CHRISTMAS IN MANHATTAN

 Dear George, 

In our younger married years Katja and I regularly spent the holidays with Ami and Bruce, her sister and brother-in-law, in their Upper West Side condo in New York City. Many happy memories, though it’s been a long time since we’ve done this together. This year it was time for a return trip, and we arrived for an 8-day stay on December 23rd. Here are a few of the highlights. 

AMI AND BRUCE’S. Ami and Bruce live in the penthouse of a high-rise on Riverside Drive at 94th Street in the Upper West Side. They’d redecorated since I’d been there, the walls displaying Ami’s art photo collection, new black leather sofas, a handsome rug. Their balcony overlooks the Hudson, and you can see all the way down to the financial district. Broadway is two blocks to the east with its plethora of markets, shops, elegant restaurants, and Zabars. We felt like real Upper West Siders. 

TAYLOR. During their fifty plus years of marriage Ami and Bruce have always had German Shepherds to whom they've been totally devoted. Taylor is the most sociable of their many dogs. He particularly took to Katja and liked to give her sloppy kisses on her nose. Taylor is getting older and is plagued by arthritis, but he still looks forward to his daily walks in Riverside Park. He lay down in the hallway entrance and didn't bother to move when I tried to make my way through. Clearly in charge. 

TAP AND GO. Public transportation has changed in the city. Now on buses and subways you can tap your credit card on a screen in order to enter. I must admit the technology was a bit beyond me. When I couldn’t make it work after several tries on the M5 bus, a generous woman behind me paid for me with her credit card. I was somewhat more successful in the subway, though I usually had to try 3 or 4 turnstiles before I got to “go”. I got a distinct feeling that I am older than I used to be. 

THE CRAFT FAIR.  On the day before Christmas Katja, Ami, and I went to a gigantic craft fair at Bryant Park on 42nd Street.  There were probably 200 vendors in wooden covered stalls, all featuring high-quality merchandise.  About half of New York City was also there.  Katja bought 2 attractive Tibetan shawls.  I looked but didn't buy.  When I tried to go to the park restroom there were 60 people in line.  

A JEWISH CHRISTMAS. Nearly all the city’s museums were closed for Christmas Day, but the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side was one exception so we went there. There were multiple enjoyable art exhibits. Our favorite was a two-artist show featuring Philip Guston, a Jewish artist who addressed anti-semitism with cartoon-like paintings of the KKK, along with Trenton Doyle Hancock, an African-American artist who explored racism a generation later with cartoon drawings of the KKK. 

HIKING ON BROADWAY. Ami made a delicious Christmas dinner of pork loin, special potatoes, salad, and lemon meringue pie. After dinner I took a hike on Broadway from 94th Street to 72nd Street and back, some 50 blocks. I’d done this on most trips in the past, but I wasn’t as spry as I used to be and wound up with bothersome leg cramps. Broadway was quieter than usual, but at least a dozen eateries were open for business. Two Hasidic men asked me if I were Jewish, but I said I wasn’t. A panhandler asked for a handout, but I shook my head, then felt like Scrooge since it was Christmas night after all. A middle-aged woman on 94th Street was more demanding, saying she'd beat me up if I didn't give her money, but I just picked up my pace. 

SOLO EXCURSIONS. On our third day Katja became very sick, a condition which was later diagnosed as a combination of pneumonia and the flu. She was bedbound much of the time, and Ami encouraged me to take in the city on my own. I went to the Museum of the City of New York which had exhibits of graffiti, Shirley Chisholm, and NYC postcards (which I especially enjoyed because I own a lot of them in my own collection). The main public library at 42nd and 5th Ave. was wonderful as usual, especially with its exhibit on early 20th century Bohemian culture in Greenwich Village (William Carlos Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, e.e. cummings, Man Ray, Emma Goldman, John Reed, Dylan Thomas, Eugene O’Neill, Edward Hopper, and many others). It was hard to imagine all that talent concentrated in a single city neighborhood. 

BROADWAY MUSICAL. As her Christmas present, Ami bought us tickets to “Death Becomes Her” on Broadway. This was definitely a highlight of our trip. It’s so wonderful to see a Broadway musical in person. The singing was grand, and the dancing was sensational. We left light in heart. 

