Wednesday, September 15:
I woke up early (well, for me anyway) and padded around Julie's apartment in my caftan, gabbing away on various subjects. Eventually I kicked it into gear and got dressed for the day, and we took the subway to 96th Street, near
our hotel. (This particular hotel, by the way, proved to be the hospitality destination of choice for French tourists everywhere. I think we may well have been the only English-speaking party staying there all that week.)
I checked in, we went up the somewhat creaky elevator, looked around the room, pronounced it nifty. Julie had some school stuff to do and errands to run, not to mention a mom and sister to pick up later, so she took her leave.
Having several hours to kill, I did what any self-respecting pirate king would do in such circumstances: headed for open water.
I took the subway down to Lower Manhattan/Battery Park with the intent of catching a ferry to Ellis Island.
You must understand, before I continue, that I have on two other occasions tried to make it to Ellis Island, and failed both times. I had in fact begun to think of this particular voyage as "my doomed trip to Ellis Island," because I never seemed to manage to get there.
This time, though, I got smart. When we reached Liberty Island (here pictured: the wretched refuse of its teeming shore, all trying to get on board), I was not lured off the ferry by the promise of stamped copper coins and overpriced hot dogs, but stayed put instead.
And here's what I got for my trouble.
Behold! Proof positive that I finally made it!
Why was I so fired up to get to Ellis Island, you may ask?
I'll tell you.
Because on May 28, 1915, Catharina Witteveen, a slight, brown-haired, brown-eyed Dutch lady, came off the steamer
Rotterdam into this room. Hers was the very first information taken on the original ship's manifest, which perhaps suggests she was quite eager to be off the boat where she'd spent so many days in steerage. The immigration officer noted that she was 22 years old and single, had been born in Amsterdam, had $25 to her name, that she was going to Salt Lake City to stay with family members, that she was neither a polygamist nor an anarchist, was in good physical and mental health, and had paid for her own passage. She was my great-grandmother.
Some of this information I already knew, having gotten it from Grandma firsthand when I was young -- Grandma lived a long life and died a few months short of her 95th birthday -- but it's one thing to hear about these events, and another to stand in the place where they happened. And it is a remarkable place.
The tiled ceiling of the Registry Room. There are 28,282 cream-white tiles in the ceiling, placed there by the Guastavino Brothers, originally of Italy. There is perhaps no finer testament to their skill than this simple fact: when the room was renovated, only 17 of the ceiling tiles needed to be replaced.
There are two 48-star flags in the Registry Room, dating from the period when Ellis Island was in use.
Despite its historic status and its importance to many American families, whose relatives immigrated to the U.S. during the era when this was the primary processing facility for new immigrants, much of Ellis Island has fallen into disrepair. The buildings are in the process of being restored, outside and in.
This photo was taken from one of the upper floors of the Immigration Museum, looking across the island to the Medical Building, where scores of new immigrants with communicable diseases waited and received treatment until they were healthy enough to enter the U.S. The Medical Building has not yet been restored. If you look you can just see the Statue of Liberty on the left.
This turn-of-the-20th-century medical equipment was taken as-is from the Medical Building and is on display in the museum.
From all parts of Ellis Island you can see the mainland. It makes you wonder what it was like for immigrants who had to wait, sometimes for weeks, until they could come across. I imagine quite a few of them had trouble with being so close to and yet so far away from their goal. Here, a Registry Room view of Lower Manhattan (although obviously it didn't look anything like this when my grandma was here).
Not every emigrant who made it to Ellis Island was guaranteed to get to America. I saw this editorial cartoon from
Puck (depicting the scourge of cholera as brought in by immigrants) as a color lithograph at Ellis Island, but it didn't photograph too well. The caption at the bottom reads, "The kind of 'assisted emigrant' we can not afford to admit." The comment seems callous to modern eyes until you realize that there were no antibiotics then, and the only weapons to fight cholera were carbolic acid, chloride of lime and thymol (as shown in the illustration).
The United States regularly turned away people who had spent their life savings to come here because they were considered undesirable in some way; obviously, in my great-grandmother's time, polygamists and anarchists were unwelcome, but so were people with poor eyesight and those with certain types of communicable diseases. My grandmother remembered a band of Russian Jews who had come across on the
Rotterdam with her, who had literally sold everything they owned and who had walked across Europe to pay their passage on a ship to America. When they got to Ellis Island, it was determined that they were too ill (or too dirty, or who knows what else) to become Americans, and a red X was painted on their backs; they were then placed on a boat going back to Europe. Some were so despairing, having no home or family to go back to, that they threw themselves off the boat in an attempt to drown themselves in the harbor. Whenever my grandmother told this story, she would bristle with indignation at what had been done to them. "'Give me your tired, your poor,' but not your sick," she would say angrily.
