"NEW YORK CITY WATERFALLS"

Olafur Elliason who had two major shows open at MoMA and PS 1 this spring, turned on the water last week for his latest project--New York City Waterfalls--the grandest public arts project in New York since The Gates in February of 2005.  Much of the reporting has focused on the $15.5 million cost of the project commissioned by the The Public Art Fund and the $55 million it's supposed to generate for the city.  The Gates did bring money to New York, attracting over a million people to the park during the middle of winter to see something they could not see at home--the famous Central Park festooned with saffron flags hanging from Shinto-inspired gates. But I wonder about the draw of these waterfalls during a season when people are heading to or returning from the beach, the lake, the river. 

The size is another issue. There were over 7,500 gates installed in Central Park--it was difficult in most of the park to look anywhere and not see the project that ran along twenty-three miles of path.  The Waterfalls, on the other hand, are easy to miss--they get lost amid all the other eye-catching structures in the vast harbor.  After taking the boat to the Statue, I asked if my group had even seen the waterfalls.  The response:  "What waterfalls?"  "Where?"  "I saw one of them.  Are there more?"  You can see three from the boat bound for the Statue--the one farthest north, on the Manhattan side of the East River, is obstructed--but you have to look closely or carry a big zoom.

Granted, there are many better places from which to view the falls, and perhaps searching out the best vantage point is part of the fun.  But mine are early musings.  The project is up until October 13th, and I'm sure I'll revisit these at a later date.

FROM A TEACHER ON A RECENT TOUR

"I want to tell you one last cool thing that happened on our way home from the trip: Someone noticed that Nikki Blonsky (of the recent Hairspray movie) was on our plane, and she was nice enough to come and talk to every single person on the plane, taking pictures, and signing autographs. She was really a sweetheart, and totally down-to-earth."

"Some of Jenna's friends (Jenna was the girl who knows all the Hairspray song, sings well, and loves Broadway musicals) asked Nikki if Jenna could sing for her. Jenna did not know this - she was in a different part of the plane. So Nikki went up to Jenna and asked her to come up to first class with her, and Jenna sang "Good Morning, Baltimore" for her!  Nikki told her she was really good, "better than half the people in the movie!" How cool is that? This plane ride was the icing on the cake to an amazing trip for all of us, but even 100 times more for Jenna! She was so happy.  Funnily, after Nikki took Jenna to first class, we overheard her friends say, 'We are such good people.'"

A BYTE FROM JEFF P.

Jeff P. is one of my favorite guides in New York and loves to collect the anecdotes as much as I do.  He keeps his ears open, catching the gems, preserving the gems and passing them onto his friends.  Here is one of his latest, written after one of his tourists sent him a photo of himself taken just before his head exploded.

On the steps of Trinity Church:

Jeff (on the right): This is where Columbia University began, in the basement of this church. In an early graduating class was the first Secretary of the Treasury. His name was?

(silence)

Jeff: He was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr?

(silence)

Jeff: He's on your ten dollar BILL!! Anyone?

(silence, including adults...)

Jeff: AllleeeexxxannnndeerrrrRRR????

Spencer: (on the left): Graham Bell!! 

(snap)

BLOG OF THE WEEK

DON'T MISS THIS!  It's an hysterical illustrated blog by Christoph Niemann, a father of two sons obsessed with the New York City subway system.  Click The Boys and the Subway to understand why a child would sob at the approach of an express train.

SCHOOL'S OUT!!!!!!

My last group every spring is from Seattle (technically Renton) and I look forward to them, knowing that my summer break begins with their farewell embraces.  This week, partly because their itinerary was tight and partly because I had given my Ellis Island tour about twenty-five times and this was my last before I could turn my attention to writing my new novel, I spit out my Ellis Island spiel at three times the normal speed, taking a breath at the top of the Staircase of Separation and not inhaling for what seemed like minutes.  In the middle of the commentary, I felt lightheaded, realized I wasn't getting any oxygen, and saw the likelihood of my collapsing to the stone floor.  Not wanting to lose consciousness until the next tour season, I paused, took a deep breath and then finished the fastest tour ever spoken.  (To hear an example, watch one of the United Nations videos near the end of our walk across 46th Street...when we were racing the sun to finish the shoot last May.)

DON'T MISS THIS WEEK'S VIDEO TOUR:  TIMES SQUARE:  THE WORLD'S BIGGEST T.V.

A BYTE OF THE ENGLISH

(TWO MORE GEMS FROM JEFF P.)

“I just came back from unloading Brits from the QM2. They are so funny. They BITCH about everything! But with such panache. One husband was yelling at his wife who was struggling with her heavy bag. So I grabbed it and said, 'My! Dense!'  To which he replied, ‘I've been pleading with her to jettison the damn thing from the port side of the ship since Newfoundland.’

At the Marriot Marquis, a bedraggled woman of no apparent means came up to me and said, "Are all the rooms here similar?" Without letting me answer, she continued, "I am bitterly disappointed."

Indeed.”

THE ALABAMA LOVELIES FROM THE LAST WEEK IN JUNE

Here I am with 16 of my Alabama Lovelies.  I always have a wonderful time with them—I love to joke and they love to laugh.  One afternoon when they proved indecisive, standing on Seventh Avenue outside their hotel and wondering if they should drop off their shopping and leave for dinner in fifteen minutes or rest in the hotel for an hour, I pointed to the front door and shouted, “Ladies!  Lobby!  Now!” and they laughed, laughed, laughed.

They also never complain; nothing really gets them down.  During a marathon shopping spree in Chinatown, they were caught in one of our recent torrential downpours.  When I met them at the restaurant, some of them had their wet socks hanging from the back of their chairs and others were wrapped in tablecloths to keep warm in the aggressively air conditioned dining room. There wasn't a single whine or complaint; through it all, just smiles and laughter.

Then again, worse incidents had happened to them in the past.

This tour was a milestone, because one of the women was finally able to reach New York.  On a previous attempt, she had made it to the airport, but on the taxi ride in from LaGuardia, her cab, driven by a drunk driver, was hit by a red SUV, which did not remain at the scene, and she ended up inside a liquor store. (“I don’t even drink.”)  She never touched ground again, needing to be rescued by the Jaws of Life and spending the next week at Bellvue Hospital before being medivacked to Alabama on a jet from Teterboro.

With the exception of the drivers of the red SUV and the yellow taxi, she has nothing bad to say about the experience.  She loved the people she met—the nurse who brought home cooking in for her husband, the people who cleared the crowded hallways any time she had to be transferred, and best, the ambulance drivers who drove her to Teterboro.  They asked if she had been able to do any sightseeing, and she explained the accident occurred on the way in from LaGuardia, that she had only been able to see “a lot of ceilings.”  So they went out of their way on their drive to New Jersey to show her sites—skyscrapers and stadiums--she could see from her bed in the ambul

TRIVIA: Bellvue, the oldest public hospital in the United States (1736) was the first to introduce an ambulance service and now we know the first to offer New York City tours as well.

“A BEEF WITH BARTHOLDI”

You might need to be a licensed guide or historian to find this as funny as I do, but I’ll do my best to set it up.  Many of the employees who work the concessions at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ride out on the early ferries along with the tourists who get treated to colorful conversations.  This  one morning in June, the discussion touched on a fellow employee, “the black girl who be hatin’ the Dominicans,” the size of the black men’s privates, (“I be runnin away when they pull THAT out!”), the need for one of the gay employees to be a “good gay employee and not a ghetto gay” (“He be jealous if you don’t talk to him ALL DAY!”), and then it moved to a man called Bartholdi.