LOST IN MIDTOWN. Katja likes to take the bus rather than the subway to midtown and back, so we left the theater and started looking for the M5 Broadway bus. Seventh Avenue was totally crowded, shoulder to shoulder. After walking for a block or two, I turned to check with Katja who had been walking behind me, but she wasn’t there. Just hordes of people in every direction I looked. I raced back a full block but she wasn’t anywhere along the way; then I tried the opposite direction with no better result. I was just panicked, worried for Katja since I was the person who usually got us from one place to another. I tried calling on my cell phone about 20 times, but only got her voicemail. I realized that she’d turned the ringer off at the theater. It took a long time but I did finally reach Katja by phone. She was three blocks away. I hurried there and was amazed at how unflustered she was. A truly urban person. 

A FAMILY PARTY. Ami hosted a party for relatives and friends who were in the city: our son Justin and grandkids Alex and Leo; Justin’s sister-in-law Jayme and her nephew Conrad; our nephew Jacob and his daughter Delphine; and Ami’s friend Jean. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and lots of chitchat. I sort of conked out in the middle, went upstairs, and promptly fell asleep. Bruce said afterwards that we have a delightful family. Kata’s illness put a crimp on our vacation and what we were able to do, though we still had a very pleasant time being with Ami and Bruce. She saw her doctor when we came back to Cincinnati, and the doctor promptly hospitalized her for four days. A scary time. Now she’s 95% or better, and we've just been taking it easy, snowed in by a big storm. 

 Love, 

 Dave

A YOOPER ADRIFT IN THE BIG APPLE

Dear George, 

My second Antioch coop job was at Popular Science Magazine in New York City. As a homegrown Upper Peninsula kid, I’d never been on my own in any big city, much less the biggest, and the prospect of living in Manhattan filled me with a mix of excitement and terror. I had taken the sixteen-hour overnight train from Springfield, Ohio, arriving at Grand Central Station on a mid-April morning. The crowd in the great hall of Grand Central was the biggest I’d seen in my life. I had brought most of my worldly possessions in my uncle Kent’s World War Two army trunk, and it was a chore to lug around — 70 or 80 pounds worth. Before leaving from college I’d arranged to stay temporarily with two acquaintances, Jim S. and Jim H., who were also starting coop jobs. They’d given me their new address — 243 W. 166th Street in Washington Heights.  Uncertain how to use the subway, I took a taxi to meet up with them. 

The taxi ride was an experience in its own right. I was amazed by the street scenes, crowds, and tall buildings, and the driver drove like a maniac. Most of all I became more and more nervous about the rapidly escalating charge on the taxi meter. I’d brought about 25 dollars in cash to tide me over till my first paycheck, and the meter was steadily eating into my reserves. It was a horrendous bill by the time we got to 166th Street, and I knew I was supposed to tip the driver as well. The building was about 20 stories high, and tenants’ names were listed next to buzzers at the front door. I scoured the list, but I couldn’t find either Jim S. nor Jim H. That wasn’t altogether surprising since they were arriving about the same time as me, and there probably hadn’t been time yet to add their names. I did find the apartment of the building super — M. Gonzalez — and I pushed his buzzer. 

I lugged my trunk downstairs to the basement and knocked on the super’s door. Mr. Gonzalez opened it in a second. He was a swarthy, middle-aged Puerto Rican man with a three-day growth of beard, wearing dirty blue jeans and a sleeveless white undershirt. His three little girls stood behind him, watching. I explained that my friends, Jim S. and Jim H., had rented an apartment in the building, but their names weren’t on the front door listing yet, so I needed to get their apartment number. Mr. Gonzalez shook his head, indicating that he didn’t recognize the names, but he did go and get his current tenant record. He went through the 50 or 60 names, but neither of the Jims were there. I asked if I could see the list, and he handed it to me. Much to my dismay, no Jim S., no Jim H. Mr. Gonzalez explained that many permanent tenants rent out rooms, and those private room rentals wouldn’t appear on his records. I asked him who might have rented rooms to my friends, and he said he had no idea. Confused and uncertain what to do next, I asked Mr. Gonzalez if I could leave my trunk in his apartment. He said no, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t imagine lugging my 80-pound trunk around the city. I explained that to Mr. Gonzalez, but he still said no. I was near tears. I begged him one more time, and he finally relented. I pulled the trunk into his hallway, then headed back out to the street.

