I'll Take Manhattan

This being our third time, we were old hands at getting from La Guardia to the city.  I remembered a lot of the scenery as we drove over the Tri-Borough Bridge and down FDR Drive past Harlem and down to mid-town where our cabbie turned right and headed toward our hotel.  It was in the middle of rush hour at this point and we were stuck in 6:00 traffic, so I was too busy looking at the meter to really check out this part of the city.  Thirty-five dollars later we arrived at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, right where The Plaza Hotel and The Sherry Netherland (our place) share perhaps the most valuable intersection in the city.

Where The Plaza has hundreds of rooms for rent and condos for purchase, The Sherry Netherland is a boutique hotel with a tiny lobby and only fifty room for rent, the rest are mostly condos that take up entire floors.  We met one such condo owner at the main desk when we checked in.  We told the desk clerk that a friend of ours (David) had told us the place was wonderful, a little known treasure.  A distinguished grey haired gentlemen gathering his mail at the main desk overheard and assured us that it was a wonderful place.  He had been living there for the past seventeen years and he loved it.  Wow!  The thought of living in a swanky condo with jaw dropping views of the park for seventeen years!  We were impressed.

We were more impressed when we saw our room.  The lady at the desk proudly informed us that we had been upgraded, and we were!  The room took up about one third of the sixteenth floor,  had a huge living room, separate bar and kitchen, big, mosaic bathroom, and an equally huge bedroom all with views of the city, the disconcerting Apple cube that people kept disappearing into day and night directly below in the Bergdorf Goodman Plaza.  We unpacked--I have been in hotel rooms that were smaller than our walk in closet--and celebrated by going down to Cipriani's, the hotel's excellent restaurant and bar.  We figured we'd have a drink, make friends with the bar tender, and then decide where to eat that night.

Cipriani's is the place where the Bellini was created.  Not this Cipriani's, but the original one in Italy.  Obviously, Katherine had to order one and it was wonderful.  It should have been for $20 per flute.  I had a double scotch on the rocks and our first bar bell in NYC came to $55.  We decided to walk around and look for a different place to have dinner.

I remembered that Felidia's, Lydia Bastianich's place, was only a few blocks away on 58th somewhere between Park and Lexington.  We found it and begged the maitre' d to find us a table.  I knew we would get one without a problem because Katherine is simply impossible to resist in such situations.  We were seated immediately and dinner was sensational.  I'll spare you the details.

Nate and Ashley were performing and teaching classes that evening, so we had to hook up with them the next day in the Village at a place called Tea and Sympathy off Greenwich Avenue.  We walked all the way from our hotel (we're talking fifty blocks) and finally hooked up with the kids and proceeded to eat our way around lower Manhattan, mostly the East side.  There was a terrific tuna salad at a nearby sandwich place (don't expect me to remember names), awesome curried sausages and a fun conversation with friends in their acting/improv/filmmaking world, the world's best sandwich at Porchetta's, and soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai.  I remembered the names on the last two.  That should tell you something.

That night Nate and Ashley had more teaching to do and Katherine and I went to The Met to see "La Traviata" with Placido Domingo.  I can't imagine adding anything more evocative than that last sentence.  Priceless, although we froze our asses off waiting for a cab after the performance.

The next day we spent with Nate as Ashley had auditions and rehearsals all day.  The three of us had a wonderful reunion with Gavin Lodge (Nate was his Outdoor Lab Counselor) in his beautiful SoHo home.  Just like you always do when around a toddler, we spent the morning looking at Ellison be a kid.  Thanks for a wonderful time Gavin.  The rest of the day we spent at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, mostly glorying in the incredible space they use for their Modern stuff.  Andy Warhol's Mao!!!!

That night Nate and Ashley had more work--they're always performing somewhere--and we took a cab down to Chelsea and had an amazing dinner at Morimoto's.  Foodies will be impressed.  The rest of you could rightly give a shit.  In any event, I'll spare you the details.

We had reserved one afternoon for lunch with Joe and Carol Monaco, friends of our from Jenny Lake.  We met at Rosa Mexicana (I think), a terrific upscale Mexican joint across the street from Lincoln Center.  We spent three hours at the table drinking pomegranate margaritas, laughing, sharing stories, and feeling oh so adult.  Great afternoon.

The next night we met Nate in TriBeCa, had some pizza and walked to a local theatre to catch Ashley's musical improv group perform.  They have a terrific little combo on stage with them and get a title from someone in the audience and somehow manage to create a totally improvised musical.  They maintain it for over an hour.  Amazing!

The final night we had burgers at Shake Shack in Madison Square Park and caught Nate and Ashley's improv group (Big Black Car) at the PIT.  Another wonderful night watching my children perform.  We're lucky people.  As an added bonus Eliza Holland ventured all the way from Bed-Sty just to say hello.  It was an overwhelming night.

It was in fact an overwhelming trip, maybe the busiest and best we've ever taken.  Ciao.