New York, I Love You — Tall Cities

Last night, I flew to New York to see some old friends.

I bypassed a front over Kansas and slipped under the radar in Ohio, caught a nice tailwind into JFK, no, it was Pier 54, where the Lusitania last sailed and the Titanic never showed – somewhere people go when they are looking for something. I landed safely with a smattering of gulls.

The air felt unseasonably warm for early April. Every New Yorker knows this day, when people emerge from their apartments like ants from a hill, spilling out in all directions, hungry for sunlight.

But I was alone.

I hugged the north side of 15th street, or the south side of Chelsea Market, awash with the smell of freshly pressed tortillas from Los Tacos No. 1. I found myself in front of my old apartment, the place I called home for a decade, including most of my 20’s. It was the second floor of a five-floor walk-up, with a live-in super who was missing half his teeth but kept the place immaculate. I remember the young couple with a blue-gray Weimaraner on the ground floor, a schizophrenic woman (who went on and off her meds) on the first floor, and a flamboyant artist with rotating roommates (wide-eyed, Broadway hopefuls) across from me. We lived in that rent-controlled establishment for all those years – we learned, and forgot, each other’s names.

I wondered if my walls (not mine anymore) are still tiffany blue (a decision I made, regrettably, at 22), and realizing I did not feel as sentimental about them as I thought I would, I bypassed the stoop for the tiny threshold of Terremoto Coffee. I’ve tried, and failed, to develop a sophisticated palette for “good” coffee or oat milk, or learning what a Cortado is (when did coffee become wine?). I have learned to appreciate tea.

I doubled back towards the heart of the Meatpacking District, where a salsa class normally congregates a stone’s throw from the Apple Store (such a stone would surely shatter the whole thing). I visited my old home from home, the monolithic Soho House, where I spent four years in the company of people much more talented and better looking than me. I love the smell of the old wood floors, the hum of low conversation when phones are out of commission, and the intense perfume of shishito peppers being slung by the dozen from the open kitchen.

I continued down Washington, where the buildings grow lower, with more character in their faces. I caught my reflection in the windows of the White Horse Tavern and hear Kerouac’s echo in the doorway,

Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever on the road.

I circled around to La Bonbonniere for crisp eggs and bacon and nigh a Cortado in sight (nor anything French, as the name might suggest). This is a cash only, order in, people out, kind of establishment. My toast collapsed, heavy with dark purple jelly (an unnatural violet), and I was forced to abandon the last fistful to the pigeons. I had places to go.

Around Washington Square Park, jazz settled into the air. I remember when you couldn’t walk here at night, when the idea itself was foolish. Now the arch watches all manner of family and pampered poodle, piano players, performers, and proposals. It is no surprise to me a generation of artists and writers were born here – all those colors and stories in a matter of inches, circling between people, a galaxy of lives intertwined. There is something so lovely about a park.

Jazz eventually gave way to the echo of acoustic guitars and the worn-out keyboards of Bleecker Street. I laugh to think I am immortalized there too (me!), in the company of Dylan, Mitchell, Taylor, Germanotta, and many, many more (no, you will not find my picture on any wall). I could smell beer outside The Bitter End and hear the chorus of Jessie’s Girl from Le Poisson Rouge. I was not drunk, but I was reminded of it, and embraced a slice of Artichoke Pizza - garlicky, creamy, slightly burnt, perfection. It was enormous and, after appearing, it was gone.

Further east, I greeted the Bowery. Half of New York’s history, and perhaps mine, lives here. I tried, and failed, to use a fake ID the last week CBGB’s was open (they let me in anyways). I saw a Talking Heads cover band and the world air guitar champion. A John Varvatos store lives there now. I wonder if Hilly Krystal’s ghost does, too, rent free.

I had a boyfriend that lived here just south of Houston, in a floor length apartment I dubbed ‘the graveyard’ – when I (finally) left, I found fistfuls of abandoned jewelry in every drawer, none of them mine. On that same corner years later, I would decide to forego a concert in Brooklyn and double back to my neighborhood to wait for friends at our usual spot. I ended up meeting my husband that night. New York has her own karmic humor.

My destination lived on the west side of Bowery, a dark doorway with the numbers ‘310’ burnished in gold above it. For most, nothing more than a sports bar, but for me, a place I could be utterly myself - somewhere I could sling Jameson from a hard wood stool and yell at faces on a screen who couldn’t see me in the company of people I loved. I sat there for hours, laughing until my body cramped and brimmed with cinnamon whiskey. As it always was, nothing outside of those four walls seemed to matter - everything was survivable. I placed my last empty glass on the corner of the bar and slipped out (the Irish way). The music followed me to the door,

Watched the sun fade in that big red sky

In my dreams, New York is just as I left her, but in my heart, I know she is not. I know she needs me now, and when this is over, I will do whatever I can for her. She gave me everything I have. I owe her that much.

Show me your city.

Is it alive like mine? Does it have a heart that beats inside you because you are its veins and its oxygen? Are you the tallest building in your city like me?

Can you see what the others cannot?

New York, I love you. I’ll see you tonight.