Flying Through New York
I spent forty-four years living in and around New York City. I lived twenty-six years in Manhattan, three years on Staten Island, one year in Queens and thirteen years in a nearby Long Island town of Rockville Centre. That’s a long time for someone who never really thought about living in the Big Apple before it happened after business school. For thirty-four of those years I had the benefit of one or more vacation homes to escape to and for two years I even commuted back and forth from Toronto (or as I referred to it, Gulag Toronto). Over those years, I went from feeling excited about NYC to feeling I could tolerate it as needed to actually getting to the point where I liked living in the City and all that it offered. That is all a very different experience than Kim had since as a musical theater person, New York was always Mecca to her and I think its fair to say that she thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the thirty or so years that she lived there.
In all fairness to my evolving sentiments about New York, I should remind you that from 1976 until present, the City has gone through several evolutions and I think its fair to say that it became an easier and easier place to like living if you had the means…and I was fortunate to have the means. But for more than half of her thirty years there Kim had less than ideal means and she still enjoyed living there. Some people say that urban retirement is the bomb, but I suspect that applies only to a subset of retirees who either haven’t experienced life in the City so much or who tasted it when they were young and had to move out prematurely due to family considerations. Some retirees need to be near golf or tennis to feel good. Some need to be on or near the beach. Kim and I aren’t bound to either of those, but we are still happier being out of the urban setting in retirement for some reason. I like the gardening, but I’m not sure why Kim feels as she does since she’s never had the suburban experience and yet it seems to agree with her. I think our life on the hilltop is better characterized as exurban. It’s not rural, but there are no sidewalks either. Definitely exurban.
The big disconnect between me and Kim comes when it involves visiting NYC. She has remained much more connected there to her cabaret world where few of my finance pals have chosen to stay there or even in the area surrounding. A trip to NYC is in no way intimidating to me, but neither is it something I am finding myself looking forward to other than to see my kids and an occasional friend. The thrill is long gone about being in the City for the excitement and action. Walking the streets of the City, day or night, does little other than bring back memories of days gone by and I have lots of ways to do that without the gum of the City sticking to the bottom of my shoe. The only thing less pleasing during a visit back to the City is driving around the metro area and that is what I had to do today.
My visits to NYC these days fall into several categories. First and foremost, there are the trips specifically to gather with my kids several times a year. The next one of those is in early December in the early part of the holiday season. If there is one time of year when NYC can do no wrong, even by me, its between Thanksgiving and New Years. That is a magical time with every store window and all the street decorations making it special. Last year we enjoyed a Downtown Christmas at the Beekman, for old times sake (having lived on Beekman Street in the Seaport for ten years). This year we are moving the party uptown to the Cornell Club on 44th and 5th Avenue. I spent forty-four years doing my best to avoid the uptown life in New York, but now it seems perfectly OK to stay at a club I have been a member of for forty years (my membership number is in the first 100 issued). I’ve actually never stayed there before, but have dined there enough and hung out there between meetings to make it feel like home. I may currently be sideways with the University in one sense, but I am just fine with the Cornell CLub, so we chose to have our holiday fling there.
The other cause of New York visits is to support and attend Kim’s singing career. A few years ago we thought Kim’s singing career had peaked in that she was invited to sing at Carnegie Hall. It was on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the birth of the father of the American Songbook, Cole Porter. It so happens that Cole Porter came from the area of Indiana where Kim grew up, so she feels a particularly special bond with him. She sings a little-known song Porter wrote called The Supermarket in Old Peking, which gave rise to the invitation for her to sing at the event. This October, late in the month, Kim has been invited to sing at the Cabaret Convention, which is being held at Lincoln Center. So, we will again stay at the Cornell Club for a couple of days and see lots of friends and family for a few days.
And then there are the fly-throughs. Since we seem to tend to go more towards Europe when we travel overseas, we have chosen to route ourselves through New York rather than try to go over the pole, which always seems more trouble than its worth for ex-New Yorkers like us. In late September and early October we are heading to Spain and Portugal for a motorcycle ride through the Pyrenees and down the Camino de Santiago. That will have us passing through New York coming and going. While we are not planning any special events for those visits, the point is that we have the flexibility to adjust and stay for a few days on either end if the need arises.
And that brings up the last category of NYC visit, which I am just wrapping up right now, an emergency visit for a special purpose, which in this case was a funeral. Hopefully there will be good special purpose visits as well in the future. For instance, while it is not an emergency, next year there will be wedding to attend when youngest son, Thomas and Jenna tie the knot up in the Hudson Valley around Labor Day.
So, my relationship with New York has devolved to flying through New York. I pass through it whenever I can, but every time I drive or walk through it, I am reminded how happy I am to be spending most of my time on my hilltop. It’s like the old Borscht Belt adage about women, you can’t live with them and can’t live without them. Well, for me, it needs to be New York, I can’t live with it and I can’t live without it.