Broadway Bound

Midtown.  Plus: Close to everything.  Minus: Close to everything.

Think of the Tony.  Tony, Tony, Tony, Tony.... 

Friday night we had tickets to Roundabout’s The Big Knife.  This is an old Clifford Odets play about a Hollywood star coming to grips with commercialism, selling-out, integrity, etc.  Big cast, stunning set, great to see the orchestra packed for a play (as opposed to a musical).

Cannavale with Ireland.  And that's how he treats his wife

For convenience, as well as budget, we took a pre-theatre prix fixe menu at an intimate local restaurant called Silhouette; with tax and tip it turned out to be the most expensive meal of our holiday.  Thank you NYC!  But that’s the thing about staying in midtown: You are trapped with the hordes of tourists also staying in midtown, and since you’re bound up with all these out-of-towners everyone gets dragged into the expense together.  At least downtown you have some choice, variety and less exp options.  At Silhouette the couple next to us were regulars, with a friend in from California.  They had brought their own wine, which they waxed poetic about, talked boisterously about staying at the Ritz Carlton, and for some reason went on and on about how great Cleveland is.  You live in NYC and you long for Cleveland?

Richard Kind.  More impressive in a suit.

Odets play stars Bobby Cannavale, who in turn plays the hearthrob star; I guess he’s best known for Nurse Jackie, Boardwalk Empire, etc., but he’s an accomplished stage actor, had a running gig on Will and Grace and was in a quirky and forgettable indie called the Station Agent.  His wife was played by Marin Ireland, currently known for Homeland.  I guess they were the draw, but the supporting cast were the scene stealers, especially Richard Kind, who dominated the set with amazing precision (he has been around forever and aside from a voice in many Pixar movies was a regular on Spin City and Mad About You).   The star’s agent was also especially good; his career spanned back to, wait for it, Love American Style and even the short-lived Tony Randall sitcom Love, Sidney.   If there is a problem with the play it’s that the language is of a time and place; characters say lines that would be uncommon or implausible today.  They react in a way that is stagey, driven by the script.  Of course the story is quite brilliant and I was totally captivated, but when you compare it with, say, David Mamet at his best, it’s like an old car with a wind up crank versus one with an electric starter.  The set, a Beverly Hills mansion in the 1930s, was breathtaking.  We didn’t stand, but most did.  People stand so much now I’m never sure what a SO-performance is and what isn’t.

From the 1949 version

Saturday morning was sunny and clear.  How beautiful.  But it was also NYC spring: A nippy seven degrees.  We decided to have an actual breakfast out since we were scheduled for a matinee then a cab to the airport for a night flight.  Again, being bound to midtown we went to the (highly recommended and very popular) Norma at Le Parker Meridian.  SS had eggs Florentine.  I had eggs Benedict.  We both had a coffee.  That was it; two dishes, two coffees.  The bill was, wait for it, $74.  And the place was jammed with groups and young people and families, all paying $23 for bacon and eggs and $7 for coffee.  For the whole trip, whenever breakfast wasn’t included at our hotel, our breakfast budget was under $10.  Sticker shock.  Afterwards we walked up to Central Park, then back down Fifth Avenue, then to the hotel to pack and check out.  SS saw Anderson Cooper going into the Harvard Club, down the street from our hotel; our one celebrity sighting.

Scribner's on Fifth.  Once upon a time the best bookstore in the city.  Now a perfume counter.

Lyceum on 45th.  The play's the thing since 1903.

After a late checkout, left our bags at the hotel and walked a few blocks west for the afternoon matinee of The Nance, starring Nathan Lane, probably most famous on Broadway, or in the stage and film versions of The Producers, but always worth catching on Letterman.  A preview, opening next week.  Three months ago I’d tried to get tickets and there was nothing but the second balcony.  Yesterday we went into the Lyceum box office and voila, two tickets in the orchestra.  Ka-ching.

Liza With a Z; at the Lyceum in '72

Mock-up of John Lee Beatty's rotating set

Every seat was taken.  Packed out.  Neither of us had ever been to the Lyceum, the oldest continuously operating theatre in NYC (since 1903).  It’s quite a place; superb acoustics, great sightlines, but it’s also got small common areas and the perpetual issue with not enough facilities and women queuing for the toilet.  Since I wasn’t permitted to shoot photos, I’ve uploaded a few from the Net.

