NYC part 1

ethoughts weekly- Issue 159

April 30, 2007

NYC part 1

Over the weekend I went with my husband and two friends to New York City. It’s easy to see why people in New York City think of their city as the capital of the world, if there could be such a thing.

Strangely enough, though, it’s poised for disaster, all those people, corporations, investments, and services on just one small island. I learned this odd fact: If you don’t buy “air rights” some one can build OVER and above your building. Up, up, up. That’s New York.

With such strange things like "air rights", you would expect far more problems than you actually experience. There are nuisance problems, but in so many ways, NYC runs seemingly well oiled. The infrastructure supports the organism that is the Big Apple.

We stayed with Tom in Brooklyn, a maintenance director, (read "one man show",) for seven buildings at Teen Challenge. Two of his buildings have to be kept up to historic specifications. He told us he can find anything in New York. He made no exceptions. Whatever is needed to fix any job, or restore any part, or item on any item in, or on any building, can be located in one of the five boroughs. What a fantastic statement. The rest of us count on Ebay, (read, hit or miss.)

We ate at Junior’s Most Fabulous Cheesecakes and Desserts, in Faltbush, established in 1950. Like many things, it’s open 24 hours a day. We went in after 10 p.m., and at 11p.m. folks were still ordering full meals. I ordered their most asked for variety, the chocolate moose cheesecake. It was a chocolate lover’s delight, which is the kind of gross understatement I could be arrested for in Hershey, Pa. I almost blacked out. I couldn’t hear for 30 seconds, pure euphoria.

Uptown in Manhattan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we saw the extensive newly finished, twelve-years-in-the-making, Greek and Roman exhibition. More than 5,000 works of art and artifacts were viewable, and truly awing. Some of the only surviving bronze sculpture of the ancient world is on display, as well as the only fully intact Etruscan chariot.The sculpture was particularly inspiring in the two-story atrium. The sunlight beamed down on the marble. Hellenistic statues resonated with lifelike presence, gods, and emperors alike.

Recently I was surprised to learn, the Greeks were on the edge of an industrial revolution. According to the History Channel, ancient Greek drawings have been found for a true viable steam combustion engine. Imagine no Medieval Period. The torching of the extensive ancient library in Hellenized Alexandria, Egypt, by invading Muslims, lost forever many of the sophisticated ideas, inventions, and genius that was the ancient Greek contribution to humanity. Who knows the cures to disease, the answers to questions, the historical accounts, the stories of old, the riddles that burned away forever in those flames. A few glances at the extraordinarily exquisite jewelry and metal work in the MET galleries, for one example, and you'll agree the Greeks were certainly a cut above kind of people group.

Times Square is another NYC marvel. When the sun gives way to dusk, the advertising glitter of the Square vies for the attention of each potential patron-- and you realize you are experiencing something one-of-a-kind. I remember the days when the Square was dangerous, a seedy and sordid underbelly. You wore black clothes to fit in, and you walked fast, and didn’t stay too long, because you could get mugged. Bums lined the corners, drug addicts asked for money. Peep shows and smut dotted the landscape. Now whole families smile, stroll, and shop, among fantastic tourist attractions, stores, and sites. Lots of things blink. Jumbo televisions offer at least five stations to view. Theatres coax visitors with building-size ads. Companies pitch all manner of products, in all kinds of ways, and every square inch of the Square is a visual cornucopia.

To be continued . . .

Lisa DeLay