More Tunnels

There are many tunnels in New York City. On Sundays, I often see people lined up outside the Brooklyn Trader Joe's to tour the 19th century railroad tunnel. But last week Gothamist (link above) had a story on tunnels for cows in Manhattan. In the 1870s, cows were brought in from a Hudson River dock at the end of 34th Street, and traveled through block-long tunnels to reach the slaughterhouse. Who knew?

The Frick

My friend Joyce and I haven’t been to a museum in awhile. Part of that is writer guilt (What do you mean you’re going to a museum with that scene like it is? You should be writing!), but Joyce did what they always tell you Not to do- ran for the subway- and broke several ribs and her jaw. This is scarily described in her blog, http://hyacinthgirlblog.blogspot.com/ I don’t usually run for subways, but now I’m not even tempted to.

So week before last, Joyce make her maiden voyage to the Frick. There’s something comforting about the Frick. Not only the fantasies about what it must have like to live in that house if you were a Frick. The special exhibit was Meissen porcelain, which neither of us felt compelled to see. It’s the permanent collection there that’s so wonderful- I’d forgotten how many Vermeers there were. And something about the space itself that reminds me more of how Manhattan was when I first moved there- less rushed, less pushy (though that wouldn’t be hard), quieter.

The first time I went there, what really blew me away were those four big Whistlers, and the Constable Salisbury Cathedral (see above). I’m not a big landscape lover, but the way the building glows in the sun light is really amazing. It was not on the wall this trip. This time, my third or fourth trip, I was less enthusiastic about the Whistlers than I was about the El Greco St. Jerome (I’d forgotten it was there- I thought it was at the Met up the street). And there are a bunch of Goyas. Goya’s subjects always look to me that despite their clothes, they are faces I could see on the street at any moment. The guy above (“An Officer’) could have easily been on my subway ride home.

By the way, Joyce is mending beautifully.

Café La Fortuna

When I first moved to New York, I had a college friend who grew up on the Upper West Side. She and her family were wonderful to me, and I loved them- still do. They fed me many holiday dinners. When they were out of town, I’d dog sit. We’d sunbathe in the Sheep Meadow in Central Park on Saturday afternoons. Or run errands in the neighborhood. But the one place we’d come back to, over and over again, was Café La Fortuna.

We’d sit there for hours, drinking coffee, eating tiramisu and listening to the music. Café La Fortuna only played opera, and had playbills from the old, pre-Lincoln Center Met and old records on the walls. It was timeless- it could have been 1976 (the year it opened), or 30 years earlier, or 30 years later. No way to tell, and it didn’t matter. In the winter, you were confined to the red-walled interior, with big red velvet curtains to keep the drafts out. But in the summer, you could sit in the garden for hours with an iced coffee and a sandwich.

I later learned that it was a great favorite of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, when they lived in the neighborhood. Which was nice to know I guess. But I had the feeling from the first time I was there, Café La Fortuna was mine. It would always be there. It would always serve as my timeless, relaxed living room in a neighborhood little air and light west of Central Park. I sat there, and dreamed about being associated with Juilliard- which happened five years ago.

In the Times yesterday, I read that Mrs. Urwand had died, the rent went up two-and-a-half times, and Mr. Urwand couldn’t pay. He’s closing down the café tomorrow.

It’s ultimately not that important, right? It’s not like a friend of mine died, or a dog I knew. Or some curse had been put on the world where we’d all gone deaf and you couldn’t hear music anymore. So why do my eyes keep welling up?