The sculptor of the Statue of Liberty was Frederic Auguste Bartholdi who died in 1904.  This season, there were actors playing Bartholdi out at the statue, approaching me during my brief reprieve while my tourists shopped and took pictures, asking, “Have you seen my lady?”  I would mumble, “Thanks, I’m good.  Not a tourist.  Just trying to read.”  Sometimes that would work.  Oft not.

Anyway, back on the boat:

Employee 1:  Man, I’m gonna *&#!! him up!

Employee 2:  Who?

Employee 1:  Bartholdi!

Employee 3:  You got beef with Bartholdi?

Employee 2:  What the #&@! why?

Employee 1:  Bartholdi be up in everybody’s business.

Employee 2:  Naw, man.  Bartholdi’s cool.

Employee 3:  One of them Bartholdi’s is cool.

Employee 1:  But that one Bartholdi’s a punk.

LAUGHING AT THE CHILDREN

One of my favorite groups hails from New Braunfels, Texas, and they visited this year in early June.  They shopped on Fifth Avenue one morning before lunch at Benihana on 56th Street.  Benihana, if you don’t know, is a Japanese steak house where they cook your meal at the table and flip your food for the occasional show.  The kids were packed in tight and being middle schoolers (though the June groups are always quick to point out “we’re ninth graders now”) there is always some kind of frenetic energy in the form of chopstick drumming or elbowing and pinching.  This leads to spills.

This year one of the boys got dumped with Coke—there went their one free refill—and he pouted off to the side, covered in soda until a thought occurred to him.  Wait a second!  I can change into my brand new outfit I just bought at Niketown!!!  After winning permission, he brightened up, went to the bathroom and changed into his spanking white jersey and shorts, strutting back into the dining room aglow in brand new merchandise.  And then, as soon as boy sat down, he was hit twice—both jersey and shorts--by a rogue piece of teriyaki chicken flung from the spatula of a grinning chef. 

DON'T MISS THIS WEEK'S VIDEO TOUR:  COLUMBUS CIRCLE:  TWO STATUES, ONE WOMAN.

THE MONDEGREEN IS OFFICIAL

This month, Merriam-Webster announced the one hundred words it's adding to it new edition. (Newsday) There are drinks like prosecco and soju that you can sip by your infinity pool as you eat edamame and play Texas Hold ‘em underneath a dwarf planet.

My favorite addition is the word mondegreen.

Mondegreen (1954): word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung. From the mishearing in a Scottish ballad of "laid him on the green" as "Lady Mondegreen."

A mondegreen plays a pivotal role in my novel, Suspension, and in the PS section of the book, I explained that I was fascinated not by the mistake itself but by the rationale we use to justify what we’ve heard.  I also listed some of my favorite mondegreens.  Here’s the excerpt:

“A mondedgreen is a misinterpretation the ear makes of a spoken (or sung) line.  The term is derived from part of a folk ballad—‘They have slain the Earl of Moray/And laid him on the green’—which was misheard by Sylvia Wright (who coined the term) as ‘They have slain the Earl of Moray/And Lady Mondegreen.’  I started recalling other examples.  I once heard a man in a bar introduce himself to someone by saying, ‘I’m a leather ninja,’ when in fact he was saying, ‘I’m eleven inches.’  (A strange introduction in either case.)  A friend of mind, having learned dance steps in seventh grade gym class, thought well into his twenties that ‘Do the Hustle!’ was ‘Junior High School!’  And another friend’s mother, who grew up outside the church and heard religious terminology only at funerals, though the Trinity was affirmed like so:  ‘In the name of the Father, and the Son, in the hole he goes.’

“The mistakes themselves didn’t interest me as much as the mental games we play in making sense of the blunders.  Since we have no idea we’ve heard incorrectly, we adapt what we think is true and can even rationalize it for anyone who asks.  We blissfully go about our business singing the wrong lyrics without any shame (or expecting the boss with whom we’re remodeling apartments in Brooklyn to make a joke every once in a while because we were told he was a comedian—a Canadian, actually, which would explain all the references to Toronto).  What else do we all have wrong?  Life is a comedy of disorientation about people who believe in, commit to, and act on the erroneous.”

OVER THE NEXT MONTH I’LL BE POSTING OTHER FAVORITE MONDEGREENS…SUBMIT YOUR MISHEARD LYRICS OR STATEMENTS TO Robert@LittleBytesOfTheBigApple.com

SPEAKING OF MONDEGREENS…

In June, I had an eighth-grade group from Reno that included three young couples in love.  When we were breaking off into groups to shop and tour Fifth Avenue, I told them all that they needed to be in “groups of four.”  One of the young Romeos asked, “Can we have sex?”  I said, “Excuse me?”  He pointed to the two couples around him and clarified:  “Can we have sex on Fifth Avenue?”  I took a moment before reacting, because why would an eighth-grade boy ask to engage in sexual relations in a busy retail district?  He asked it one more time and just as I was realizing the mondegreen, the lead teacher behind me shouted, “Can you have WHAT on Fifth Avenue!?!”

TODAY IN BIG APPLE HISTORY

NINETY YEARS AGO:  The Carpathia is sunk by a U-boat off the coast of Ireland.  What does this have to do with NYC?  The Carpathia was the ship that rescued the seven hundred survivors of the Titanic and brought them to New York.

FIFTY-THREE YEARS AGO:  Disneyland has its official grand opening, televised nationwide.  What does this have to do with NYC?  Because without Coney Island, there would have been no Disneyland.

TWELVE YEARS AGO:  TWA flight 800, bound for Paris, explodes, killing all 230 passengers and crew.

ELEVEN YEARS AGO:  The Woolworth Company closes its final retail stores in the United States, changing its name to Venator and concentrating on sporting goods.  In 2001, it name changes its name to Foot Locker, Inc.

People often ask why the Woolworth Building is still called the Woolworth Building if Woolworth no longer exists in the U.S.  It’s because the building was known as the Woolworth Building when it was landmarked and when a building is landmarked in New York, the name is landmarked as well, so the Woolworth Building is not called The Foot Locker just as the Chrysler Building will not be named after the Dubai group that just bought a 75% stake in it.  Then again, names are funny things.  See below.

LET’S MEET AT THE KOCH AND WALK DOWN TO THE SCHWARZMAN

What the hell am I talking about?  Well, as reported in the New York Times, David Koch, oil-and-gas man, and richest New York City resident, has pledged $100 million to the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center and with that donation comes a new name for the venue where the New York City Opera and Ballet perform.  $100 million seems to be the price de rigeur, since back in March Stephen Schwarzman donated the same amount to the New York Public Library, which will rename its main building on Fifth Avenue after him. 

Few New Yorkers call Sixth Avenue “Avenue of the America’s,” though that was so dubbed back in the 1930’s, and I still refer to the Bernard B. Jacobs and the Gerald Schoenfeld theaters as the Royale and the Plymouth, because those names have a MUCH BETTER ring to them.  Will I call the Triboro Bridge the Robert Kennedy Bridge—the name was changed this spring, on the fortieth anniversary of his assassination?  What about all the honorary streets in the city?  Does anyone other than Mapquest refer to “Peter Jennings Way” or “Isaac Bashevis Singer Boulevard”?

And back to the main building of the New York Public Library—technically, its proper name has been the “Humanities and Social Sciences Library of the New York Public Library” and before that, it was called the “Central Research Branch,” but we have been calling it the New York Public Library for decades.  The third edition of the Blue Guide, while giving the branch its lengthy name on pages 330-331, refers to it as N.Y. Public Library on its Fifth Avenue map on page 326, and I strongly suspect most guide books and maps will continue to do so.  Sure, take the money (I would take $100 million and rename this Web site, I’ll tell you that!!!), order the new stationery, but don’t cut into any of that marble.

