Our latest adventures have taken us right to the heart of Manhattan and our co-op on W. 45th between 8th and 9th. After being away from the city for too long, it’s great to be in the heart of the theatre district, two blocks from Times Square and only minutes away from the best pizza on earth. Don’t let anyone fool you. If it wasn’t made in New York, it is not New York pizza! Oh, how I missed the pizza.
Our stay here isn’t all fun and games. The main purpose is to update our apartment. We really haven’t done anything to it since Cindy first snatched it up over 21 years ago. We’ve also had the same tenant for the last six years and, as delightful as she was, it was time for a change. The kitchen will get a complete makeover. The original 1923 oak floor will be brought back to its original luster. And we’ll check off that ever-growing list of little things that need to be addressed - new lighting, hole spackling, painting.....
But since we’re staying in our place for the majority of the renovations (Hey, it’s New York. Do you know what hotel prices are like at the height of the tourist season?), we’re living on just the basics. Think of camping, but eight floors up, between four tiny walls. We have everything we really need -- bed, mini-frig, stove, bathroom and shower. But one thing we decided we could do without was a TV. For the few weeks we’ll be here, we didn’t consider it a necessity.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
After all, this is Manhattan. If you want entertainment, go for a walk. In our few short days here, we’ve spotted Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude at an art opening, still dapper Mayor Dinkins crossing 42nd St., 30 Rock’s Jack McBrayer (Kenneth the page) and Broadway’s (and Frasier’s) Bebe Neuwirth on our block, as well as Edward Hibbert (who actually lives in our building).
Times Square has been turned into a pedestrian plaza. Broadway has been blocked off between 42nd and 47th St. The streets have been covered with gravel, and filled with table and chairs. As you sit in the middle of it, you’ll hear every language imaginable -- many you’ve never heard before. It’s a people watching paradise.
Definitely the most radical addition to the area are the giant red stadium bleachers (seats heated in the winter) that fill the north side of Duffy Square just below 47th Street. I dare you to not laugh when you first see them. It’s like a section of a football stadium got lost in Midtown Manhattan! But, day and night, they are packed. Of course, we had to see what the fuss was for ourselves. And, damn, the climb to the top of the structure is actually worth it. The image is amazing -- pedestrians as far as the eye can see melting into the endless array of flashing lights and neon that drew them there in the first place. If you put the term “photo op” in the dictionary, this is what should accompany it.
And then there’s the New Yorkers themselves. You can’t help but walk down the street and overhear something that’ll make you smile. Like the guy on his cell phone warning his friend, “get your ass off the sofa, I’m coming ‘o-va.’” Or the smoker irked because someone tried to bum a cigarette off him. “I told him, ‘Why don’t ya break down and buy a pack.”’ And then there was the duo in the supermarket, flustered over their search for mayonnaise. “Why am I always the one who has to do these things? Why can’t you take some responsibility for once?” Most recently, it was the reluctant Romeo. “She’ll just have to call today so I can tell her I don’t know her first name and I don’t know her last name.” Remember to insert the heavy New York accent when reading all of the above.
But as much fun as the streets of New York are, it is always nice to relax for a while when we do get back to base camp. And even though we don’t have a TV, we are far from programming deprived. We brought along the laptop, and traded the Time Warner Cable box for DSL. Lo and behold, there’s not much we want to watch that can’t be found through a quick Google search.
We’re big news junkies, so the national news is a priority. We usually tune into Charlie Gibson at home, but are disappointed to find that ABC often drags its ass when it comes to getting its nightly newscast onto its site. Not a problem at NBC. So, we’re hanging with Brian Williams.
We also like a little comedy with our commentary and it hasn’t been a problem keeping up with The Daily Show and Countdown with Keith Olbermann on the Comedy Central and MSNBC sites.
Our favorite summer shows are The Closer and In Plain Sight. Thanks to TNT and USA, we’re catching the episodes we’ve missed in the last couple of weeks. We expect to do the same with Leverage, Monk and Raising the Bar soon.
All are easily accessible with the caveat that they’re all accompanied by commercials. I don’t mind. Each break is just one advertisement a few seconds long -- a breeze compared to the endless spots found on a regular broadcast. And, as they’re helping bring me these shows, it’s a small price to pay. So, I salute you Quiznos, Applebee’s, State Farm, Bank of America, Crest and all those doing this. I just wish you didn’t have to keep playing the same 30 seconds over and over again.
I also have a request for the network web guys. Could you make the uploads a little louder? Ironically, the commercials seem the softest on the web. But, we really are having a hard time hearing the dialogue on the episodics. We’re solving the problem with a set of earplugs -- I get the left, Cindy gets the right. But it would be so much more comfortable to watch without them.
Yeah, I miss channel surfing, but overall the only real bummer has been baseball. It would be nice to catch a few innings of a Dodger game now and then. When I tried to do this last Friday, I found out that the only way I can watch or even listen to a Dodger game is through MLB.com. It’s got a lock on both the web-based TV and radio broadcasts. Trouble is, MLB wants me to pony up for either a monthly or yearly subscription. I’m afraid its web model doesn’t fit a freewheeling lifestyle. Oh, and there’s advertising too.
But other than that, we’re thrilled we can do this. When television replays first hit the web, we wondered who would watch television on a computer. Now we know. And we also know that no matter where our adventures take us, as long as we can find a DSL hook up, Brenda, Mary, Monk and Jon Stewart won’t be far behind.