When she saw certain would-be immigrants getting rejected, my great-grandmother was terrified she wouldn't be allowed into the United States. But she was fortunate enough to be accepted, to be reunited with her family, and to marry her sweetheart. And her descendants, including me, were therefore fortunate to be born in an amazing country.
Goodbye Ellis, hello Manhattan.
On the way back toward Battery Park we passed a boat full of happy tourists, all waving wildly at the ferry. So I took their picture because, hey, why not?
The ceiling of each ferryboat is used as storage for life preservers. Lots and lots of life preservers.
How many life preservers, you may ask?
That's how many.
As I was leaving Battery Park I came across an old, um, dentally-impaired woman begging right in the middle of the footpath, asking passersby to "help me get a hot dog." I suspected the kind of "hot dog" she was looking to buy was measured in grams and served in a plastic baggie, so I chose not to give her change. She then shouted angrily after me, "You're a big one, ain't ya? I bet you're about 500 pounds!" It took all my will not to turn around and say, "And you're an ancient toothless crack whore begging for money on the streets of New York City. Guess which I'd rather be?"
Mutta mutta.
Anyway, I went back to the hotel to find myself alone for a while. Julie was still out and about, my mom and sister weren't due into JFK for another hour or two, and I would have called Captain Midnight or Miss V, but I didn't have a cell phone and the hotel room rates were best described as extortionary.
Eventually I got tired of staring at myself and went out for a walk around the neighborhood.
Here's the spire of the Holy Name of Jesus Church, right around the corner from our hotel.
And here's the Duane Reade where I picked up a whole bunch of toiletries and some bottled water.
Duane Reade is literally everywhere in New York. There are more Duane Reade stores in Manhattan than there are Starbucks Coffees in Seattle. You cannot swing a cat in New York without hitting a Duane Reade...
...as copious photographic evidence suggests.
When my mom and sisters finally showed up and started talking about all the things they needed, I kept responding, "You can probably pick that up at Duane Reade." It became the most popular running gag on this trip.
I needed to pick up my suitcase, which was still at Julie's apartment, so Julie, Jenny and I all hopped on the subway and rode uptown. Not only did we get my bags, but we also stopped by a street vendor on Julie's block and got a few skewers of "street meat."
This is the only documented evidence that I had street meat. Mmm, tasty... AND you get a handy self-defense weapon into the bargain! Such a deal.
Aren't my sisters just darling? Easily the cutest girls on the 1 train that day.
When we got back to the hotel, everyone took a cab to a Vietnamese restaurant and we ate with gusto. I had shrimp wonton soup and the most delicious Saigon beef ever. (Sorry, no pictures... we were all too busy devouring like locusts to take any photos.) Then after cabbing it back to the hotel, Julie went home to do her best at getting a good night's sleep for The Big Day to come.
Much later that evening, my brother Tim's flight arrived at JFK and he took a shuttle bus to the hotel. It was his first time in New York and he described the place, a little uneasily, as "too much city for me." By the time he got in, it was quite late -- close to 1 a.m. local time -- so he strapped on his
CPAP (which made him sound a lot like Darth Vader with adenoids) and promptly hit the sack.
And, after copious scribbling in my travel journal, so did I.
He bade Charles Clarence a fond adieu as he packed himself into a box bound for London -- the better to break into legitimate theatre in the West End, you see.
Charles Clarence picked up an appropriate T-shirt as a memento for his blue friend to remember their good times together in New York.
Plus, to lessen the sting of his woes, he has taken up carousing with Charles Clarence, who as previously noted is a dipsomaniac. ("White whiskey" is a dressed-up euphemism for what my ancestors called moonshine.)
Last night Simeon got royally blitzed, donned a lampshade and proceeded to drunk-dial every film producer and theatrical impresario he could think of. It's a good thing the phone wasn't plugged in.
He was slightly disappointed to have to fly coach.
However, he is a resilient fellow and has bounced back admirably.
Proof we were there.
Best Producer award from the Columbia Film Festival! Go Julie.
In addition to the MoMA, my sister and I went to visit the American Folk Art Museum, which is right next door. For a small space it has a lot to exhibit.
I'm kind of a geek for patchwork, so I gravitated toward the quilt displays -- everything from a traditional album quilt to Gees Bend-style primitive quilts to modern free-form quilt pieces.
When the time came we ambled back toward the Richard Rodgers Theatre, plunked ourselves down in various seats and watched the show. I think I'll save a full discussion of Bengal Tiger for another post, but suffice to say it was a vivid and thought-provoking if not entirely perfect play.
...but as always, it was worth it. Call me a huge cornball, but I love this lady. She never ceases to inspire me. One of these days I'll have to finagle some tickets to go up to the crown.