BERDA CALIFORNICATED

Berda Gilmore has appeared in a few Little Bytes, most famously as the woman in Twenty Million Visitors, How Many Crimes?, sitting on a rock in Central Park, so engrossed in the book she’s reading (Suspension by Robert Westfield) that she fails to hear the man stepping up from behind to strangle her.  This fall, she will appear in the fifth video tour (Hudson Heights) as a real estate broker in a purple suit interrupting my talk to push two-bedroom apartments in the neighborhood.

Over the winter, Berda moved out to Los Angeles and has been keeping a very amusing and insightful blog about one New Yorker’s journey to acclimate:  Lost Angeles: Vacation Year.  Here’s part of a recent entry that made me laugh—dating, she learns, is no stroll through the paved hills of Runyon Canyon.

“Date #1: I was doing background work on a show called Californication. I met a cute Irish boy named Stan who gave me a bunch of good information about the biz. There was definitely a little spark. So when I went home, I sent him an e-mail thanking him for the info. After a couple of friendly e-mails back and forth, he invited me to the Getty Museum for an afternoon. He offered to pick me up, he suggested dinner afterward, etc. It was obviously a "date." I drove myself because I wanted to go to the premier of Bigger, Faster, Stronger afterward (see it by the way) . . . and thank GOD! We had a great afternoon laughing at the video "art", eating tuna salads for lunch, and chatting about how his family expected him to follow the family tradition of becoming a priest when he grew up. Then as we walked through the museum garden and back to the galleries he stopped short.

Stan: (very quickly) I have to say something. I hope I didn't mislead you in any way. I hope you didn't think this was a date or anything.

Berda: (confused) Uh . . . no?

Stan: I'm just asking because my wife is here and she's probably going to say something to us.

Berda: (thinking) WIFE??!!

Stan: (to Wife) Hi honey. This is Berda. She's from New York . . .

Wife: (ripping off her wedding ring and shoving it in Stan's front pocket) YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE GOING TO THE GETTY WITH YOUR GAY FRIEND!!!!

Stan: But . . but . . . don't you want to hear what Berda has to say?

Wife: (storming away) OH THAT'S JUST GREAT!!

Stan: (to Berda) Uh . . . uh . . . uh . . .

Wife: (halfway up the stairs to the tram) SO YOU'RE GOING TO STAY HERE WITH HER??!!

Berda: (to Stan) You'd better go.

Date #2: The next date was with a jock-turned-actor who I met catering and then ran into again doing background work on . . . Californication!  (Please remind me to stay off that set or at least refuse dates from guys I meet on that set.) Matt suggested that we go hiking in Runyon Canyon. Now hiking is not something that I really enjoy . . . especially after getting almost lost in the Alps in college. I much prefer beaches to hills and mountains. BUT . . . because this year is all about trying new things and meeting new people and seeing new sights . . . I agreed. The day was doomed from the start. He lives almost directly north of me. When I sent him directions to my house which involved taking two or three major streets he replied, "What? No freeway?" I responded that if he wanted to take the freeway, I was sure there was a way. He decided not to follow the directions I gave him and ended up almost 45 minutes east of me. So I Google Mapped him back. But for some reason he couldn't follow those directions either even though he said he wrote them down. He called me almost every two minutes until he reached my front door. Needless to say, I was completely annoyed by the time he arrived and wanted to say, "Listen, I'm not going to mother you through your life so let's just forget this." But I thought of the blog (really, I did) and decided to go anyway. Conversation wasn't great. He's one of those improv guys who thinks that everything he says is funny. So, naturally, if you're not laughing it must be because you didn't get the joke. So he says it again. And again. And again. That irritating habit combined with fake self-deprecating phrases like, "Well, I don't know because I didn't go to YALE . . . " didn't endear him to me in the slightest. After the 30th Yale dig, I had to say something.

Berda: Does it bother you that I went to Yale?

Matt: Huh? What do you mean?

Berda: Well, after the 30th or 40th joke about it, I have to wonder if you're feeling insecure.

Lunch was good, because it was a place that I picked, but when he dropped me off and suggested that I call him when I returned from New York, I ho hummed. I described the date to my roommates and Aaron said to me, "Berda, the guys out here aren't going to be what you're used to. You're going to have to lower your standards."  BUT AARON, THEY'RE ALREADY SO LOW!!!  And Jack said, "You knew everything you needed to know about him in the first five minutes!"

Runyon Canyon was really pretty though. And not like hiking at all. It's more like a paved road through the hills. Perfect for people like me.”

DON'T MISS THIS WEEK'S VIDEO TOUR:  MIDTOWN OUTTAKES.

WHEN GUIDES SAY STUPID THINGS

We’ve had lots of good times laughing at the stupid things some of our visitors have said and done—a very popular feature on this blog—but let’s take a moment to honor a few of the stupid things said and done by the guides themselves.

A friend reminded me about a tour he took over for me several years ago.  He was a nervous wreck, trying desperately to remember the names of all the architects and the dates of the buildings and the styles (though very few tourists ever really care about these specifics) and he informed his group that the Woolworth Building which opened in 1913 (correct) was designed by the same architect who did the Customs Building at Bowling Green (correct) and that the architect was Cass Elliot.  (Cass Gilbert was, in fact, the famous architect, Cass Elliot was one of The Mamas and The Papas who sang Dream a Little Dream of Me, and Make Your Own Kind of Music.)

I’ve had my own blunders.

When I first started giving tours, I stuffed my head with all sorts of numbers, facts, and trivia that could easily be confused if I weren’t focused.  My favorite switcheroo took place one afternoon when the coach was passing the Russian Tea Room (known for serving over a ton of caviar a year) and approaching Central Park (where over a billion cubic feet of dirt was excavated, brought in, or shifted around during the construction of the massive landscaping project):  “Now on your left is the Russian Tea Room where they serve over a billion cubic feet of caviar every year."  

Once, while driving up Central Park West, as we approached the American Museum of Natural History, I told my group that the museum was currently hosting a “Live Frogs” exhibit where you were able to walk among “thousands and thousands of live frogs.”  Honestly, I didn’t think anything of the number.  I had no idea how many frogs—it wasn’t as if I told them 4,356 frogs, I could have said “lots of frogs”—but in my mind “thousands and thousands” seemed the thing to say.  When we reached the museum, we all saw the banner for the show that proclaimed:  “OVER 200 LIVE FROGS.”  Busted.  No skin off my nose, I turned it into a running joke.  How many seats at Lincoln Center?  “Thousands and thousands.”  (That’s true actually.)  How many floors at the Empire State Building?  “Thousands and thousands.”  (Untrue.)

The same museum figures into my most recent slip of the tongue, which occurred on my last trip this spring.  I was giving an accelerated tour on the way out to the airport and was reducing stories to bullet points.  Usually, if I have time, I might mention that a young Teddy Roosevelt, a budding naturalist, donated to the new museum “one bat, twelve mice, a turtle, a squirrel skull and four bird eggs.”  On a quick tour, I might reduce the catalog to “…he donated a squirrel skull and bird eggs” and on a VERY quick tour, as this one was, I apparently just say:  “…he donated squirrel eggs.”  We were almost twenty blocks away, when a very polite mother asked, “Did you say ‘squirrel eggs’?”

HERE’S ONE FROM ELIZABETH MEADOWS ROUSE

Between shoots on The Sopranos and Law and Order: SVU, Elizabeth appeared in several of our bytes—as the Herman Melville fan who needs to be put down on Wall Street in Tranquilizing a Tourist and as Elizabeth Rousie, PhD, at the United Naitons in the The Obscene Elephant.

Elizabeth is also a guide, one who has come to resent the humiliation that confronts her in the city’s numerous security tents.  Invariably, during the security for the ferries out to the Statue, the metal detector loudly detects her bra’s underwire and she’s forced to stand with her arms out to the side.  “So then I get "wanded" in front of all these adolescents and it beeps as it runs over my ample breasts. Everyone looking, giggling...great way to start the day."

