been to Robert once before, a couple years ago, in winter at night. Having had the impressive night view, this time I was able to enjoy the majestic summer daytime view of Central Park and the Upper West Side even more. Long story short, I left feeling very encouraged about the direction I want to take, and I floated away on a cloud into the hot streets.
5) THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW TO SEE AT A MUSEUM: Or at least something to see in a new way. Friday I went to the Frick Madison* first, to see some familiar paintings hung in a way that I could concentrate only on them not on them within in the context of the environment. Absolutely wonderful.
5a) Yes, I also saw new-to-me works of art at the Met, but what was really new there was that . . . I didn’t buy any books in the gift shop!
Not showing me a Whole New World . . .
6) CHELSEA FLEA: I’d been hearing more lately about the Chelsea Flea market on West 25th Street, and decided I would go on Saturday (in the blazing heat) to see what all the fuss was about. Anthony and Pedro joined me, too, but I left asking the Peggy Lee Question: “Is that all there is?” It must have been the heat.
The base of the Farragut Memorial with its exquisite carving.
7) Instead, we drifted over to Madison Square Park nearby, to which I’d never been and which contained two beautiful, thought-provoking works of art: a memorial to Admiral Farragut designed by sensationally murdered Stanford White and sculpted by Augustus Saint Gaudens, and Ghost Forest by Maya Lin, best known for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.
In front of Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest. That Hawaiian shirt was my dad’s.
8) DINING FINELY: Some weeks ago a friend pointed out the NYT review for Gage & Tollner in Brooklyn. And I thought, “Hmmm, that’s close to the friends I’m staying with on Sunday night!” So off we went for a very early dinner (because no one was in favor of a very late dinner) that was completely superb. Manhattans, oysters Rockefeller, monkfish with fingerling potatoes and the aura of bacon, an icy cold bottle of Sancerre, and whatever the chocolate cake was. IN. HEAVEN.
Oysters Rockefeller
9) I was invited to stay in the rectory next door to St. Paul’s Carroll Street, a charming little church. It’s a secret gem as well as a vibrant church community, and I was so enthralled by my private tour that I didn’t take any photographs at all. Everything about the rectory had been arranged charmingly, too, down to a copy of Mouseton Abbey in the guest room. Everywhere I turned there was something to delight my eye.
Even the guest room view of all the interesting angles formed by the church roof fascinated me.
10) The astonishing comfort of the Metropolitan Lounge at the newly-opened Moynihan Train Hall concluded my trip. Anyone who’s ever been in the tiny, cramped, and not entirely clean old Acela Lounge at Penn Station will be very surprised by this spacious room filled with plush-lined armchairs, a balcony overlooking the main hall, sunlight, and a downright palatial snack bar. When I mentioned the old club to the Nice Man at the snack bar, he smiled at me and said “We never speak of it.”
There’s no other city like it!
So, that was New York July, 2021. This trip I also enjoyed many things I’ve done and friends I’ve seen before, including Ballet colleagues, Flickr friends, the 1 and 6 trains, Macy’s, and at least one aperol spritz. Everything on this trip contributed to my joy; while I was sorry to miss friends whose plans changed, even the necessary changes to my own schedule resulted in wonderful experiences. I’m very grateful.
*The Frick Collection is closed to renovations, so they’ve skimmed off the cream of a creamy collection and hung it at the Breuer Building not far away.