It was by the skin of our teeth and not much more that we (mother and I) made the 7:55 train to New York City this morning. Our cab picked us up at 7:41, and dropped us at the station at 7:50. “Do you think we’ll make it?” we asked the man at the ticket counter. “Ehh…,” He looked at the clock. 7:53-ish. “Yeah, you should,” he said. We scurried down the stairs to the long, gleaming metal corridor that leads to the platforms. My mother looked at me. “Trot?” she suggested. We hurried back up the stairs to the platform, and hopped of the still-waiting train, just a minute before the doors closed.
New York city, urban canyonland that it is, was cold this morning. We wore leather gloves and walked quickly up 5th Avenue towards St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where we hoped to catch a mass. It’s an immense cathedral—there must have been a thousand people at mass. It was being broadcasted on television and on the radio, and I wondered if Aunt Mela was watching.
At the end of the mass, we were informed that we would have to use the side doors to exit, as there was a parade on 5th. It was the Veteran’s Day parade, being led by ranks of motorcyclists, flags waving, hogs growling. We caught the metro to 28th Street (and on our way to the metro stop passed a smiling man on the sidewalk. We both paused in our strides, brows furrowed. “Was that Mark Wahlberg?” I said. It was), where the parade continued, now in the form of row upon row of National Guardsmen, the Navy marching Band, and myriad high school ROTC troops. Behind us, in the Madison Square dog run, sweatered dogs yipped at each other.
We continued down 5th until it turned into Broadway, down to Union Square, where we had lunch at Whole Foods. The Union Square Whole Foods is a marvel of compact efficiency. Instead of expanding outward—horizontally, that it—as those of us who live where there’s actually open space would expect, it extends vertically, including the main level, with the bakery and deli and hot-food and salad bar (very good selection in these latter two—my mother had turkey, cranberry sauce, and salad, I had falafel and hummus, the same salad as she [pear-frisee-radicchio-feta] and pumpkin risotto), the basement, with all the actual groceries, and an upper level, with a coffee bar, juice bar, and sitting area. This sitting area affords quite a nice view of Union Square. We sat up there for a good while with our hot-bar lunches and out hot beverages to catch our breath.
The sun slanted westward early. We exited Whole Foods, and meandered through the art market—good Christmas presents. There were some wonderful things—photographs and hand-printed t-shirts and origami jewelry. It was quite cold, and when we were done at the art market we headed down into the subway to go to the Brooklyn Bridge. From there it was back to Grand Central. Our train left at 5:07, and by the time we emerged from underground, it was completely dark—I didn’t even notice we were above ground.
That was about all the NYC I can take at once. It’s certainly a hell of a lot of fun, but a lot of other extraneous things too—noise, smells, crowds, concrete. Country mouse that I am (my suitemates like to remind me that, at 70,000 people, Santa Fe does not count as a real city), it’s exhausting for me. In small doses, though, it’s great. We ended the day with wonderful and exotic (tune-goat cheese-cranberry) sushi at Miya’s here in New Haven.
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