1) Have you ever been awake for the passage of Daylight Savings Time, when one hour suddenly skips to another? I was sure I would sleep solidly after all the stimuli of the day before, but I was wide awake for a good two hours in the middle of the night — which was actually three hours, and I saw the clock change before my eyes. It must have been that midafternoon coffee on Saturday . . .
2) This morning I forced myself to visit the Russian Turkish Bath on East Tenth for the first time and have my first Russian platza. It was a quiet New York morning — as quiet as New York can ever be, that is — with the fresh sunny chill of earliest spring after the previous day’s rain. My journey on foot from the subway was about three times as long as necessary because I used the wrong exit. The surprise benefit was passing by the Merchants House Museum, which I visited in 2022 — and which is in danger of destruction thanks to a boneheaded Landmarks Preservation Commission decision. If Jackie Kennedy was alive today she would not stand for this nonsense!
3) Up the front stairs to the baths to be greeted by a delightful Slavic woman who loved my winter white as she locked up my wallet in a lockbox and assigned me a locker. Learning I was there for the first time, she immediately put me in the hands of a man named Mukhtar (I learned later), and after that I was basically led about like a confused sheep from locker to steam room to treatment cubicle to the superheated Russian Room to the plunge pool.
3a) First he handed me a pair of size 12 plastic sandals, three gray towels (the color gray, not gray from overuse), and a pair of green polyester shorts which looked and felt absolutely ridiculous. Four years of junior high school trauma mean that I’m never at my best in a locker room, and on this first visit, I felt it expedient to obey. But after ten minutes in the steam room, I got rid of those stupid shorts as unobtrusively as possible and made do with a towel, as God intended.
3b) There were two types of men in the steam room: elderly Slavs in swimsuits they brought from home and thick pointed felt hats, and younger (meaning my age and younger) non-Slavic men mostly in towels.
3c) There was a joke in Daddy’s copy of The Bennett Cerf Joke Book about the Hollywood actress on vacation incognito in small town Mexico who didn’t speak Spanish. “Don’t worry,” her agent told her. “Just say ‘Sí sí’ when anyone asks you anything.” Unfortunately her true identity was discovered and a big local hubbub ensued. The actress is sí sí-ing all over the place when her agent cries out. “What happened?” she asked. The agent told her “You just married the mayor!”
3c.i) This is a long way of saying I didn’t quite know that I was getting not only a platza but also a mud bath and a salt scrub.
3d) Eventually Mukhtar beckoned me into a treatment cubicle, took my towel, sandals and locker key and directed me face down on the table. I was rinsed and then smeared top to toe with mud, directed “Face up,” and the process was repeated. My face was covered with a towel, he told me “Relax ten minutes,” and left. I was grateful to have an idea of what was going to happen next. So I just lay there listening to the voices of men throughout the floor, gossiping or (briefly) singing in Russian, or talking.
3d.i) Or yelling at people not to misbehave. A friend who had been before told me his experience had been marred by a baths attendant yelling some speech about ahem over-familiarity. Having been warned, and not actually having to be in the same space with this guy when he started, I wasn’t overly alarmed by it. Later, when I was changing, there was an attendant grumbling in the locker room while gathering towels; I’m pretty sure it was the same guy.
3e) Mukhtar returned and scrubbed me down and rinsed me off. I have never felt so detoxified or so smooth. And then he summoned me into the Russian Room for my platza. The Russian Room is, as far as I’m concerned, Satan’s oven. Through a wooden door set in a rough granite frame, you enter a dark but well-lit low-ceilinged room. To the left is a narrow extension with a wooden bench that is hot to the touch. To the right is a small square room ringed with two tiers of stone benches surrounding a square stone cistern. Mukhtar directed me to lie face down on a pad of damp towels on the upper tier. I was petrified that my flesh would touch the walls and burn off. He covered my head with a towel soaked with cold water and proceeded with the platza, soaping me up and then rubbing me down with bundles of oak leaves, directing me face up and face down, lifting and lowering my arms as needed. Never has my body felt so dangerously hot; I could not wait for it to end.