Here is a story she sent me about the tent at the United Nations:

 
“I must admit from time to time I do join in on the fun in Chinatown and might pick up a trinket or two. Sometimes for others at Christmas, once a backpack for myself, even a hair piece that to date is one of my top most useful girlie items in my bag of tricks.
 
"This particular time I am walking by a vendor who has these cool lighters. They were very art deco looking and the feel of the button snapping made me feel like a class act. Ten Dollah? Thank yew! The tour continues and I fall into bed at the end of the day per usual. Next day, up early and off to take my group to the United Nations. Has your mind raced ahead yet? That's right, Rousie forgot to take the lighter out of her bag. As I go through security, and my bag gets scanned, there is a pause. Another guard is called over to see the xray. Whispers. My heart beats faster. What are they saying? Please don't pull out the feminine hygene products in front of the little boy next to me. They pull the lighter out of my bag. Oh yeah! Oops! Now I am with school children and I am already mortified that this marks me as a smoker.  I want to set a good example, and don't want them to think I sneak a cigarette any time their backs are turned. This was the LEAST of my troubles.
 
"It seems my fancy, classy, art deco, snappy lighter had a secret and dark side. If you pushed the button straight down, the fire came out the top. If you pushed said button to the side a magic little SWITCHBLADE flipped forward. Now the guard feels the need to demonstrate the many talents of my lighter for me in front of my entire group. I am whispering, 'Please, just take it. I had no idea. I bought it in Chinatown last night and didn't know, I swear. Illegal? I, ah, just take that and throw it in the trash right now. Please, can you hold it a little lower? I am the tour guide for these children and you see...I just need to get through and get their tickets. Oh, you're keeping it? Great, I appreciate that, sir. Thank you...so much for...Okay, everyone, follow me…'
 
"Dear God in heaven, it's the blonde leading the blind."

A MONDEGREEN FROM JAMIE BAKER

Jamie Baker who visited New York several times with a drama group from Centralia, Washington sent this mondegreen in this week:

When “Smooth Operator” by Sade came out, my son thought she was singing, "School's out forever!"   He was so serious while singing those lyrics.  We still laugh about it.

DON'T MISS THIS WEEK'S FEATURED VIDEO TOUR.

DISASTERS AT THE METROPOLITAN

Paintings and statues are stolen from galleries or vandalized in museums around the world; the ones at the Met simply fall off the walls or their pedestals.  A glazed relief of an angel by Andrea della Robbia fell to the floor at the end of June.  Sound familiar?  Another great work of art from the Renaissance--this time a sculpture by Tullio Lombardo--inexplicably crashed six years ago and all the horses and all the king’s men…

AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT…AN UPDATE

One of our first bytes, Hot Dog Real Estate, was about the astronomical cost of the permits to sell hot dogs in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Since we posted that byte in the spring of 2007, the price for the cart on the southern side of the staircase dropped from the asking price of $375,000 to $249,000.  This might have had something to do with the renovation of the staircase at the Met which would drastically reduce customers.  (The staircase, by the way, is slated to reopen for seating by the end of April, 2009.) Also, since the posting of this byte, some of you have noticed that a third cart has popped up.  This cart with the longest lines is run by a man protesting the city's denial of permits for returning veterans.  He has been repeatedly fined, shut down and threatened with arrest, but he keeps returning, paying nothing for the spot and charging lower prices than the carts on either side of the staircase.

AND WHILE WE’RE ON THAT SUBJECT…A TRIBUTE

Ellamae, my one-hundred-year-old grandmother, on one Fourth of July in her nineties, banded together with several other octo- and nonagenarians to sell hot dogs illegally on the porch of their retirement home on the Ohio River.  All of the other vendors had paid for permits to sell food on the waterfront during the holiday, but Ellamae and the other Gray Panthers drew the longest lines, boiling their hot dogs and selling them for only 50 cents.  They made a killing.

TO RECENT REPORTS THAT WORK AT GROUND ZERO IS BEHIND SCHEDULE, WE REPLY:

No!  Really?

WHEN KAYAKERS GOOF OFF AROUND PUBLIC ART

The funny, thankfully not tragic, details about the two kayakers who were almost drowned beneath the Brooklyn Bridge by one of Olafur Elliason’s Waterfalls can be read at the Gothamist. 

Something to think about:  four waterfalls are not as impressive as the 7,500 saffron posts and flags that lined 23 of the 58 miles of pedestrian path in Central Park (The Gates, 2003).  But if we had 7,500 waterfalls, priced at $3.5 million a piece, then the art project would cost over $2 trillion and the East River would become a suicidal gauntlet for thrill-seeking kayakers.

AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT OF KAYAKERS…

One of my favorite groups comes from New Braunfels, Texas.  They were in New York last June when Suspension won the two Lambda Literary Awards and I mentioned them during an acceptance speech.  Since I wanted to visit their part of Texas and they wanted to throw me a book party, I bought my airline ticket before they left for home.  They took care of me when I arrived in their state a month later, providing me a two-bedroom condo along the Guadalupe River, my own car, and passes to the Schlitterbahn (I freely admit that I have a childlike passion for both water parks and miniature golf).  They played guide to my tourist--we ate at some great restaurants, tubed the Comal, took a canoe on the swollen Guadalupe, visited a couple historic towns, and spent a night two-steppin' at the oldest dance hall in Texas. They even provided a first-rate photographer--Lisa Lasseter, who was on my tour in 2007 and took it on herself to document my stay.  (I’m posting these now, because it took a year to convert the photos to digital files.)

At the end of the first full day we drove up into the Hill Country to Canyon Lake where they threw me a book/pool party with several “generations” of students who had come on my tours.  The oldest were now in college, one studying at NYU and working at the Starbucks in Astor Place.  (I'm in the middle.)

Behind the pool was Canyon Lake where my hosts had a kayak, a paddle boat and water skis all ready for me.

This is a picture of me about to water ski for the very first time in my life.  Disaster was about to strike.

This is me crashing into the water. As thorough as my instructors were--all of them had grown up on water skis--not a single person ever told me that if I fell, I should let go of the rope.  Instinctively, I held onto the rope for dear life and let go only when two of my ribs were separated from their cartilage.

(NOTE:  On none of my tours has a tourist ever cracked a rib.)

I was in pain the rest of the trip, but it didn't stop me from partaking in any of the planned activities.  Lynda McLean, the lead teacher, had written and printed out an itinerary as jam-packed as any itinerary planned for NYC.

Here I am learning the two-step in Gruene...I was watching feet all night long.  I remember the floor of that joint very well.

Here I am, ready to eat like a Texan::

And here I am...well, can you figure out what I'm doing here?

In the tradition of tourists taking cheesy pictures in front of monuments, here I am trying to remember something, but what?  What?  Something I'm not supposed to forget.  Don't forget....don't forget...the Alamo!!"  HiLARious.

The one historic place I really wanted to visit was, of course, the mission regarded as the birthplace of the Texas Republic, and I reminded my hosts/guides several times, "Don't forget the Alamo."  They didn't--we drove down to San Antonio on my last full day.  Unfortunately, they did forget the visiting hours for the Alamo and we arrived forty minutes after closing.

(NOTE:  None of my groups have ever missed an appointment on their itinerary.)

AN ACTUAL QUOTE UTTERED BY A LOCAL:  "I love the Alamo, but why'd they have to build it all the way downtown?"

I always have a fabulous time visiting tourists on their home turf and I loved my trip to New Braunfels, though it did take several months for my ribs to heal. On the other hand, it has given me the opportunity on numerous occasions to start sentences with:  "Since my waterskiing accident in Texas..."

