NEW YORK FOR THREE MORE DAYS

Tuesday we decided to go to daily Mass at The Church of St. Agnes. It's more of a neighborhood church than St. Patrick's. There were about 20 people there for the 12:40 Mass.

Beautiful Altar.

 We decided go to TKTS a little later than usual. I had several good reasons for this.

1. Monday was a long day.
2. We have tickets from Monday's show so we can "Fast Pass" to the head of the line.
3. Historically, Box Office managers don't always send their best tickets first. TKTS opens at 2 or 3 for evening shows. Many times the really good seats don't get there until 5 or even 5:30.

So the three of us walked across town around 5 o'clock. GIANT MISTAKE !  I guess I'd never done this during Spring Break. They only had 3 seats together for two shows, neither of which excited us. The ones we wanted to see bad enough to sit separately only had obstructed view seats.

Well, if no theater tonight, we'll have dinner instead. There is a new Junior's on Broadway just 4 blocks north of the old one. It was jammed. 20 minute wait. The food was as good as always.

Carol had the Bacon Cheeseburger with Fries and Onion Rings.

I had a Pastrami on Rye.

Andrew had the 20 oz Sirloin. Carol and I were looking forward to the leftovers to have Steak and Eggs for breakfast. Didn't happen. He didn't like the veggies, but the rest of the plate was clean when he was done.

Carol and I each took half of ours back to the unit.

The service was terrible. Which is unusual for Junior's.  The food came fairly quickly but our waitress never checked on us again. We saw her but she was always running and spent a lot of her time at the far end of the restaurant. She appeared to have a station that covered half the floor. We overheard people complaining all around us. When we finally got our waitress to bring our bill I asked who was responsible for scheduling tables because it looked like hers were scattered all over the place. She said that most of the staff was new by Junior's standards. And they were jammed because of  Spring Break. And two people had called in sick. They were covering as best they could.
Many of  you know that my son, Adam is a restaurant manager. After watching and talking with him I said that if I had his job, after 30 days the only question would be, were all the homicides I was accused of customers, staff or a combination. Our waitress and the manager we saw getting yelled at kept their cool the whole time and just kept going.

We headed back to the East Side early with plans to do things differently tomorrow.

NEW YORK --- SPRING BREAK BUT NOT SPRING !

When we left Salem last Saturday, Accuweather's forecast for Monday in Manhattan was "low 40's to mid 50's and sunny. SO we bought tickets to two tours of the Tenement Museum.  One was an indoor tour and one was a walking tour of the Lower East Side. Last March my daughter-in-law had treated us to a tour and we really enjoyed it. We had walked from East 45th St to Orchard St and decided since the weather would be nice we'd do that again.

But the weather was not quite as forecast. Actual conditions were mid-30's and 5 1/2 inches of snow. So we took the 6 train to Spring Street and walked the few blocks to Orchard St. God was still watching over us BIG TIME. We both clearly remembered tour times of 11:30 and 1:30. As usual we left ourselves plenty of time and the snow doesn't slow down the subways so we got to the Museum at 10:50. Our first tour was at 11:00. It was a new tour, "Under One Roof" which describes the lives of families that lived in the apartment from the late 1940's through the 1970's. Take some time viewing the virtual tour at the link. It was fascinating to us how similar the stories were even though the families were Polish Jews, Puerto Ricans and Chinese from Hong Kong. Fathers and/or mothers working long hard hours to make a better life for their children. "Day Care" even in the 1960's for the kids of garment workers was to play hide and seek in the factory. Which included hiding from the Health and Safety Inspectors.

We had an hour between tours so we walked up to Houston (That's pronounced "house ton" in NY.) to Yonah Schimmel Knish shop, which opened in 1910.  It is wonderful to be able to take my new family to places Mary Ann and I went in the 1960's and find them virtually unchanged. OK, they take credit cards now and the prices are certainly different but most everything else is the same. Well, they have added a few things to the menu. Like Jalapeno and Mozzarella knish. Andrew and I stuck with potato and Carol had a Blueberry Cheese.







I realized I'd made a mistake as soon as they were set on the table. This was Andrew's first taste of a knish. Which means I'll never be able to convince him to eat one from a vendor's cart.

The second tour was "Buildings on the Lower East Side." By 1:30 the snow had stopped, most sidewalks had been shoveled but it was still windy and cold. We signed up expecting a tour telling us about the architecture and how it changed over the years  It was that but so much more. Our guide spent a great deal of time with us discussing how changes in the population, societal ideals, political changes and the times in general directly affected the design of the buildings - both then and now. We would highly recommend any of the Tenement Museum tours but this one was especially interesting.

