New York Overnight

 I recently did a quick, action-packed 1 night trip to New York. 

A lot of people really didn't enjoy high school, but for me it was a real blast, and a bunch of us were so close that we still get together every year for dinner (known as "Duck Night", since the dinner was originally held at a Chinese restaurant). I think part of it was growing up in the crazy semi-apocalyptic world of 1970's New York - the crime, the decay, the anarchy - we bonded sort of like war buddies. Also, the school had a special honors program called the Medical Science Institute, and those of us in the program traveled through school almost as a cohort, taking most of our classes together. Between that and some unique extracurricular activities like Sing, we were pretty tight. So, the main goal of my trip was to attend the annual Duck Night dinner, but to make the schlep up to New York worthwhile I packed in as much other stuff as I could.  

Friday morning I took an early morning Amtrak up to NY. Arriving in Penn Station always makes me feel at home, since I spent a lot of time in that neighborhood - my dad's office was just across the street from Penn Station. But so many people! I'm not as used to it as I used to be. I had packed my stuff in a backpack rather than a suitcase, which gave me the freedom to hop on a Citibike (bikeshare bike) and head to my first appointment - lunch with Charles, my oldest friend. Manhattan has become a surprisingly bike-friendly place. There are bike lanes on all the major streets, and it always seems to me that New Yorkers are more courteous to cyclists than are DC drivers. The biggest danger, I've found, is the myriad delivery guys on eBikes who cruise around at high speeds in all directions with no regard for lane direction, other bikes, speed, pedestrians, or traffic signals. Sometimes it feels like being in one of those WW II aerial combat movie scenes, with delivery guys flying all around you.

Hopping a Citibike to head downtown

That notwithstanding, I successfully made my way down Broadway and across town to McSorley's in the East Village. McSorley's is the oldest bar in continuous operation in New York. While its exact age is somewhat shrouded in mystery, they claim to have been open since 1854. It is well established that Abe Lincoln stopped there when he gave a campaign speech at nearby Cooper Union in 1860 and in general, the old-timey memorabilia with which the bar is decorated, fake in so many bars, is real in this one. McSorley's serves only two kinds of beer, "light" and "dark", and delicacies like the cheese plate, which consists of cheese, saltines, raw onions, and hot mustard. After a round (dark) and a cheese plate, Charles and I headed a few blocks over and got Indian food on E. 6th St. From there he headed back to Brooklyn, while I walked over to Soho and checked into my hotel, the Arlo SoHo. The SoHo neighborhood wasn't exactly centrally located for my itinerary, but the Arlo was the most reasonably priced non-disgusting hotel I could find - New York hotels are crazy expensive at the holiday season.

Two dark and a cheese plate at McSorley's

Friends since age 5

My small, but nice, Arlo SoHo hotel room

After resting for a bit I hopped on the E train up to dinner. I got off a stop early so I could walk a little bit of 5th Avenue and see the decorations, including the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

Dinner was wonderful. There were twenty-something of us there, including a couple of first-timers, people I hadn't seen since high school! One of those was Don, who I've known since Junior High and who, like Charles, was part of the Rugby Road gang I used to hang around with going way, way back. Very cool. Yeah, there are one or two jerks, like the guy who was sort of an outcast in high school but made a ton of money on Wall Street. He made sure to casually mention multiple times that he the sweater he was wearing cost $2,000. But overall, we pick up our friendships like we had just been hanging out in the lunchroom the previous day. I only wish I lived closer so I could see some of these people more often.

Duck Nighters

As Duck Nights go, this one wasn't a late night, and I was back in my room by 11. I have to mention that at 11 PM the NY subway is standing room only, and was filled with a mix of groups of young people on their way to go out clubbing, typical stone-faced New Yorkers, and the usual smattering of people who look borderline schizophrenic.

Saturday morning I got up and walked over to a bagel shop on Canal Street for breakfast. Back at the hotel, as I was packing up my friend Pete Facetimed - from Bangkok! Pete's another junior high/high school friend. He had Facetimed into Duck Night the previous evening, but it was loud and had been hard to talk, and he wanted to catch up one-on-one. He and I wound up talking for about half an hour, mostly about how his recent move to Thailand was going. Perhaps some day there'll be a blog entry for a visit to him.

I spent a little while strolling around window-shopping the trendy stores in SoHo, then checked out of the hotel and hopped a Citibike back up to Penn Station, where I stashed my backpack at the Amtrak luggage check. After quickly popping my head into Macy's Herald Square I walked up to Times Square, getting there (after a stop for pizza) just in time for a matinee of Maybe Happy Ending, a very inventive new Broadway musical about two obsolete "Helperbot" robots who find friendship, adventure, and maybe love together. Standing ovations used to be a very rare expression of supreme approval of a performance. These days they've been devalued; people give standing ovations at every damn event. At many shows I'm the curmudgeonly dissenter, stubbornly remaining seated while everyone around me is on their feet hooting and hollering, but for this show I eagerly joined in - the show deserved it.

My dad's office!

Genuine New York pizza - the best!

Outside the theater

After the show I walked back down to Penn Station. I had left a couple of hours after the show in case I wanted to have one more New York meal - but I was ready to head home and so I swapped to an earlier train and headed home after an action-packed thirty hours in the big city.