Nathan Lane and Lewis J Stadlen (Jerry in Serpico for those who remember)

The Nance is about the end of burlesque in NYC as LaGuardia, in a re-election gambit as mayor, used his license commisioner Paul Moss (sort of a Ray Cohn / Joe McCarthy similarity), to “clean up” the striptease acts. In real life, the Minsky's, which more or less owned burlesque, were outlawed as indecent. Lane plays a character who does a pansy routine in between the striptease segments.  It was one of those very specific focussed star vehicles that, with Lane in the lead, was funny and moving and engaging in fits and starts, and Lane was pitch perfect, but you couldn’t see it any other way.  Like how Hairspray was hysterical with Harvey Fierstein on stage and then John Travolta was this maudlin lump in the movie.  Again, an exceptional set design, an actual band, great supporting cast. 

Rake on the balcony, not shown, like Valparaiso

Oriiginally

It was cloudier afterward but still pleasant.  Back to the hotel, picked up our bags, and taxied to JFK.  Although such a short visit, it felt much longer.  Hope we’re back before another 15 or more years go by...

A Face in the Crowd

It never feels like NYC until you see the ESB

Gateway to one of the greatest avenues in the world; it's always a bit of a thrill to walk from Washington Sq to Central Park down Fifth

Where you went before Amazon

Getting newer

Despite the fact that we were both hugely fatigued, we had arrived in NYC and as such left our bags and embarked on a trek immediately.  We took the subway downtown, then walked the West Village, Greenwich Village, and took lunch in a nice French bistro.  Afterwards over towards NYU, Washington Square, Union Square, and all the way up Fifth Avenue to midtown.  I think at least a 12 km walk.  I was more than ready for a siesta.

For dinner we took the subway down to the East Village.  I remember the EV in 1981 being a haunted house; it was riddled with graffiti and drug addicts and you never knew what you would encounter around the next corner.  It was actually terrifying on the dimly lit side-streets after dark.  Now it’s rather tame.  We went to Calliope, a place we’d read about in the New Yorker, on East 4^th north of Houston.  We didn’t have a reservation and they were booked but they gave us a place at the bar.  We got there early, around seven (two hours earlier than south American dinner time!) and the place packed out fast.  By eight every table was booked, there were people waiting, and it was two deep at the bar.  Incredible dinner: A lovely salad to start, gorgeous poached halibut in beurre blanc, a spectacular rabbit stuffed with leeks, carrot and wrapped in bacon on a lentil stew, and a rhubarb tart to finish.  Amazing.  I told the chef he should serve the rabbit dish with a straw.

Exquisite: Rabbit stuffed with carrot and leek, wrapped in bacon, on a lentil stew

Halibut poached in beurre blanc

Although we both could have crashed then and there NYC is too exciting to give in, so we took the subway back to midtown then walked in and around Times Square before returning to the hotel.

Lights on Broadway

Up early and out the door Friday and it was, yes, raining.  Not sprinkling, good old fashioned Vancouver pouring rain.  With wind.  Any remnant of my tan peeled off immediately.  We decided given the weather to visit the MOMA; it's been about 20 years since I was there and of course it's had a complete reno.  We arrived to find every tourist in midtown was doing the same.  We lined up, and lined up, and lined up.

Line-up, from halfway down the block in the rain, to buy tickets to get in

Mandatory coat-check line; I put my hotel umbrella in a public box and hoped for the best

Line up for the cafe

Lining up to look at, and take a picture of, Starry Night

Brown Thrasher with its young; photo from 1941

Inspiration to many

Inspiration to many

The Jackson Pollock no one was looking at

Model for a pavillion in Seville

Rem Koolhaas' (author of Delirious New York, the most stolen book at U of T in the 1980s) design for a Dutch house

1937 photo of a Northumbrian miner taking dinner

Dots.  From a distance they made the shape of a face.  Art, as Warhol said, is what you can get away with.

We were just there.

After the museum and lunch we popped into the Bloomingdale's flagship on Lexington and 59th then went downtown to window shop.  The rain had turned to a sprinkle, so all was not lost.

Just what I was looking for

Hard to decipher, but it is a puppy Collie in a pet shop window, asleep on paper shreds.  And you would have bought it on the spot.

Chess shop.

James Bond chess set

I saw it in Buenos Aires: I said buy low, sell high

The C in ABC Carpets: Chickalicious

Laboratory Kitchen (my idea in 1987...)