I did have one possibility. Jim S.’s girlfriend, Joyce, lived in Fairlawn, New Jersey, about 20 miles south of Manhattan, and she had given more her home phone number. I found a pay phone on Broadway and made a collect call to Joyce. She hadn’t heard from Jim yet but said I could stay at her house until she did. She said she was going out of her mind from boredom at home and suggested that she join me in the city. We arranged to meet at at the New Jersey bus line’s drop-off point near the foot of the George Washington Bridge. 

I walked up to bridge, and Joyce arrived about 90 minutes later. I had no idea what to do in the city, but Joyce said we should go to Greenwich Village, and we took the subway down — the first time I’d ever seen a subway. We hung out for a while in Washington Square, then had tea in a McDougall Street coffee shop, reportedly frequented by luminaries of the Beat generation. For supper we each had a fifteen-cent cent slice of pizza from a sidewalk vendor. Walking along Seventh Avenue we came across a small open-air club with a live band, and we went in and started dancing. I wasn’t much of a dancer, but, even so, it was fun, and we lost track of time. Finally Joyce said we had better catch the bus to Fairlawn, and we took the A-train uptown to 178th Street. 

Much to our dismay, the last bus of the evening for Fairlawn had just departed. The schedule was posted at the nearby White Castle, and the next bus wouldn’t leave until 6:30 a.m. The White Castle appeared to be the gathering spot for the underlife of northern Manhattan. Scary-looking guys, suspicious women with heavy rouge and lipstick, destitute persons in raggedy clothes, a few cool dudes in zoot suits. We were the only so-called normal looking people in the vicinity, and I worried about protecting Joyce during the wee hours of the morning. We found a large tree near the White Castle and staked out spots, leaning back against the tree trunk while we tried to sleep. We did make it through the night without any assaults or murders, slept fitfully, and woke with the rising sun. The bus was waiting, and we eagerly bought our tickets and got on. I felt a great sense of relief, certain I was ready to handle whatever else the city might throw at me. 

 Love, Dave

Warm Fuzzy Christmas Feelings

Steve and Dave, Christmas 1943

Dear George,

Happy Christmas greetings to all of our loved ones. The pandemic puts a bit of a crimp on the occasion since there are fewer get-togethers than normal, but we still find ourselves in a festive frame of mind. I started making a list of Christmas memories. Here are some of the things that came back to me.

In my childhood we had an extended family gathering each Christmas: my grandfather V.A. Sr.; uncle Ralph and aunt Martha with their kids Ann and John; uncle Kent and aunt Millie with Thor, Stewart, and Kurt; and my bachelor uncle Karl (Kent’s twin) who drove up from Neenah-Menasha. With no spouse or kids of his own, Karl always brought extravagant gifts, e.g., fur stoles or jewelry for for sister-in-laws, a nuclear chemistry set for me one year. Between family gifts and Santa, we kids were all running over with excitement. In the upper photo I’m Santa along with my cousins and siblings: (from the left) Thor, Johnny, Peter, Ann (in my lap), Steve, Vicki, and one of our Irish setters. The middle photo pictures Karl, Millie, Thor, and Kent. The bottom photo is my grandpa V.A. and myself.

We must have been pretty good children since Santa always brought plenty of treasures. We liked games the best since we could play them together. The carom board was one of our favorites, although it ended in disaster when Steven made a particularly boisterous shot, and his cue struck my sister Vicki’s front tooth, knocking it out. We admired the gold tooth she acquired as a consequence, but as a self-conscious pre-teen, Vicki was mortified.

Skipping ahead about twenty years, Christmas was always an exciting time in our Cincinnati home, though less gala an event than my own childhood. After he turned 4, we took our son J to Johnny’s Toy Store the week before Christmas each year to try to determine what toys he was attracted to. It always started out exciting but then proved too overwhelming — after half an hour J would break down in uncontrolled tears. However, J was in a calmer and more upbeat mood when Santa came to visit at his friend Jessica’s house.

We got a tree each year, and I usually decorated it with cookie dough faces painted with acrylics. One year I brought home a bare-branched sumac tree and decorated it with paper-mache heads molded over balloons. It was such a success that we left it up in our dining room for two or three years.