As long as I don't go into details ("I forgot to let go of the rope"), it sounds very dramatic, doesn't it?

DON'T MISS THIS WEEK'S FEATURED VIDEO TOUR.

TWO BYTES OF RECOMMENDATION

A BOOK AND A MOVIE

DREAMLAND

By Kevin Baker

Last July I wrote about my visit to Coney Island during what was supposed to be Astroland’s last summer.  Owing to the nostalgia-driven crowds of 2007, however, Astroland was given a reprieve of one more season.  This summer I wanted to visit Coney Island during its heyday, in the opening years of the last century, and because the D train does not stop there, I made use of the time-traveling fiction of Kevin Baker’s City of Fire trilogy, the first of which is set around 1910 when three of the world’s greatest amusement parks—Steeplechase, Dreamland, and Luna Park—stood side by side on the nation’s edge.  (The first glimpse of America by immigrants crossing the Atlantic for New York during this time was not the Statue of Liberty’s torch, but the glow of the electricity from the parks in Brooklyn.)

Trick the Dwarf is the on-and-off again narrator who opens the book promising to tell a story to “Nanook the Esquimau, and Ota Benga the pygmy, and Yolanda the Wild Queen of the Amazon.”  When he narrates, he serves as a guide, describing the attractions—the rides, the restaurants, the simulations, and shows—and his rescue from the back-breaking hands of Gyp the Blood in a rat pit on the Bowery kicks off the story of two young gangsters, one of whom is forced to hide out in the rear end of the elephant hotel on Coney Island where he falls in love with a girl from the Lower East Side who spends her Sabbath at the beach. 

Baker introduces his characters through Trick’s prologue:  “It’s a story about love, and jealousy, and betrayal.  A story about a young man, the young woman who loved him, and a terrible villain—a story about death, and destruction, and fire.  It is a story about thieves and cutthroats, and one man’s vision, and the poor man’s burden, and the rich man’s condescension.  It is a story about Kid Twist, the gangster, and Gyp the Blood, who was a killer, and Big Tim the politician, and poor Beansy Rosenthal, who couldn’t keep his mouth shut.  It is a story about Sadie the whore, and the brave Esther, and the mad Carlotta, and the last summer they all came together.”

This engrossing novel is as much about the poverty and real-life drudgery of the Lower East Side as it is about the fantasies provided by Coney Island.  (Historically, both Dreamland and the Triangle Shirtwaist factory burned in the spring of 1911.)  There are wonderfully drawn out and captivating chapters about the newly arrived Jewish immigrants struggling in the tenements, particularly those of Esther’s initiation as a child into the unendurable days sewing in the sweatshops on Division Street and of the valiant efforts of the burgeoning labor movement, the unbelievable sacrifices the early unionists made at a time when any attempt to raise the issue of workers' rights was met with derision and violence on the streets and in the basements of the jails where many were starved and tortured—forgotten nowadays when Labor Day just means a three-day weekend and frozen margaritas.

In a parallel storyline, Freud and Jung are both characters encountering the New World, including a trip to Coney Island, with their unique means of social interpretation, which helps explain why the narrative becomes somewhat experimental near the end.  The characters that were so well drawn are suddenly presented as figments of the narrator’s mind.  Perhaps this happened to them, maybe this did.  The form fits the subject matter--the novel is an exploration of Coney Island, a place of fantasy that human imagination built on the sand, of the conscious and unconscious wishes and desires of the millions of immigrants sharing a culture in a playland out on the shore.  This would make a great beach read in the last few weeks of August.

MAN ON WIRE

I saw this documentary during the Tribeca Film Festival and wanted to share my enthusiasm now that it’s opening in theaters nationwide.  Exactly thirty-four years ago today, Philippe Petit, walked and danced in the sky between the newly built Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan.  Seven years earlier, in the waiting room of his dentist, Petit saw a rendering in a magazine of the future World Trade Center.  He tore the pages out and left without a cleaning, obsessed, dreaming and planning how he would undertake a tight rope walk between the towers that had yet to be erected.  This documentary follows the story from the dentist’s office until  today, combining archival footage from the sixties and seventies, talking head interviews with Petit and his associates, and scenes of reenactment (many of which were shot in the new 7 World Trade Center) in the tradition of the great heist films.

We hear the participants remember the tense moments in detail—sneaking into the two buildings and maneuvering their way to the top on the eve of the stunt, hiding from the security guards, in one case under a tarp a few feet away, spending the night preparing, connecting the buildings through archery, climbing to the edge to retrieve the arrow and wire, and then securing the tight rope.  By the time Petit takes his first steps 1350 feet above the city, we feel like co-conspirators standing on the roof bearing witness, and we are only more inspired and moved when he makes not just one but several crossings, walking, dancing, even lying down on his back with one leg hanging lazily below him.

Admittedly, there are times while watching the acts of this conspiracy unfold, as the two teams evade security with fake id’s and costumes, when you can’t help but think of the terror cells who spent years plotting their own interaction with the Twin Towers, but that gives Petit and his team an aura of nobility—as artists creating something beautiful and empowering.  When these buildings were brand new, architectural wonders, two monoliths rising above a city, a man somehow overcame them, humanized them.  And now that the towers are no longer there, that feat is even more magical, because it happened only once and can never happen again.

To see if this movie is playing near you, click MAN ON WIRE.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

There are now over 7,000 chain restaurants and stores in the city of New York.  What are the two largest?  (Hint:  There are 341 of the first and 335 of the second throughout the five boroughs.  Starbucks has just over 200 stores, over 80% in Manhattan.)

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S QUESTION

There are now over 7,000 chain restaurants and stores in the city of New York.  What are the two largest?  (Hint:  There are 341 of the first and 335 of the second throughout the five boroughs.  Starbucks has just over 200 stores, the vast majority in Manhattan.)

The largest with 341 stores is Dunkin’ Donuts, a company that refuses to spell correctly even one half of its name.

The second with 335 stores is Subway Restaurants, who have convinced many of my larger tourists that they don’t need a gym membership as long as they “eat like Jared.“  (Their Web site today boasts 29,664 restaurants in 87 countries, which means the obesity epidemic will soon be a thing of the past.)

LITTLE BYTES OF MINNEAPOLIS

One statistic frequently offered by almost all of my Minnesotan tourists is that, after New York City, Minneapolis has the largest number of theater seats in the United States. I can never locate this statistic, but I think it's credible.  I just returned from my second weekend in Minneapolis where I saw three shows (see *** below) and spent as much time as I could at the Guthrie Theater, whose new home on South 2nd Street opened in 2006 after a legendary run of forty-three years on Vineland Place.  I love this building!  With its three theaters (the 1100-seat Wurtele Thrust, the 700-seat McGuire Proscenium, and the 199-seat Dowling Studio) and its plethora of public space, it reminds me of the National in London, of its power to excite and inspire, to welcome you inside and keep you from leaving.  I venture out to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts one afternoon, but I spent as much free time as possible working on my new novel in one of the cafes or lounges, taking walks through the building, admiring the stunning view and wishing that New York had a complex like this.  I would be there every day and evening.

I envy Minneapolis. I love this building so much that I was personally offended by any insult directed towards it.  In the midwestern fashion of keeping someone in his place, stupid criticisms have been leveled, most frequently about the escalators that take you up the four flights where the theaters are.  I'm not sure what these people want?  Four flights of stairs?  Maybe they want the theaters on the ground floor, though who would want to lose the spectactular views above the Mississippi? It was the architect's idea to float the theaters high above the ground to provide those views.  The artistic director, Joe Dowling, was reluctant but after being placed in a cherry picker and elevated to the proper height above the lot, he conceded, the plan was chosen, and Jean Nouvel got to build this beautiful structure, which was one of the reasons he was awarded this year's Pritzker Prize for Architecture.