We did not stop at Ellis Island this time, though I was delighted to discover that Colleen also had an ancestor who immigrated to the U.S. and was processed through Ellis. It's a surprisingly common aspect of American life -- having at least one relative who came through Ellis Island.
I'd seen the workshop version of Catch Me in Seattle in 2009 and was curious to see how the show had changed since then, and I have to say that with very few exceptions, the changes they made were for the better. They jettisoned the worst songs and replaced most of them with more upbeat numbers, restructured some scenes, switched around some lyrics, and did a better job of streamlining the show all the way through -- although, thanks to some changes in the libretto, the big show-stopping 11 o'clock number is now almost pointless. For the record, I really enjoyed it, though Julie did not.
I just woke up, looked out the window of my tiny private bathroom and saw mixed rain and snow falling against dark brickwork in the courtyard beyond. There is something quite wonderful about being warm in bed with the window open and snow falling mere inches away.
This... thing was in my face for a good portion of the flight out. A woman in the seat in front of me decided to spread out as much as she could in coach for a little siesta on the plane, so she stretched out her hand right into my already limited airspace. (This pseudo-tanned claw was literally inches from my nose.) Then she commenced to scrape away at a callus on her thumb, sprinkling dead skin into my lap.
What the? Who's visiting at this hour?
Legoman! (He's hard to see in this picture, but trust me, there he is on my doormat.)
Goodbye, Manhattan. Goodbye, Duane Reade. Goodbye, Hotel Newton. (Or, to most of its patrons, "Au revoir, Hôtel Newton.")
On the second flight back, I began to reflect on home and family. Time spent away -- whether in New York or England or Utah or wherever it happens to be -- is always an adventure, but it also tends to exhaust me. I've discovered this year that I don't do very well out of my element. With that said, I felt a lot more calm and grounded this time than I did on my previous two visits to New York. I'm getting a better sense of where things are in Manhattan, how to use public transportation, etc., and knowing how to proceed goes a long way toward curing anxiety issues stemming from unfamiliarity. If I'm smart, I will start spending more of my mornings out and about, exploring more of the local environs, in an effort to build up internal courage and quell anxiety.
Hello Seattle, I am a mountaineer... wait, never mind.
OK, technically Charles Clarence went too. Charles Clarence is Julie's little monkey who accompanied us on many of our travels today.
Since Mom was still worn out from the day before and in any case has trouble standing for long periods of time, we went down to the ground floor and picked up a wheelchair for her.
Tim basically went nuts at all the awesomeness in the Met.
He especially enjoyed the medieval armor exhibits, where he probably could have worked as a docent.
He had to be dragged out of the Met so we wouldn't be late for the second taping session at ABC.
This time, when we got in line, we met Julie's roommate Andy Parker. (Again, not pictured. Sadly, I'm not always that swift when it comes to camera use.) We went in, sat down, watched Julie do her thing... and I'd like to say more, but I shan't. Suffice to say that if you can get American television and you'd like to see how she did on Millionaire, you should watch the shows airing during the last week of October.
and Julie proceeded to race across town and against time, trying to avoid the Lincoln Tunnel traffic and get her film. She was successful.
Meanwhile, Charles Clarence mugged for the cameras. Silly monkey.
So we went to the Carnegie Deli.
Charles Clarence thoroughly enjoyed himself.
Did I mention he's a dipsomaniac? Alas, monkey man has problems.
Jenny was overwhelmed by her chopped liver sammitch of doom. Me, I had the meatloaf...
...and in retrospect, I really should have split an entree with my mom.
Charles Clarence isn't the only one who likes to mug for the cameras.
Took a cab over to ABC Studios, chatting along the way with a very friendly cab driver, formerly from Turkey. He must not get a lot of talkative folks, because he thanked us profusely for chatting with him.
The Central Park Mounted Policeman in his natural habitat.
Jennifer took quite a few foties.
Tim took quite a few phone calls.
Me, I was just trying to take in some architectural details.
The time came when we got in line, and lo, there was Julie's friend Levi! (unfortunately not pictured here.) Quick introductions all round. We were all asked to sign some sort of non-disclosure agreement involving firstborn children, I think; that fine print is hard to read.
Figuring that if it was the end of the world I might as well have some good reading material for it, I picked up a Shakespeare biography by Bill Bryson. (It's very good so far.)
Mom was glued to the TV, watching the storm coverage; I guess it did a lot of damage in the other boroughs and was being considered for hurricane status or something similar. The area where we were staying got some hard rain, but was otherwise unscathed. But on the TV we saw downed trees and power lines, and heard of at least one storm-related death. The best part of the news was hearing of some recent immigrants from Haiti living in Brooklyn, who were used to hurricanes and who went out and matter-of-factly cleared away downed trees with their machetes. Right on.
...and since Tim wasn't going to have much time in New York...
...the rest of us sibs hit the subway and took him to Times Square at night.
Da glitz!