Whenever we had a white Christmas, J and I went outside a made a snowman in the side yard. As he grew bigger, we started making snow rabbits, and eventually they were taller than both of us. One year we were saddened when neighbors started putting their Christmas trees out at the curbside after the holiday, and we started dragging them back to our house. Soon we had seventeen trees on our back patio — a small forest which we kept there until Valentine’s Day.

When J was just a little kid we started going to Katja’s sister Ami’s and brother-in-law Bruce’s Upper West Side condo for the holidays. Manhattan at Christmas time was a winter paradise. J and I hopped on the subway shortly after we’d arrive and headed down to Times Square, joining the holiday crowds. Ami always made a delicious Christmas meal, joined by Bruce’s mom Vera, sister Sandra, and brother-in-law Clarence. Then Ami and Bruce treated us to dinner out at an elegant Manhattan restaurant. Katja and Ami would always have a lunch date at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, followed by shopping at Bloomingdale’s. The Met, MOMA, Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick’s, so many holiday treats. J became enthralled with New York, eventually deciding that that was the only place he wanted to go to college, a decision that helped shape his life course.

We stopped doing Christmas trees after J grew up and left home, but about a decade ago Katja bought a potted evergreen to celebrate the holiday. Come spring she planted it in our side yard, and now it’s some twenty feet high, a year-round reminder of Christmas at our house.

Christmas is a bundle of good feelings. There’s Santa, presents, and holiday meals, but the essence of it is family togetherness. The pandemic, of course, has complicated that, but we just finished a FaceTime visit with J, K, and our grandkids in New Orleans — a cheery and fun get-together. Next year we hope we’ll do it in person.

Love, Dave

Our Early Summer Trip to the Big Apple

Dear George,

Katja booked our Delta flight to New York City by phone because it was the first time that we ever tried to use our Frequent Flyer miles.  It seems we’ve been accumulating points for half a century or more since the agent said we had 245,000 miles, enough to fly around the world several times.  My fare was free, though we did pay for Katja’s.

Air travel, as usual, was a headache.  When I forgot to take my shoes off in the security aisle, a TSA agent asked me my age, then determined I could leave them on.  The line was backed up, and another agent motioned Katja to come over to the lane he was in.  He checked her ID. looked into her handbag, and then said, “Push that box aside and go back to the other lane.”  Katja misheard him and started pushing the box over to the other lane.  The TSA agent there looked perplexed and wondered why she was pushing the box.  Katja told me later that she’d thought they were doing some sort of cognitive impairment test. 

We took a cab from LaGuardia to my sister- and brother-in-law Ami and Bruce’s condo on the Upper West Side.  Ami and Bruce, as always, were a delight to be with.  They have had German Shepherds their entire married lives and all of their previous dogs — Gabrielle, Annabelle, Pippin, Parker — have been a little wary of people and avoidant.  Their new dog, Taylor, however, was very well adjusted and liked nothing more than giving visitors a kiss on the cheek.

In a sense, this was an art vacation.  We spent a lot of time at the city’s museums and galleries.   As always, the Met impressed me with its vastness and astonishing quality.  Katja was drawn to an exhibition of musical instruments previously owned by rock and roll performers (e.g., the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Prince).  It was huge, and, while I enjoyed it, it began to feel redundant after the first sixty guitars.  The next day we spent several hours at the Guggenheim.  The main exhibits were by Swedish mystic Hilam af Klint and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.  Despite my Swedish heritage, the Theosophic meanings of Klint’s abstract pieces were beyond me.  We’d last gone to a Mapplethorpe show in Cincinnati in 1990 when the local museum director was arrested on obscenity charges by the authorities.   Mapplethorpe’s photos still had some shock value though that’s diminished over the years.  We also went to the Whitney and MOMA, both incredible.  The MOMA was free after 4 p.m. that day, and the crowds surged in, with what seemed like a hundred or more people in every gallery.   