3f) He directed me to sit on the lower shelf, poured a bucket of cold water over me, and then another, and then sent me into the plunge pool immediately outside the Russian Room. Welcome as that was, I could stand it for about 45 second. Then he hosed me down, brought me to a bench, sat me down, threw a towel over my head, another over my waist, told me to sit for ten minutes . . . and that was the end of my platza.
3g) Exhausted, all I could do was just sit there with my eyes closed. And then open, wishing this one old Russian dude would just stop talking so much. One can watch people walk back and forth only so much, no matter how handsome. And the place was beginning to fill up as the morning progressed. My claustrophobia kicked in sufficiently to let me know it was time to leave, so I staggered upstairs to dress and depart.
3h) But I’ll return . . . just not to Satan’s oven.
4) By this time Daddy was hongry, and my leisurely walk led me to someplace called Little Ruby’s which had an amazing green eggs bowl for breakfast: soft-cooked eggs with spinach, kale, pesto, peas, some sort of lovely soft cheese, and smoked salmon. Absolute heaven.
The little red sticker says “Thank you.”
5) Walking to the subway, I deflected a sidewalk pollster who asked “Would you like to see more Democrats on the ballot?” Waiting for the light to change, I heard her next interaction behind me, a man’s outraged voice saying “We’re not Democrats! You don’t see us wearing masks!” And I thought “That is such a 2022 remark to make.”
6) I reclaimed my luggage and walked the 15 blocks to the Algonquin, taking in all the human interactions on the street: the large tour groups listening (or not) to their guides, a father and young daughter carrying a large tote bag emblazoned with “I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie,” other people with luggage (like me) who didn’t know where they were going (unlike me).
7) Manhattan or no Manhattan, Daddy needed a NAP, and it was lovely to settle into my comfy Algonquin bed for a couple hours. And then I started the cocktail hour at the bar in the lobby. What they have done with this “renovation” is nothing short of criminal, taking a distinctive, historic, and well-known interior and transforming it into . . . a Marriott.
7a) But the Algonquin’s real crown jewel now is its staff, every single one of them, and I enjoyed my drink and my sojourn at the bar before sallying forth into the night for my next engagement.
The view from Ophelia.
8) My Flickr friend Julien and his boyfriend Ken had suggested we meet at Ophelia, atop the Beekman Tower, née the Panhellenic Tower. While I was walking there Julien texted me that they’d be an hour late, having forgotten about the time change. I used the time to enjoy the amazing views of the city over another manhattan. It’s a delightful venue! The elevator pops you out into the central bar, from which entrances left and right lead you to narrow rooms with giant window views and a couple outdoor terraces. I’ll want to return here on future visits.
8a) The men’s room is on the floor below, and I was alarmed to walk in and encounter — an open window! On the 20-somethingth floor! My acrophobia encouraged me to leave that room as quickly as possible. Ken told me later that there’s a terrace only one floor down, but still . . . aigh!
8b) Julien and Ken arrived, full of life and excitement. After we got a table and drinks, we toured all the various spaces, and then ordered savory lamb chops and other dainties. One is never at a loss for a topic with Julien, who always has something engaging to share.
Another view from Ophelia.
9) And afterward, he suggested we take an Auntie Mame pilgrimage to Beekman Place, only a block or two away. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there is no Three Beekman Place! The numbers skip from One to Five, so no wonder Patrick Dennis chose Three for Mame’s address! I took my picture in front of One as a consolation prize.
9a) We then poked about to look at other architectural features of the neighborhood. New York really is full of delicious quirks, architectural and otherwise, and Julien is so knowledgable his enjoyment is infectious. But soon it was time to hail a taxi and bring this day of stimuli to an quiet end.
In front of One Beekman Place.