Another absurd critique which drove me insane (you Minnesotans have a world-class building!!) was one I found in the AIA Guide to Minneapolis. The American Institute of Architects (or at least the idiot that wrote the review) complained that the skyway to the parking lot was inaccessible.  That might be because it's not a skyway (skyways are prohibited in this district of the city) and it doesn't take you to the parking garage. The scene shop was built on top of the garage across the street and that bridge is the way the crew moves the scenery into the theaters.  Truly embarrassing.  Do your research!

A bizarre bit of trivia I learned from Joe Dowling's program notes:  the announcement of the Pritzker for Jean Nouvel (awarded partly because of his remarkable Guthrie) coincided with the death of Ralph Rapson, the Minnesotan architect who designed the original theater with its famous thrust stage, which was painstakingly re-created as one of the three theaters in the new building.

A New Yorker might be wondering at this point if Jean Nouvel has any work currently in our city. There is only one--40 Mercer Street Residences, a new condo building in SoHo.  There is also talk of a 75-story tower to be built next to the MoMA but I believe those plans were stalled if not nixed.  He has bid for some other choice venues over the years and though his plans were wildly popular and innovative, they were not chosen.  Check out his Web site to see some of these beautiful projects, especially the one beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

***The three shows I saw on this trip:

The Jamal Lullabies at the Minneapolis Fringe Festival, featuring four incredible singers including regular Little Byter, Nicole Stefonek who can hit notes so high your nose starts bleeding.

Little House on the Prairie, in previews and in the news perhaps because Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura throughout the run of the television series is in this musical playing Ma. The show officially opens tomorrow but a forty-city national tour was announced two days ago.

The Government Inspector, the 1836 play by Nikolai Gogol with a brilliant adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher, was my favorite. Follow the link to see a video excerpt of this hilarious satire, with its elaborate costuming, fast-paced and incisive direction, and the remarkably talented cast led by Hunter Foster and two brilliant Guthrie actors, Peter Michael Goetz and Sally Wingert. And if you're in the Twin Cities, go see the show LIVE--it closes on the 24th.

WHY I’M WRITING

LITTLE BYTES OF MINNEAPOLIS

INSTEAD OF

LITTLE BYTES OF BEIJING

As some of you know, I put some serious thought into competing in this year’s (month’s) Olympic Games.  Four years ago, to spice up my workout regimen at the gym, I began swimming again, starting in the Loafer Lane, teaching myself proper breathing as I kicked and stroked my way through repeated laps.  I promoted myself to the medium lane and within a week, I was leaving trails of foam behind me in the FAST lane.

Out of curiosity, I timed myself in the free style and made it from one end to the other in 24 seconds.  That night, during the Athens Olympics, I watched Gary Hall win the freestyle sprint in 21.93 seconds.  I was stunned. He was only two seconds faster! But then I reminded myself that much of swimming had to do with technique and I had, after all, developed a smooth stroke with an even, uninterrupted rhythm.  I knew that swimming came down to hundredths of a second, but it didn't seem out of the question that I could knock off two seconds if given a trainer.

"I mean, with four years of discipline, I could feasibly qualify for the Beijing games," I told a friend over the phone.  To which he replied, “Yeah, but aren’t they swimming in an Olympic size pool?”

And that’s why I was in Minnesota and not Beijing for the opening ceremonies.

AND SPEAKING OF THE OLYMPICS...

Synchronized Diving?  Do you know what would be more exciting?  Synchronized Marathon!!

RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

One of my favorite New Yorkers (she actually wrote for The New Yorker) is Dorothy Parker, and a one-woman show about one of the city's great wits is playing at the New York Fringe Festival, directed by Janice Goldberg, a regular Little Byter whom you would know from The World-Record-Breaking Cat (The First Hoparound Tour), Oysters and Firewood (A Walk across Wall Street) and our two Herald Square videos (1 Green, 3 Parks, 6 Squares, and a Circle). 

Here are five of Janice's favorite Dorothy Parker quotes:

"Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses."

Meeting a challenge to define the word horticulture:  "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think."

Regarding the guy who didn't stick around:  "It's like putting all your eggs in one bastard."

"I like to have a martini, two at the most.

After three I'm under the table,

after four I'm under my host."

About some young women (Barnard students I think): "If all these young things were laid end to end, I wouldn't be at all surprised."

THAT DOROTHY PARKER

Written & Performed by Carol Lempert

Directed by Janice L. Goldberg

Time Out gives THAT DOROTHY PARKER 4 stars.

“Lempert is a fine and versatile actress.  Her Dotty sparkles, full of life and desperate for a good time that never seems to come.  Lempert-as-Dorothy also impersonates many of her Round Table raconteurs with practiced aplomb.

Janice Goldberg directs wonderfully- every moment is clear and effective.”

                                                   …….BroadwayWorld.com

“As a famous wit, her one-liners are readily available, and Lempert delivers many of the lines with finesse. Some of the best moments are when Lempert faces the audience and delivers Parker’s verse. It’s a warm connection with the audience…..”

                                                   ……..NYTheatre.com

3 shows left.

Saturday       August 16  3:15 PM

Wednesday     August 20  3 PM

Sunday          August 24   Noon

Soho Playhouse

15 Vandam St.

www.fringenyc.org

Tickets  $15

866-468-7619

I'll be at the Saturday 3:15 performance with the award-winning novelist of Ellis Avery (A Teahouse Fire).  Come join us!

ANOTHER BYTE OF BAKER

Two weeks ago, I recommended Kevin Baker’s Dreamland for a great New York beach read and this week I’m pushing another one of his books on you.  Paradise Alley, the second novel in Baker’s City of Fire trilogy, takes place almost fifty years earlier, during the Civil War, in the summer of 1863 when New York erupted in four days of rioting which is still regarded as the worst civic insurrection in U.S. history.  (Note:  The trilogy is connected by theme, not character, so you don't need to read Dreamland to understand Paradise Alley.)

The main characters here include Dangerous Johnny Dolan, the madman, who keeps returning from the dead and exile to terrify those who he felt betrayed him; Ruth, the woman who crossed the Atlantic with him to escape the Potato Famine; Ruth's eventual husband, Billy Dove, a runaway slave who was once a former sailor and shipbuilder; Deirdra, Johnny’s sister who fled Ireland years earlier and resents both her brother and the wraith-like woman arriving on her doorstep; Tom O’Kane, Deirdra’s husband, who enlists in the Union Army for complicated marital reasons; Maddy, the prostitute in Paradise Square, who refuses to be ordered about by anyone, especially the man who “rescued” her from life as a hot corn girl; and Herbert Willis Robinson, that very man who is also a journalist and observer of some of the worst atrocities during the riots.

Kevin Baker is a wonderful historical researcher and not interested in improving on history--most of the events and situations are gleaned from his readings and shared with us, including the horrifying climactic scene towards which the entire book menacingly moves.  He also makes a mean tour guide, painting vivid pictures of the city at the time—the stacks of abandoned stone on Fiftieth and Fifth that would eventually become St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the houses and churches in Seneca Village, a community in the uptown wilderness, that would be dismantled to make way for Central Park, and the dinosaur fossils near Fifth Avenue, part of the early collection of what is now the American Museum of Natural History.

Paradise Alley was my favorite read of the summer, a 665-page novel that I could not put down.

My only quibble was that Baker employs a repetitive formula (a chapter begins with a character during the week of the riots, an object or a memory with freighted meaning is mentioned, and we immediately encounter a flashback that explains that object or memory); however, that formula does succeed in deepening our understanding and appreciation of the characters and the back stories themselves are fascinating and very well written. Two of my favorites are gripping passages set before the Civil War--Billy’s escape from slavery by a boat he built with his own hands and Ruth and Johnny’s survival and escape from Ireland, spanning several chapters entitled The Year of the Slaughter.

