My Exit Strategy from NYC

You can’t just leave here. You have to have a plan and consider- did I do enough?

There’s never enough time to spend with family but I managed to see as much of my wonderful son as I could, without running out of things to say and appearing like a sentimental mother. Even though I am.

My dear friend Judy provided culture, comforts, laughs, a cat and a dog to fill the sucking void of leaving mine for all this time. She is across the street from another famous landmark- The Flatiron Building.

How’s this for the quintessential view of NY as I woke up in the morning?

Still one of the grandest icons of architecture and embedded in our collective psyche regardless of what version of King Kong you grew up with.

After all the falling cranes perched perilously on top of yet more glass skyscraper sliver buildings, it’s not hard to be pulled in by sights that remind you how long the history of this city is.

I came across this old Sephardic cemetery on West 21st Street, sandwiched in between two modern buildings. It’s the origin of the oldest , only Jewish congregation in NY, dating back to 1654 at another site. Read about it’s history here.

And another view-

This lovely gentleman of British inflection and endless energy, demonstrates how to peel carrots, potatoes, vegetables of all varieties, with a Swiss made ( meaning the opposite of made in China ) $5 peeler. The peeler is almost as enchanting as this fellow. We bought 2.

If you were a knitter, wouldn’t you want to buy your hand dyed yarn from this vendor?

Van Gogh could have survived nicely here, given the displays of flowers.

Maybe it’s this image that reminds me that no matter how many shops, restaurants, big deals, limos, fabulousness, grandiosity and excess you experience here, what it all comes down to is this:

My grandmother was always right.

I’ll be back home to St. Croix tonight, feeling wealthy in so many ways.

I’ll Trade You Two Ice Creams for A Bus Ticket

-I left St. Croix last week for my yearly excursion to New York City, my former home. Gentrification is everywhere. While savoring a $6 scoop of gelato, on the Lower East Side, ( when gelato was known only as ice cream ), I noticed this very old sign, still affixed to a very old building.

-Before Orange Alert and Heightened Security Warnings, there were fallout shelters. They were essentially windowless, basement rooms in apartment buildings, suitable for bike and camp trunk storage. In the event of threat of Soviet Missiles aimed at our city, we could descend to this subterranean den and survive on its’ well stocked larder: Bottled water, crackers, toilet paper and aspirin!

Initiated by then governor Nelson Rockerfeller, an expample of fifteen million of our 1958 tax dollars well spent to protect our citizenry from radioactive fallout with acetaminophen.

-I thought about the extremes in contrast this urban mecca is. Adjacent to the Lower East Side is Chinatown where you can buy a bus ticket from NYC to Boston, 200 miles, for a meager $15 on the Fung Wah Bus.

-Somewhere in the middle of too little and too much is just perfect- The Union Square Greenmarket, where you can buy organic cheese, chickens, eggs, beef, breads, pastries, flowers, varieties of carrots in Crayola colors and fresh lavender tied in fatly compacted bundles.

– These really caught my eye: Varieties of RADISHES! Who knew?

-By the time radishes, plain, red, pedestrian radishes reach St. Croix, asphyxiated by plastic wrap and their 10 day journey across the sea, they’re bitter, old, and ready for the compost heap.

Next week starts the museum circuit with my good friend, host and marvelous artist Judith Wolfe.

She defers to my epicurean tastes, and I in turn, get the lowdown on the best movie reviews, museum shows and all things New York.