M and S's Excellent Adventure, Day 5

Our last day in New York. Although we weren't totally sure about that when it started. Weather forecasters, who are notoriously accurate (ha!), predicted 8-12 inches of snow for NYC overnight and through Wednesday, as well as ice. Did we get that? Not a chance. There were some snow flurries through the day, but no accumulation to speak of. Again, we didn't know that when the day started. Given our ignorance, we asked for our driver to pick us up at our hotel at 3:30. Our flight was at 7. But I've been stuck in really bad traffic in New York before and almost missed my flight, so I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

But we still had the morning to explore! We started out at the Barnes & Noble at Broadway and 82nd for some breakfast, coffee, and newspaper reading. From there we walked back down to 79th for our one and only ride on the subway. It was pretty easy, because we didn't have to deal with multiple lines, split tracks, or anything else. Just a straight shot on the 1 train to Times Square.

Theaters near the Square

We found our way to the museum at the International Center of Photography to look at more stuff, because we hadn't done enough of that in the previous four days. Actually, the exhibit that drew me to the ICP was very cool. It's called "The Mexican Suitcase," and is a display of film negatives (with some developed pictures) that had been taken during the Spanish Civil War by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro (who was killed during the war), and David "Chim" Seymour. The suitcase had been lost in or around 1939, and was found again in 2007. The exhibit was a little bit challenging to view, but still good; most of the images were so small, but were nonetheless powerful.

Also at the ICP was an exhibit called "When Worlds Collide," which contained work by a Beijing-born artist. It was only slightly less odd - though more thought-provoking - than the exhibit on Japanese fashion we had seen the previous night.

There were also a pair of very small exhibits called "Take Me To The Water: Photographs of River Baptisms" and "Jasper, Texas: The Community Photographs of Alonzo Jordan." The latter was interesting as a snapshot in time, but that's about it. The former, though, was really neat. It occupied only one small room, with maybe 10 or 12 postcards of river baptisms along each wall. While some of the postcards had been commercially produced and were in mint condition, others were actual postcards that someone who had seen or heard of such events sent home to a family member, and what they wrote about their experience was really interesting.

From there, we just starting heading back towards our hotel. We walked up Broadway towards Columbus Circle, then turned north and walked up Central Park West to look at the beautiful buildings. We saw some great architecture. There were Emory Roth's three double-towered apartment buildings - the Beresford, the El Dorado, and most famously, the San Remo. There was the Century apartment building, another twin-towered address of the (slightly less) rich and famous. And let's not forget the Dakota, the very building which was the site of John Lennon's death. Aside from that, the Dakota is secondarily famous for rejecting applicants for residency including Billy Joel and Melanie Griffith/Antonio Banderas. What was especially interesting about the Dakota, though, was that we had read about it that very morning in the New York Times when we were sitting at the bookstore. Turns out the former president of the co-op board is suing the board for discrimination and defamation (the original article is here, with follow-up and commentary here and here). And we were right there! On the very day that the story broke! Very exciting.

Brownstones on 70th (or thereabouts)

We stopped at Zabar's, a New York institution, for some late lunch. Seeing as we were at a Jewish deli, I figured I should have some Jewish food for lunch: matzoh ball soup. With mango juice, which isn't very Jewish at all, but was nonetheless delicious.

That was pretty much the end of our Excellent Adventure. We went back to our hotel, headed out to La Guardia, and arrived to discover that our flight had been delayed. And delayed. And delayed again. I think we ended up getting home about an hour and a half late. Special thanks to K, who is the super-champion of all things airport-related. She picked me up after 11pm, and took T and I back to the airport the next morning at 4:30! More on that later....