We went down to Chelsea to the Whitney Museum to see the Andy Warhol show, but it had just left.  However, their permanent collection, with Rothko’s, Hoppers, Pollocks, etc., is well worth the trip, and its outdoor terraces offer great city views.  Ami also took us to the Museum of the City of New York which had current exhibits on political activism, cycling in the city, Jackie Robinson, and graphic illustrator Don Freeman.  On our last day Katja was under the weather, and I went by myself to the AKC Museum of the Dog.   Featuring one of the largest collections of dog art in the world (paintings, drawings, sculptures), this is a must-see for dog lovers.  My only complaint is that Old English Sheepdogs were under-represented.

We went to see Don Giovanni at the Met, Katja springing for fancy first balcony seats.  She is the opera connoisseur, but even I was overwhelmed by the quality of the production.   When the opera ended with the Don burning in Hell, I didn’t expect to see anything left but ashes on the stage.  Ami then treated us to an off-Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish (with English surcaps).  I haven’t been that teary-eyed in quite a while.  Katja went by herself to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a two-part production which was scheduled at 2 p.m. and again at 7:30 p.m.  She loved it.  We met up in between and had dinner at the Mercury Bar on Ninth Avenue. 

Eating out was a delight.  We had reservations for Eléa on 85^th Street for the four of us, but Ami came down with a nasty bug, so Katja and I went by ourselves.  Delicious, good ambience, great service.  We also had the best pizza of our lives at Di Eataly in the Oculus at the new World Trade Center.)  Being at the World Trade Center site was emotion-arousing.  The Oculus, a huge contemporary structure suggesting huge soaring wings, is remarkable, and the two vast memorial pools whose borders list the names of 911 casualties are fitting memorials.  On one of our theater nights we ate at the West Bank Cafe, Ami’s favorite on 42^nd Street.   On my one meal on my own I had two plain slices of pizza and a bottle of water for a total of $2.75 at a hole in the wall near Columbus Circle.  (This is a clue about the difference between my and Katja’s dining habits.)

I’ve been back a couple of weeks at the time of writing this, and I’m still feeling a sense of loss.  There is something about the city that is so invigorating.  The giganticness of everything, people everywhere, intense sensory stimulation, and the endless array of things to do and places to go.  We could easily have done a couple more weeks.  As a young adult, New York was the only place I ever wanted to be.  That’s moderated some over the years, but the city still remains a thrill.

 Love,

Dave

Peter's New York City Photos

Dear George,

Today is my brother Peter’s birthday.  He was born on June 9, 1945, in Menominee, MI, and he passed away nine years ago on July 21, 2006, at East Hampton, Long Island. Peter lived an enthusiastic, many-sided, adventuresome life.  He was very family-oriented, and he chronicled our family’s history photographically, resurrecting our father’s treasure trove of photos from the 40’s to the 60’s and adding his own rich collection from the 70’s to the 2000’s.  He sent many of Vic’s and his own photos to family members in the form of postcards that he produced.  New York City was among Peter’s great passions.  He and Gayle lived in Princeton, NJ, and they would frequently spend their weekends in Manhattan, with Peter taking photos in Central Park, Midtown, the Village, Soho, and other locations.  I’ve put a sampling of these below.  Sometimes they remind me of Weegee, New York’s famous freelance street photographer of the 40’s through the 60’s who specialized in gritty urban scenes.  Today would have been Peter’s 70th birthday, and I’m sure he would have made it a gala occasion, probably inviting family members to Princeton for a celebration.  In the sad absence of such a possibility, I decided to spend time with some of Peter’s images of the city.

Love,

Dave

Peter's Photo Legacy: Excursions in Central Park

Dear George,

When my brother Peter undertook a project, he’d do so with boundless energy and enthusiasm.  Photography was one of his principal pursuits, and he had an extremely creative eye.  I think he inherited his talent and interests from our father, then passed them along to his own kids as well.  Peter and Gayle’s home was in Princeton, and they frequently spent their weekends in New York City.  Central Park was Peter’s favorite destination for photography outings.  Here are some of the elegant images he produced.

Love,

Dave

Peter and Gayle at Central Park

G-mail Comments

-Ami G (10-9): Dear David:  You are right!  These really are wonderful shots of Central Park, way beyond the usual "pretty".  Thanks.

-Linda K-C (10-8): This are just so lovely. Justin's photos I love, I have shown Leo takes a tumble to friends and they Watch it two or three times because it makes them laugh.