August | 2016 | The Pen of a Ready Writer

Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The colorful workers used GooGone to clean the rails and listened to mariachi. On a sombre note, a man told Andrew that the massive church, which seats 10,000, averages 300 worshippers. That’s not the sombre part. The fullest day of the year is not Easter or Christmas. No, the man reported enthusiastically, it is early October. Oh, what holiday would that be? “Well, the feast of St. Francis! The blessing of the animals. It’s incredible, the place is packed to overflowing with people and their pets. We had an elephant come for a while. You could go out in the courtyard and the priests would bless individual pets.” I thought of the moneychangers in the temple, such a misuse of a divine place. But then I was reminded that God is where His people are, and Andrew and I are His people.

Andrew looks over Columbia Teacher’s College at Union Seminary and Riverside Church. Our day’s high point, literally, was intended to be the top of that tall tower, however when we got to the tower elevators and said happily, “We would like to go to the top of the tower,” the guy in the maroon vest, with zero remorse or sympathy, said, “Nope. Can’t go to da tower. Closed to da public.” I mean, no feeling whatsoever. Clearly we were eager. I love NY, but I will say that a southern man would have been gentler with this bad news.

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We walked miles to find this closed up tight as a drum, naturally as it was about 11:45 am, and so much not what we expected that we decided (rightly, we discovered later) that this wasn’t THE Cotton Club of Harlem Renaissance fame. But New York redeemed itself from the mean guy at the tower elevator when a pure angel walked by and told us that no bus will stop at the bus stop where we were waiting. We would have sat there in Harlem all day waiting for a bus that wasn’t coming, like one of those skeleton memes.

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But we did get some great views from Riverside Park on the Hudson River of mid Manhattan.

In keeping with a day north of the park, today’s lunch was Puerto Rican. Isn’t she wonderful? That blob on the left was delicious; called mofongo al pilon, it was a little like our turkey dressing only instead of turkey it was crispy pork cracklings and fried chicken chunks, and instead of cornbread it was mashed green plantains. You spooned a mild garlic sauce over it. Plantain chips, cuchifritos, and salad completed this third cultural food foray joining Middle Eastern and Chinese. Yes, I could live here if we needed to plant Tito Puente Presbyterian Church.

More fun than Broadway!

Wait, khaki pants, white button down, is that . . .? Yes, yes it is. Andrew was selected from the audience to . . .

. . .bust a move. He chose to do the chicken dance. And so I will leave you with that – Andrew doing the chicken dance on the Apollo stage before all Harlem.

Love from NYC!

I like that New Yorkers don’t expect you to make over their dogs. How refreshingly normal.

I like that they are amazingly polite considering how many people they rub against, until they are not and then they will scrap to the death over who is rushing who off the bus. One woman admonished another for hurrying a disabled man, but then lost the moral high ground entirely when she refused to let it go. She got caught up in her own righteous indignation, forgot the disabled man, and attacked the character and worth of the rusher. Alleged rusher – I don’t know that she was really rushing.

I like that they are not afraid to sweat. A third floor walk-up means sweat. Learn to love it.

I like that they know instinctively when to obey the orange hand forbidding you to cross a street and when you can ignore it; and it isn’t as simple as ‘are there any cars actually coming?’. There’s more to it than that, I just don’t know what.

I love pondering the difficulty of “Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted in the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10. Drinking morning coffee to the sound of the rush and attempting to be still and pray must be the challenge of living here.

I love the crammed subway cars. When despairing over the divisive nature of our country, one just needs to go ride the subway and be jammed up against a polite Sikh, two Romanians, a shy Asian student, Irving who just got off work at the garage, and sexy Sandra whose skin is dark but her hair is not.

Tile mosaic at our 110th St. sub stop. People are amazing. Art with tile. The chains on the hanging weight scale and the color variations in the avocado were cause for pause and admiration.

World Trade Center One – look how it reflects the clouds and almost disappears. The sculptured building beneath it by Santiago Calatrava evokes a bird’s wings taking flight. It is designed so that on September 11 sunlight floods the interior. Again, people are amazing.

Memorial pool in the footprint of the tower. Andrew and I had interesting conversation about the nature of memorials, what they intend, what they achieve. The names were sobering.

Cracking the code. How to find the uptown 6 train?? Well, let’s just walk to Chinatown.

And on the way we saw a little city drama. Mayor Bill de Blasio leaving City Hall after announcing the ‘resignation’ or ‘stepping down’ or something of the police commissioner. . . .

. . .to the heckling of a pitiful little group of protesters singing ‘nah, nah, nah, nah, goodbye’, exercising their first amendment rights and being protected by New York City’s finest. I love America!