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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.

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.

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.

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!