LINK OF THE WEEK

HarperCollins is reinventing its author pages, creating interactive microsites for all of their interested writers and mine went live this week.  Check it out.

WHEN TOUR GUIDES SAY STUPID THINGS

One of my favorite blunders comes from Elizabeth Meadows Rouse who has appeared in several Little Bytes and who sent us the great story last month about being caught with a knife at the United Nations. 

This one took place shortly after the events of September 11th.  Many tour companies during that time directed their guides to avoid saying anything that might remind the guests about terrorism on the way out to the airports.  Any words regarding their safety were stricken from farewells.  "Get home safely," for example, became "Enjoy your flight."

Elizabeth's goodbye as the coach pulled into the airport was always, "I hope everyone gets home safely."  On this particular day in the fall of 2001, Elizabeth began her goodbye and then remembered she couldn't say "safely," so she stopped herself abruptly and the guests instead heard:  "I hope everyone gets home."

So much worse.

ROWDY AND INEBRIATED

These days there are more and more stories about the endless British pub crawl disturbing the peace throughout Europe.  In Sunday's New York Times there was this article about the drunk Britons who have quickly become the most feared out-of-towners in many Mediterranean resorts, far outnumbering and out-misbehaving the Ugly Americans and the Grutherhammenshung* Germans.

"They scream, they sing, they fall down, they take their clothes off, they cross-dress, they vomit," Malia's mayor, Konstantinos Lagoudakis, said in an interview.  "It is only the British people--not the Germans or the French." 

Many of these British tourists are lured to these vacation spots by packaged deals offering lots of cheap alcohol and the promise of rowdy good times.  I can attest to this personally.  While giving tours to many great visitors from the United Kingdom, I have come across a large number who literally stumble out of Customs and never sober up during their stay in the city. If they're not at a pub or a night club or a restaurant ordering several bottles of wine, then they're in the hotel bar or shopping at a liquor store.  

I remember a woman on a large corporate tour a couple years ago who disappeared from a bar and was found the next morning naked in the laundry room of the Hotel Pennsylvania.  She had gone home with somebody and then walked out into the hallway of the hotel and found the laundry room where she curled up in dirty sheets and went back to sleep. She was interviewed by the NYPD and given a morning-after pill before being returned to her hotel several blocks away.  That evening, as the group disembarked from their dinner-and-drinks cruise, guess who was the last to lurch drunkenly down the gangplank? 

You'd think you would take a night off...

*German word created for this blog...means obnoxious.

TODAY IN NEW YORK CITY HISTORY

399 years ago:  Henry Hudson discovers DELAWARE Bay...you're getting warmer, Henry.

178 years ago:  Peter Cooper, one of our most important nineteenth-century New Yorkers (see our Cooper Square tour) demonstrates the Tom Thumb, the first American-built steam locomotive, in Maryland.  The burgeoning B&O Railroad commits to the steam locomotive and America's railway system is born.  Cornelius Vanderbilt who made a small fortune with ferries in New York Harbor will make a greater fortune with mode of transportation.

A BYTE OF PARKER

The play I recommended two weeks ago about Dorothy Parker, directed by Little Byter, Janice Goldberg, has just been announced as one of the twelve shows selected from over two hundred to participate in the FringeNYC-Encore Series! 

"Charming! Ms. Lempert gives a lovely,resonant performance as Parker, the acerbic critic, poet and generalwit, and covers the peaks and valleys of her career and life."
                      - The New YorkTimes

TRASH TALK

You know that we at Little Bytes are fascinated by where all the fifty thousand tons of our city's daily garbage goes (The World's Largest Manmade Structure and Times Square: The World's Biggest T.V.).  During lunch this week, I heard a Leonard Lopate segment on NPR about New York City's trash collection services and here are some numbers I scribbled on my whiteboard while eating a sandwich.  Do you realize that when we discuss our garbage, only 50% of it is the kind of trash most of us think about--the piles of bags outside our apartment buildings, office buildings and restaurants--but the construction and demolition that occurs throughout New York makes up the other HALF!  And again, where does it all go?  Well, 20% is now recycled, 10% is sent to an energy plant in New Jersey that helps power the west side of Manhattan, and the other 70% is shipped to landfills upstate or out of state--to Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Virginia.

THOSE STUPID WATERFALLS

Do you remember those Waterfalls in the harbor and up the East River, the art project that was supposed to attract the same number of visitors as The Gates in Central Park?  You do?  Good for you.  Most of us have completely forgotten about those things.  (The tourists are coming, but they're attracted more by the weak dollar than they are by water pumped to the top of scaffolding.)  They made the news recently, however, because the salty mist has been hurting plantings on the waterfront, most particularly the plantings in Brooklyn Heights, and so their performance times are being reduced starting on Monday--instead of 101 hours a week, they will be running for only 50.

RENTALS

People are always asking, and the numbers are always changing, but here are some rental real estate prices from a recent article in the New York Times.  Two-thirds of New Yorkers rent their homes and the current vacancy rate for rental properties in New York is 3.6% (15,000 apartments).  The average asking rental price in New York is now $2700.  In Washington, D.C., the price is $1500; in Boston, $1700; in Brooklyn, $2400; and in Manhattan, $4000.  The average price for a one-bedroom is Manhattan is $2691; if there's a doorman, the average price is $3462!

STROESSENREUTHER IN THE PARK

This summer's Shakespeare in the Park series ends this Sunday with the possibility that Hair will transfer to Broadway at some point this season.   Just in time for the close of summer, Travis Stroessenreuther, friend, fellow guide, and Little Byter (Slaves and a Haircut, Madison Avenue, Park Avenue Part One:  Death Avenue) has agreed to share my favorite story (his own) about the lengths people will go to claim those free tickets to the productions at the Delacorte. Travis is also a great actor and a company member of the improv troupe Eight Is Never Enough.

Here's Travis:

Let us start at the very beginning.....

I'm a stable man.  I like simple pleasures, good food, good music and the like.  While I am spontaneous, I do go forth in life with, I feel, a clear head--I know the difference between good and bad ideas.  And when I'm foggy on that detail, I turn to my wife, Julianna, to help me.

Which is why I don't know why on earth she let me go and do the thing I was about to go and do.....

July, 2006. 

The Public Theatre had announced that it was putting up, as one of the year's Shakespeare in the Park offerings, Mother Courage and Her Children.  An interesting choice, I thought.  I wondered who was playing the lead.

Meryl Streep.  I must go.

Now, as you might or might not know, tickets to Shakespeare in the Park are free and handed out each day at one o'clock for that night's performance. You can pick up these tickets both inside Central Park and downtown at The Public.  For the more popular shows, people start lining up very early in the morning.  For popular shows with celebrities in them, they start lining up well before dawn.  For celebrity-studded, popular shows that have gotten great reviews (such as this one), people start lining up the night before. 

"What a great idea!" I thought.  This is where my wife should have stepped in.  But, no.  She shook her head, gave me her concerned, yet supportive, look and said "I'd love to see Meryl Streep, honey. You go have fun."

Here was the plan.  I would go out the night before to my favorite karaoke haunt on 54th street, close the bar, go and get in line and get WONDERFUL seats to the play.  "So close", I thought, "that Meryl will spit on me!"

I send out a mass email, asking "Who's with me?!?!". 

Not a single "I AM!" 

Many "Good lucks!" and "I hope you don't get killed!" but no one would join me on this adventure. 

And the day arrives.

I pack up my collapsible folding canvas chair, a blanket, a few magazines and off I go to karaoke.

