New York!!!

(Apologies, I am going to forget some of the details on this segment, I got sick shortly after NYC and didn’t get to write it until well after Thanksgiving!)

Back in the car, and another drive from Boston to New York. It was rather a short leg of the trip overall, so we didn’t mind a few raindrops coming down en route.

We had both built ourselves up a little bit about our New York adventure. Since we both pretty much hate big cities, and the reputation that NYC has out west, we were more than a bit apprehensive about driving and staying in NY, even for a few days.

Turns out we did just fine. Parking wasn’t half as bad as it was in Boston, and people were remarkably courteous and friendly in our little stay. That said, you couldn’t pay me to drive in Manhattan, the cabs are everywhere on the road, and veering all over the place. But if you understand that those are the rules of the game there, the whole crazy mess works surprisingly well.

We were in town to visit Tony’s former boss, Scot Medbury, who is now CEO of Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. Scot and his partner Brian live in an amazing 9th floor condo with views of Brooklyn in Fort Greene.

Their 2 bedroom flat is exquisitely appointed with many mid-century modernist furniture, especially those of Swedish origins. Scot and Brian positively spoiled us with good food, wine, and conversation, so much so that at least I felt like royalty! I felt guilty that we couldn’t return the favor in kind. They have these awesome Murphy beds in both bedrooms. The one we slept on was comfortable, and folds up to an elegant bookshelf. I want one for our future guest room!

Scot gave us a tour of BBG Friday morning, and all the exciting things they are doing. They are moving a huge Ginkgo tree, and it is amazing how you can move a 30 foot tree with enough work! He also went into their capital campaign and planned and executed renovations and improvements. It is amazing how much he has accomplished in the 3 or 4 years he has been there. The gardens are impeccable, and have huge appeal.

After that, we took a deep breath, and headed into Manhattan and all the bustle. The subway was not nearly as complicated or colorful as we first imagined it might be, and made the trip quick. We wandered around the west side of Central Park for a while, and ended up eating lunch at a dive. Unfortunately the Philly Cheese steak sandwich Adam ordered was lackluster (he’s always looking for a good Philly, and constantly disappointed), but Tony’s burger was halfway decent.

Scot was kind enough to lend us his special Museum CEO card, which got us in free to virtually all the museums in the NYC area. I know in retrospect I will kick myself for not seeing more museums, but we were playing it mellow in the big city and didn’t want to schedule too much and get overwhelmed or over tired. We did however hit the Natural History Museum. This is another “old school” museum, with tons of dioramas, but also a lot of interpretation and very current events in the scientific world. We spent the afternoon on Friday going through that and the earth & space sciences part of the museum, which was very enjoyable.

After that we took a walk through central park, back down south towards Hell’s Kitchen. The park was beautifully green, with the feel somewhat similar to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. It was crisp out, but still enjoyable, especially a couple of cute joggers. A quick stop at the post office for some stamps (to mail back Michael Dosmann’s Harvard museum card) and then on to meet up with Bittersweet (aka BS, from Craigslist, of course!) at one of his favorite bar’s for happy hour- Vlad’s vodka bar.

With a name like Vlad, I was half expecting it to be vampires and bloody marys. But in reality it was very comfortable. We had a great time visiting with BS ad catching up on each other’s lives. He’s got quite the challenge right now in life, but seems to be making the most of it. He took us to one of his favorite Greek restaurants around the corner (Mmmm- more yummy greek food!) He treated us, which was really sweet of him, and we had a good time. Then one more bar hop to … shoot, I am forgetting now, but it was a fun place. BS had to head back home at a reasonable hour, as he had a 2 hour commute in front of him! We headed back on the New York subway to Brooklyn/Fort Greene.

Saturday another late, lazy start to the day, which was drizzling. We had thought about walking over the Brooklyn Bridge to go see the Bodies exhibit, but the heavy rain and nagging conscious on provenance of all those pickled Chinese bodies (political prisoners, anyone?) kept us from getting out early. Scot and Brian had some work obligations to attend to at the Gardens, so we set up to meet Tube from Craigslist, who’s real name is also Tony B. (I don’t think he minds me using his real name, since he posts it fairly frequently on the forum). Tony B. rode his bike down to meet us in Fort Greene, since he was local. Tony is quite the handsome strapping rugby player, but kind of quiet in conversation. (Like I am [Tony M.] one to complain about that!). We had lunch at a little burger joint, where the half drunk/half hungover clerk kept asking us what we ordered. Quite funny in retrospect.

After that we headed over to City Hall in Manhattan, where we participated in the No to H8 protest. We had received and email from a friend alerting us that there was to be a country-wide protest to California’s passage of Proposition 8- a state constitutional amendment removing the right of same-sex partners to get married. We thought there might be a smattering of people at the NYC protest, being that it was on the opposite coast and a seemingly state-based issue. We were floored when we arrived and the street was thronged with people. The police were busy cordoning off a lane of traffic to make more room for protesters, which they had to keep expanding and expanding, until they just closed the street to traffice and people stood shoulder to shoulder.