Da glamour!
Tim really seemed to enjoy himself, which surprised me a bit as he sometimes has trouble with crowded places. Then again, it wasn't particularly crowded at night.
Dangit, why can't I be as cute as my sisters? I ask you!
I checked in, we went up the somewhat creaky elevator, looked around the room, pronounced it nifty. Julie had some school stuff to do and errands to run, not to mention a mom and sister to pick up later, so she took her leave.
I took the subway down to Lower Manhattan/Battery Park with the intent of catching a ferry to Ellis Island.
You must understand, before I continue, that I have on two other occasions tried to make it to Ellis Island, and failed both times. I had in fact begun to think of this particular voyage as "my doomed trip to Ellis Island," because I never seemed to manage to get there.
This time, though, I got smart. When we reached Liberty Island (here pictured: the wretched refuse of its teeming shore, all trying to get on board), I was not lured off the ferry by the promise of stamped copper coins and overpriced hot dogs, but stayed put instead.
And here's what I got for my trouble.
Behold! Proof positive that I finally made it!
Why was I so fired up to get to Ellis Island, you may ask?
Because on May 28, 1915, Catharina Witteveen, a slight, brown-haired, brown-eyed Dutch lady, came off the steamer Rotterdam into this room. Hers was the very first information taken on the original ship's manifest, which perhaps suggests she was quite eager to be off the boat where she'd spent so many days in steerage. The immigration officer noted that she was 22 years old and single, had been born in Amsterdam, had $25 to her name, that she was going to Salt Lake City to stay with family members, that she was neither a polygamist nor an anarchist, was in good physical and mental health, and had paid for her own passage. She was my great-grandmother.
The tiled ceiling of the Registry Room. There are 28,282 cream-white tiles in the ceiling, placed there by the Guastavino Brothers, originally of Italy. There is perhaps no finer testament to their skill than this simple fact: when the room was renovated, only 17 of the ceiling tiles needed to be replaced.
There are two 48-star flags in the Registry Room, dating from the period when Ellis Island was in use.
Despite its historic status and its importance to many American families, whose relatives immigrated to the U.S. during the era when this was the primary processing facility for new immigrants, much of Ellis Island has fallen into disrepair. The buildings are in the process of being restored, outside and in.
This photo was taken from one of the upper floors of the Immigration Museum, looking across the island to the Medical Building, where scores of new immigrants with communicable diseases waited and received treatment until they were healthy enough to enter the U.S. The Medical Building has not yet been restored. If you look you can just see the Statue of Liberty on the left.
This turn-of-the-20th-century medical equipment was taken as-is from the Medical Building and is on display in the museum.
From all parts of Ellis Island you can see the mainland. It makes you wonder what it was like for immigrants who had to wait, sometimes for weeks, until they could come across. I imagine quite a few of them had trouble with being so close to and yet so far away from their goal. Here, a Registry Room view of Lower Manhattan (although obviously it didn't look anything like this when my grandma was here).
Not every emigrant who made it to Ellis Island was guaranteed to get to America. I saw this editorial cartoon from Puck (depicting the scourge of cholera as brought in by immigrants) as a color lithograph at Ellis Island, but it didn't photograph too well. The caption at the bottom reads, "The kind of 'assisted emigrant' we can not afford to admit." The comment seems callous to modern eyes until you realize that there were no antibiotics then, and the only weapons to fight cholera were carbolic acid, chloride of lime and thymol (as shown in the illustration).
When she saw certain would-be immigrants getting rejected, my great-grandmother was terrified she wouldn't be allowed into the United States. But she was fortunate enough to be accepted, to be reunited with her family, and to marry her sweetheart. And her descendants, including me, were therefore fortunate to be born in an amazing country.
Goodbye Ellis, hello Manhattan.
On the way back toward Battery Park we passed a boat full of happy tourists, all waving wildly at the ferry. So I took their picture because, hey, why not?
The ceiling of each ferryboat is used as storage for life preservers. Lots and lots of life preservers.
That's how many.
According to this website, I am now a douchebag. Huh.
Here's the spire of the Holy Name of Jesus Church, right around the corner from our hotel.
And here's the Duane Reade where I picked up a whole bunch of toiletries and some bottled water.
Duane Reade is literally everywhere in New York. There are more Duane Reade stores in Manhattan than there are Starbucks Coffees in Seattle. You cannot swing a cat in New York without hitting a Duane Reade...
...as copious photographic evidence suggests.
When my mom and sisters finally showed up and started talking about all the things they needed, I kept responding, "You can probably pick that up at Duane Reade." It became the most popular running gag on this trip.
This is the only documented evidence that I had street meat. Mmm, tasty... AND you get a handy self-defense weapon into the bargain! Such a deal.
Aren't my sisters just darling? Easily the cutest girls on the 1 train that day.