Un-parallel parking

Purse. Keyboard. Multifunctional.

I kid you not: These were in the men's department at Bloomingdale's.

SCL to LIM LanPeru J Class & LIM to JFK LanPeru J Class

The W has a noon checkout.  Sweet.  We had a relaxing morning, coffee out, packed, and checked out just before noon.  Spent a lazy afternoon on the roof by the pool, had a sandwich, swam laps, read.  One other guy came up for an hour and at lunch three business men had a sandwich.  Otherwise it was bliss (except perhaps for the unexpurgated seven CD collection of the career of Florence and the Machine which the pool boy played for his amusement).

Took a private cab to the airport; depending on the time of day, if freeway traffic is light, the trip from Santiago centre to the airport is only half an hour.  Although the airport is a zoo, if you’re travelling business there is a separate business check in area by door six.  Totally removed and distinct, not just a different queue; how civilized.  It is sane and organized.  Then, there is a private immigration counter for premium passengers.  So a moment of sanity.  Then, however, there is the lounge.  There are two in SCL and we should have gone to the partner airline lounge but we didn’t, we went to the LAN lounge, and it had its drawbacks.

The packed out LAN lounge, SCL; partner lounge was nicer.

As a space, it’s small and cramped, even if lightly used.  The air is stale.  There aren’t very many power outlets.  But lots of pluses too: The food is pretty good, as lounges go, with sushi, fresh fruit salad, cheeses and meats, mini sandwiches, even Hagen Dazs ice cream.  For the boozers there are three reds, two whites and actual French champagne.  Air Canada only has club soda and LAN has mineral water both still and sparkling.  The WiFi connection was excellent.  So all around still better than the departure lounge.

We headed out to the gate for 8:40, although the flight was running late.  Finally we boarded, on time, but by the time we left the gate and were taxiing for takeoff we were half an hour late.  That wouldn’t have mattered to us except we were connecting in Lima for the NYC flight. You can of course fly direct from SCL to JFK, but not necessarily on points and of course this was all about points.  They were serving an “express” dinner on this flight (3.45 hours).  The choices were beef, conger eel (seriously), or pasta.  SS took the beef, I took the pasta, neither was particularly  good.  We watched some movies while most slept, and arrived (thankfully) only about 10 minutes late.

Newish Boeing737, 2-2-2 config in biz; comfy

the "beef" dinner

the pasta dinner...

We had lucked out when we booked this flight, x months ago.  We were originally on a day flight which would have given us three nights in NYC.  We were, it turns out, booked on a Dreamliner, but as we all know the Dreamliners suffered an FAA setback, and we were bumped to a night flight, Santiago to Lima, then Lima to JFK.  At Lima we arrived with an hour before departure.  There was security then, for whatever reason, more security at the gate.  Then the plane was late.  But we embarked and it took off and I guess that’s all that matters.

All the Boeings we’d flown so far were quite modern; the final LAN Peru  leg wasn’t.  It was an older aircraft, the legroom and seat width not comparable to the newer aircraft.  It was as though this was the aircraft LAN  was ready to retire, and maybe had to bring out of retirement until the Dreamliners got the OK. 

Time for retirement LAN

If you wanted to eat, there was a snack available after takeoff (salad, quiche, key lime pie) but SS and I opted to sleep.  Flat yes, not as solid as Air Canada, but with a very comfy duvet.  I got about 5.5 hours and SS about 4 hours uninterrupted sleep.  The vanity bag was Salvatore Ferragamo; definitely better than AC.  Breakfast was either “full” or continental; both of us chose the latter.  It came with, and I quote, "Juan Valdez instant coffee."

On arrival I figured out that Nexus passengers were eligible for the Global Entry system and we breezed through Immigration and Customs.  Got a cab (flat rate) to the city and, luckily, were able to check in early, before 10, at the Sofitel.

We stayed at the Sofitel in London a few years ago.  It was one of the best hotels ever, which we had scored on a deal.  The NYC version is not quite as posh or as fine, but it’s comfortable, central and peaceful for midtown.  Since we're only here for a few days it made sense to be in the thick of things, although downtown is my general preference.

Four walls and a window.

Nice towels, good water pressure, lots of hot water, Lanvin products.  Could be worse.

The NYC Yacht Club.  The Sofitel, W 44.  Not shown, the Iroquois and Algonquin, next door.