Urban Fix

Last week we visited New York City for the first time since February 2020. The pandemic hit, life intervened and before we knew it, five years had gone by without our annual fix of the city.

We’ve been in love with NYC since we walked out of the double doors at JFK airport, 44 years ago. In the meantime, the ingenuity, chaos, people, buildings, food and street scenes have remained just as enthralling. To be honest, the sporadic homelessness and the suffocating odor overwhelm the senses and frustrate us that even a city with a 100B budget cannot find solutions.

Despite that, NYC makes us believe that it has a soul: a mix of happy and dark, blessings and turmoil, wealth and poverty, concrete and greenery, entrepreneurs and worker bees, number crunchers and creatives pushed along by an unending army of adventurers enjoying the rhythms of the city and withstanding a constant degree of the unknown.

Manhattan holds a special place in my heart because of my brother. He knew the borough inside out and backwards. If I asked him how to get from midtown to SoHo, he’d tell me to walk on Broadway to the Flatiron building and past Union Square. And he would also tell me where to drink, eat and shop for gadgets on the way. The first time he came to the city, he walked everywhere to commit the nooks and corners to memory. For a variety of personal and professional reasons, he wasn’t able to visit the US for many years and then he came for Neil’s wedding in 2017. He landed in JFK per routine and we met him in Manhattan. He walked the known routes, went to his old haunts and took in the city like a dry sponge. We planned future trips, Broadway shows and visits to restaurants, but the universe had different plans for him. Every step I take in the city is infused with these memories and gratitude that we spent time here together on his last trip.

We stayed just south of Central Park with plans for long walks along Fifth Avenue, Avenue of the Americas and Broadway but that was not in the cards. We hit NYC on the hottest day of the year. Temperatures soared to 102F and delivered a scorcher that broke a 137-year record. Still, being out even for a bit to soak in the sights and sounds was soul soothing.

We walked a couple of blocks from the hotel, turned on to Fifth and felt a blast of oppressive heat like in the tropics at the height of summer. For fear of dehydration, we pivoted into Bergdorf Goodman with a confident we-are-here-to-shop look, but it was really the air conditioning we were after. We couldn’t walk around in peace inside the store without having smartly dressed sales people pursuing us with perfumes and whatnot. I tried not make eye contact as I cooled, but Tarun was snared. Thirty minutes later he walked out with a pair of sunglasses. New York will do that to you.

For dinner, we made our way to a Mediterranean restaurant on 60th between Fifth and Madison. The cocktail and food were just what we needed. As we walked back to the hotel past Central Park, we reminisced about the people and places we know - lifelong friends, wonderful clients and their offices, restaurants, bars shops and hotels. Even though the horses were absent in the heat, their oddly familiar smell hung in the air radiating off 59th Street.

In the evening, we went to the Palace Theater to catch David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross with Succession’s Kieran Culkin and Breaking Bad’s Bob Odenkirk. The architecture of the historic theater and the magic of the play were well worth it. When we exited the theater at 10pm, the weather had cooled to a balmy 95 degrees!

We walked to Times Square, around the corner from the theater. The humongous LCD panels on the facades of buildings bathed the packed square in neon colors. From a street vendor, we bought a bottle of water which had a broken seal and warm water. For three bucks. There you go, New York in full bloom. Anybody can make a living selling anything here!

We stayed at the historic Warwick Hotel. Built in 1925-27, this was home to Cary Grant for 12 years. The Beatles stayed at the hotel during their 1965 and ‘66 tours and Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and Elvis Presley were regulars. I got goosebumps thinking Cary Grant rode the same elevators we were in. The results of the NYC mayoral primary election results were coming in as we turned in for the night. I don’t know much about him but raise your hand if you love his mother’s movies.

The next morning we woke up to a piping hot day. That didn’t stop us from our ritual walk in Central Park. To think the city planners had the foresight to create and protect this stunning bit of greenery in the midst of a concrete jungle continues to boggle my mind. Without this man-made (no kidding!) park, I have no doubt that this area would have had buildings reaching into the sky. At the same time, I never forget that the park sits on what was once Seneca Village (see post here), home to a Black community forcibly displaced in the transformation of their land to this park.

From a scorcher of a day, I hope we don’t get to scorched earth with conflict between the Feds and the City. I left the city with trepidation of civil unrest and National Guards on the streets. The next mayor will be the CEO of a resource-rich corporation with 8.5M constituents. He will have his hands full.

I have faith that this vibrant and thriving city will handle whatever is in its future. It has withstood more trauma than any other city in the country, shelters millions, stands as a beacon of tolerance and assimilation, keeps the financial sector chugging, gives life to creatives of all kinds, sustains itself as a foodie’s paradise and a shopper’s mecca. There is no doubt that we will be back here sooner than later.

Torrid summer or not, we thoroughly enjoyed our urban fix of pink and every other shade.