I had kvetched to one of the hostesses at our timeshare that we couldn't find kielbasa or pierogies. She gave me the address of a Ukrainian place and apologized because it was so far away, "Way down on the Lower East Side". Which is precisely where we were going the next day. So after the tours, we walked about ten blocks to find a sign that said, "We are sorry for the inconvenience. We are closed today because of a plumbing problem." As we stood on the street feeling sorry for ourselves, two different people stopped to tell us that Little Poland was two blocks north. Although it's new by Lower East Side standards - it opened in 1985, the entire staff spoke with a Polish accent and the food was totally authentic. AND thank you Tinkerbell, it's the last Polish restaurant in Manhattan. Which we would not have found except for two strangers stopping on the street to help us. We ordered two platters for the three of us and it filled us up and we had leftovers to bring back to the unit.    Directly from the menu  -

Combination Platter     19.50
Four Pierogis, One Stuffed Cabbage, Kielbasy, & Bigos

Polish Platter     19.50
Four Pierogis, Two Potato Pancakes, One Blintze

Monday is traditionally dark on Broadway but we went to the TKTS Booth to check things out. Got three tickets to The Perfect Crime.   A wonderful who-dun-it with Catherine Russell in the lead. Which she has been playing for 31 years. Yes, THIRTY ONE YEARS. 

Tomorrow is rest during the day and theater in the evening.

NEW YORK CITY --- SPRING BREAK

After WONDERFUL Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services in our newly renovated Our Lady of Nazareth church we took AMTRAK from Roanoke to Manhattan on Saturday. For the first time in several years, Andrew was with us. Oh, I forgot - some of you may not know that Carol's son Andrew moved back to us after 5 years of living with his father.  More about that some other day. For now I'll just say that we are SO HAPPY to have him back where he belongs. Anyway, he's 16 and not easily impressed but did admit that the taxi ride from Penn Station to our timeshare at 225 E 45th St. got his attention. To quote his impression of the ride, "He had a close call every time he moved."

Our regular routine has been to settle into the apartment and go to The Amish Market, our favorite neighborhood market from past trips. Surfing the net while riding on the train I found current reviews that said that it must have changed hands or something. Same good food, but double the prices. A little research found a Trader Joe's about 13 blocks south. Only a legend to us - we had never been to one. WOW - really fresh, pretty good selection and prices right out of our Kroger's in Roanoke ! Who wudda thunk it ? But NO Keilbasa OR Pierogies. Really? In Manhattan? Oh well, we've got a week to find them.

Sunday meant Easter Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, celebrated by His Eminence, Timothy Cardinal Dolan. There were 6 Masses but only one, 10:15 had the full choir. It is so popular that there is a lottery for tickets. Carol put her name in for two tickets since that was the maximum. Since there were only three of us, in a moment of brain fart, I put my name in for one. As soon as I had hit "Enter" Carol pointed out that one ticket would be pretty useless, if I won, who would go? If I'd put in for two, like she did, at least she and I could go - Mass not being at the top of Andrew's NYC bucket list. For two weeks I listened to Carol tell our friends how stupid I was. Until we received notice that we BOTH had won. So we had three tickets, just like we needed. Just the first Tinkerbell experience but we KNOW there will be more. Mass was amazing. The 7855 pipe organ, although impressive, was too loud so we really didn't hear the choir. It was a moving experience anyway. Cardinal Dolan's homily was centered on Michael Davidson NYFD a 37 year old firefighter who lost his life on Thursday.

REMINDER - If you "click" a picture, it will appear full sized in a new window.

After Mass we walked across town to the TKTS booth. Got tickets to the matinee of Avenue Q and continued on to Junior's for a "snack" - just a hot chocolate and a piece of Cheesecake. I'm pretty sure it's against the law to go to NYC and not eat at Junior's at least once. When we were here last year with Tom, Ann, Sarah and Ben they were raving about a new Junior's item -- The New Yorker Cake Shake, a strawberry "Crazy Shake"—the parlance they use to describe...stuff like this—rimmed with vanilla frosting and graham crackers and capped off with a slice of Junior's Strawberry Cheesecake and a huge dollop of whipped cream. At 2000+ calories, not an every day event for a heart attack survivor but we ARE in NYC. Unfortunately it had been a three day special and we missed out. When we opened the menu this time - there it was - the waitress told us it had been so popular that they had put it on the menu AND they also had a Black and White shake with a piece of brownie topped chocolate/regular layered cheesecake on it. 

We drank our milkshakes, put the cheesecake in boxes and headed to New World Stage  to see Avenue Q. The last time we were in NYC with both kids, Andrew was too young for Avenue Q so he and I went to Million Dollar Quartet while Emily and Carol went to Avenue Q. Both shows were in the same building. If you click on the "New World Stage" link a few sentences back you will learn about this unique space that has 5 stages. It typically gets shows after they've been a success on Broadway but are now drawing smaller audiences. Like Jersey Boys that Carol and I saw on Broadway last year. By moving to a 200 - 500 seat theater, a show can get its life extended - sometimes for years.

The show was hilarious and thought provoking. At the end of the show the actors came on stage and asked for donations for a charity benefiting actors and other theater workers. While we considered how much to give they took some cheap shots at Trump. We learned that when Bush was President, they used the same lines on him. And when Obama was President, they used the same lines - on Bush. We don't know how much money they get from the folks they are playing to - seems to me those people usually just tell others how to spend their money. Just sayin'.  Bless their little hearts.

The evening ended with a quiet walk back to the East Side. Tomorrow we take two tours at the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side.