Many friends are there, all toasting to my night I'm about to spend in the park.  I mingle.  I drink.  I sing "Jump in the Line" by Harry Belafonte (the Beetlejuice Theme).  I drink some more.  I close the bar.

After some friendly fond farewells, I leave the bar, stop at a local deli for a turkey sandwich and a much needed bottle of water.  I begin my walk up to 81st Street and Central Park West.  As I walk up, I pass by a wide variety of people--fellow revelers, starting to make their way home; early morning dog walkers along Central Park; and a shirtless free spirit who makes his home on a bench of Central Park West.

I arrive at 81st street (the entrance closest to the Delacorte Theatre), expecting to see a group of like-minded, Meryl lovin', theatre folks.

No one is in sight.  I think to myself that, perhaps, people have already snuck into the park and are in line by the theatre itself.  I sit on the bench, pondering my options.  Should I go into the dark park at 4:00 in the morning?  Should I wait here, on a bench at 81st Street until dawn?  Should I take the subway downtown to the Public Theatre and get in line there?  I look up and down the street.  No one is around. 

No one, except Daryl, the young, African-American man with no shirt whom I passed on the way up and has now decided to sit down next to me on the bench.  Suddenly, I'm in a production of Zoo Story.  I try to play it cool.

"S'up?" I say.

"Nothin, man, I'm just out for a walk."

He's staring at my bag.  And my turkey sandwich.

"S'cool...."  I know I'm done if I tell him I'm here to see Meryl Streep.  "I'm just resting before I go home, man."

I figure this is it.  Ten years in this city without an incident, and now I'm going to get mugged here on Central Park West.  I think about Jules, at home, asleep, cozy in the bed I should also be in right now.  I wish he'd stop looking at my bag.

"You got any weed?" he pleads. 

"No, man." (I figure if I say 'man' a lot, he'll somehow figure I'm cool enough NOT to rob) "But if I did, I'd sure share it with you."  He pauses to consider.  I decide to take the upper hand.  "What's your name...man?"

"Daryl."

"Cool, Daryl, well I'm gonna get goin, man, I think."  He waits before he responds.

"That's cool, man, I'm just gonna walk back up to Harlem.  Nice meeting you." And he sticks out his hand.

Crap.  He's gonna grab my hand, pull me in, and stab me in the temple with a plastic fork.  I prepare.  I take his hand.  He gives me a good shake, stands up, and continues north on Central Park West.

I gotta get out of here.

I'm about to cross the street to the subway to head downtown to the Public Theatre (figuring there MUST be people down there), but as I reach the middle of the street I see a woman with a sleeping bag in one hand and a pillow in the other, heading into the park.  I approach.

"YOU must be going to see Meryl Streep in Mother Courage!"

"YES" she loudly whispers, "Now come on!" and she darts into the park.  I quickly turn around and follow her in.

Our conversation on the way to the theatre is limited, mostly because she keeps shushing me.

"You should have worn darker clothes so the police don't find us and stay low and be quiet and I've been doing this for fifteen years and my name is Emily and you need to STAY LOW because we're not supposed to be in here before 6AM!"

She's clearly crazy, but she's the only friend I have right now and she seems to know what she's doing.  I follow her, down the curving path, into the Central Park darkness, until we reach the lamplight near the box office of the Delacorte Theatre.  There is no one else in line.  She is number one; I am number two.  Mission accomplished.

I spread out my blanket, use my backpack for a pillow and secure my turkey sandwich.  "How cool" I mutter to myself.  "How cool that I am sleeping in Central Park on a beautiful night, going to sleep knowing that I'll have amazing seats to an amazing show with an amazing actress.  I love this city and all it has to offer.  Goodnight trees. Goodnight crickets.  Goodnight Emily.  Goodnight New York City.

I'm woken an hour later by the sound of Emily:  "OH, SHIT!"

I check my watch.  5:35AM.  It's still dark.  We're still not supposed to be in the park.  Why is Emily shouting?   I roll over and see her standing up by the box office itself.

Bleary eyed, I stumble up alongside her and read a notice on the box office window:

DUE TO THE METROPOLITAN OPERA'S PRODUCTION OF RIGOLETTO IN THE PARK TONIGHT, THERE WILL BE NO PERFORMANCE OF MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN.  SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

NOT REALLY THAT OLD

Two back-to-back articles in this week's New York Magazine argue against the impulse to mourn nostalgically for what is not actually historic.

Mark Gimein points out that Lehman Brothers did not exist as a leading investment bank for the 158 years repeatedly reported.  Lehman Brothers was a small firm in 1977 when the more historic Kuhn Loeb merged with it.  Seven years later, this new company was purchased by American Express and Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb became Shearson Lehman Hutton.   The current Lehman Brothers under Richard Fuld only goes back to 1994.

And Kevin Baker (author of Paradise Alley and Dreamland, books I recommended as summer reads last month) reminds us that Yankee Stadium really died thirty-five years ago when the stadium underwent its massive nineteen-seventies renovation that more or less obliterated the ball park that Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig knew.

To read more, click the links for Lehman Brothers or Yankee Stadium.

LINK OF THE WEEK

So many of my tourists have been dissapointed to learn that they couldn't find information on their ancestors at Ellis Island because these relatives had emigrated before 1892 when Ellis Island opened.  Well, here is a site that might assuage the grief:  www.CastleGarden.org.  Castle Garden in Battery Park was the country's first immigration center and you can look up records here for ancestors that came through New York between 1830 and 1892. 

LINE OF THE WEEK

Jeff P. was waiting a few days ago for one last person to join his group on the ferry from Ellis Island.   He saw the woman from the South on land talking with a man wearing a yarmulke.  When she finally boarded the boat, she said:  "I told that Jew there that I read Elie Wiesel's book Night.  I thought the Jew would appreciate that."

So do we.

CLARIFICATION OF THE WEEK

This gave me one of the best belly laughs all month.  It comes from Amanda (all names have been changed to protect the innocent) whose client (Linda) e-mailed her in advance of a corporate program with a list of questions.  The e-mail started off with the words “bare with me” but Amanda didn't take anything off, because she was at the office and keeping dressed is one of the unspoken rules there.

At the end of the long list, Linda mentioned that “my client also asked about ‘Somalia’ wine (not sure of spelling)???  Can you check into this.”  Amanda racked her brains for a good Pinot Noir out of war-torn Mogadishu, but soon found an e-mail from Linda's boss who had been cc'd and sent the following:  “Linda—clients were asking if the restaurant had a “sommelier” which is a wine expert…not a kind of wine.”

SPEAKING OF WINE

During a private tour earlier this month I brought my group of four couples from the state of Washington to dinner at Uncle Nick’s, one of the many international restaurants on Ninth Avenue.  The nine of us were up for Greek food and we sat in the back below the fire escapes of the tenements in Hell's Kitchen.  I ordered for everyone and two of the women followed my lead and ordered glasses of the Greek wine, Retsina.  Now Retsina is a white wine with a unique taste, definitely acquired, which results from one step in the ancient method--during fermentation, pine resin is added to the mix.

"Oof, acquired taste is right. "

"I'm glad I ordered something else."

"It tastes like medicine."

"It does, it does, but something specific."

"Witch hazel!  It tastes like witch hazel!"

"Oh, good, pass me a glass.  I need to rub some of that on my knees."

EVICTED

After dinner we headed back towards where they were all staying.  It was the night after the musical Rent ended its historic twelve-year run on Broadway, and we were walking on 53rd Street, by the row of advertising on the wall of the Broadway theater, when I saw that the Rent placard was being ripped from its perch and dropped without ceremony on the ground.

You can see what replaced it.  Shrek: The Musical.  Coming soon.  We can’t wait.  I’m sure it will transform all our lives.