We quickly found a place behind a snack food bar (doing thriving business, of course) that was not as crowded, and stood around people watching while more and more filtered into the crowd. At some point someone got the PA system working, and we could hear every other word or so of someone’s inspirational speech. We were mostly melancholy and a bit sad, but also proud that people were standing up on this issue. It effects and affects us deeply- Adam proposed to Tony the second day of the trip (and of course Tony yelled yes! See the October 2 posts), but we have been out of state the whole time leading up to the election and decided we didn’t want a “quickie marriage” just for political expediency. We decided we wanted a real wedding and ceremony, that included our families. So who knows when we will be able to get married, which makes us sad.

The number of people at the protest was surprising at first, but the issue seems to have struck a cord with the people. The deep seated feeling is that long denied civil rights (the civil right to marry, not religious marriage) were conferred to a minority, bringing equalization to the table. Then the majority took away that civil right, something that our constitution is supposed to protect against (Majority . The whole issue is playing out much like other past civil right struggles, where issues are raised, laws are passed and rescinded, and gradually creep towards equality. Generations seem to forget how progress is made, two steps forward, one step back. Adam and I believe that this issue will eventually be sorted out, and the right to marry will be recognized as a civil right for all partners or none, that gay marriages do not weaken the definition of marriage but instead strengthen families and communities, and that the issue of religious marriage is a separate issue from civil marriage and religions and families are free to raise and teach their children as they see fit.
But anyways, the thousands of people at the protest was phenomenal, and we were glad we went.

We called Scot and Brian from the protest and they arranged to pick us up in the car not far from the protest. I can’t believe Scot drives in Manhattan (Brian wisely refuses) but he has got the right attitude for it- aggressive and takes his opportunities when they come. As crazy as it is with cabs all over the road and parking nightmares, it all seems to work out just fine!
Scot had wisely prepared a list of home projects that needed doing, and we were only too happy to oblige helping!

They took us to a home improvement store- wait, that is such an understatement! a luxury home improvement store called Gracious Home on Manhattan’s east-side. Actually they are three stores located within a block radius, one for hardware, one for lighting, and I think the third is furnishings (we didn’t make it that far) They have an amazing assortment of everything from thousands of drawer pulls to every light bulb type on the planet. The sales staff are incredibly knowledgeable and friendly, and everything is just impeccable. Must be the east-coast sensibility! We had fun poking through everything, and finding some dimmer switches, door stops, and light bulbs for Scot and Brian’s place.

Then we stopped by a special lighting store on the edge of Chinatown area, and picked up some fluorescent fixtures for above-cabinet lighting. We took our hoard back to the flat, and started installing everything. We ran into a couple of challenges (isn’t that the way it always goes with home improvement?) One dimmer switch mysteriously shorted on the exterior fixture (maybe water in the socket- it was raining), The fluorescent fixtures didn’t quite all fit where we wanted them to, and the door stops didn’t fit the extra large hinge pins on their doors. But we were able to get a couple of the interior dimmers installed, and semi-repaired a towel rack and associated regrouting (it will pull out again unless that door stop gets installed!), and repairing a door pull for the garbage can door, which included making some adjustments so the adjoining door didn’t rub against it (made it easier to open!) .

Sunday morning we ventured around the corner to the thrift market. this place was really neat! It was your basic flea market, except all the stuff was really cool, not just some of it! It was amazing to see lots of the stuff and how cheap it was being sold for! Items we would have seen for gazillions back in CA were being sold for nothing! We decided this was because the east coast has been around longer than the west coast so there is more nifty old stuff in NY and people just want it gone.

Afterwards we went to Lowes, to pick up more dimmer switches (and Lowes is the same Lowes as anywhere). We stopped at an amazing grocery store in the Redhook neighborhood of Brooklyn- Fairway Market much like Berkeley Bowl at home, but much more upscale (!) and neatly organized. I could just spend a million at that place, with so much mouth-watering good food! I would gain a ton, and enjoy it, if we lived there.

We got in our closest view of the Statue of Liberty from the parking lot, of all places. And since this is not a sight-seeing road trip, it was good enough. Then off to the lighting store again, to exchange fixtures, and a quick stop in Chinatown to pick up some delicious Vietnamese Sandwiches and fresh springrolls. Yummy! We drove past Brian’s work at Hunter College (crazy to think of all those students in the middle of Manhattan!) and then back to the flat to finish what projects we could. Brian cooked up another fabulous dinner, and we rounded out the evening watching some YouTube videos of Flight of the Conchords http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLltYjpxpwI!