New York City

Thursday Doors—Manhattan apartment

~ MaryG ~ 14 Comments

Have you ever received a casual invitation that was likely not meant sincerely? You know, something like “you should come visit sometime”? Welp, I got one of those once and I decided to take the person up on it.

My husband’s cousin (an interior designer) and his husband (an investment firm VP) live in a very fancy Manhattan coop in Murray Hill. We saw them at a family gathering in Massachusetts in 2008 and they “encouraged” us to visit. Looking back now, I really don’t think they meant it. They were childless city folk and we had young kids.

Anyway, I reached out that summer because my friend and I wanted to go to NYC to see Legally Blonde on Broadway with our daughters and get this—they offered us their apartment for the weekend! They were going to be at their “country home” the weekend we were coming, but said we could stay in their city place by ourselves.

We couldn’t believe their place. First of all, it was HUGE. Second, it was decorated in the least kid-friendly way imaginable. There was glass everywhere, Nothing was left out on any surface, everything was completely smooth. There were sculptures (mostly of gorgeous male bodies) on pedestals that would have been deadly if knocked over.

It was actually comical. We were so afraid of breaking anything that we barely moved! At one point, I remember hunting for a coffee maker in their exquisite, smooth-surfaced kitchen (a note said it was in “the appliance garage”) but then just giving up and going out for coffee.

This interior hallway door gives you the vibe of the place—smooth, orderly and very adult.
The huge living room/dining room area
Sculptures on display
A bathroom
The girls sitting very carefully in the HUGE living room (remember this is in midtown Manhattan)
The smooth and baffling kitchen where I couldn’t figure out how to make coffee
Getting cast autographs after Legally Blonde
A fun weekend—and we left that apartment just as we found it. Nothing broken 😅

I realize I’m not using Dan’s Thursday’s Doors in the usual way. I search my photo file for “door” and some door pops up that prompts a memory.

Check out the other cool doors here or just search for posts tagged Thursday Doors.

And Just Like That

~ MaryG ~ 22 Comments

Predictably, I was a fan of Sex and the City and have eagerly watched all three seasons of the reboot—And Just Like That. (I saw both of the Sex and the City movies too.) We now know that this will be the final season of And Just Like That, so fans are getting ready to bid goodbye to Carrie Bradshaw forever.

My obvious connection to the show has been that I am the same generation as the main characters. Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis are my age exactly—sixty. They are among the group of actresses born in 1965 that I tend to keep tabs on.

I know there are plenty of haters out there, based on very legitimate criticisms of the show, but for me Sex and the City was like an alternate reality. By the time the show first aired in 1998, I was married with a three-year old, living in a somewhat dilapidated antique house in suburbia. What if I hadn’t gone that route? What if I had had the gumption to leave Boston for the real city in my twenties, like several of my friends? Would I be dashing around Manhattan in a tulle skirt, going to art openings and brunch?

The 60-year old versions of the characters in the reboot, still living in Manhattan in fabulous clothes, have been dealing with some relatable GenX problems from bouts of vertigo to ageism at work. Still, they’ve kept it mostly light and escapist. Even when Carrie’s husband (Mr. Big) drops dead in the shower, I wasn’t exactly heartbroken. The female friendships are still central. New York City is still central.

We’ll see what the final two episodes bring. How will my life in an alternate universe turn out?

SJP as Carrie Bradshaw in Season One of Sex and the City (1998)
Me hosting a rather cramped birthday party in our living room in 1998

The City

~ MaryG ~ 26 Comments

Growing up in Massachusetts, I should have visited New York City before age 18, but I did not. For some reason, my parents never took us there, even though my mother’s parents were true Brooklynites—Dodgers fans before “dem bums” moved to LA. I remember my grandmother always pronounced certain words the Brooklyn way—“earl” for oil and “erster” for oyster. (My grandparents moved to Worcester, Massachusetts early in their marriage and never returned to Brooklyn.)

I first went to NYC on a bus from my college in Hartford in the mid eighties. We went for the day. I’ll never forget seeing those vertigo-inducing Manhattan skyscrapers for the first time. New York is so much bigger and taller than all the other American cities. Chicago, Miami, Philly, DC, LA, San Francisco, and of course Boston, are all special in their own ways, but New York is the greatest of them all. (And I say this as someone who grew up despising the New York Yankees.)

On that very first trip to NYC, I remember a shopkeeper asked me where I was from and I said “How do you know I’m not from New York?” He answered, “Because you’re not wearing black and you smiled and said thank you.” He guessed I was from Connecticut. Also, on that same trip, my friend Ann told me to quit gawking and saying things like “I can’t believe I’m in NEW YORK.”

I was determined to expose my kids to NYC before they were 18, so they wouldn’t seem so naive and Connecticutty when they visited.

A photo I took of my sister in NYC in 1987. (She was living there at the time and did not give Connecticut vibes like I did.)
My friend Andreada in Washington Square Park in 1988. That was a wild trip. NYC in the late 80s was a bit scary. I had to sit near a nasty perv on the bus down and got robbed of my leather coat while I was out at a bar. AIDS and drug addiction were casting a pall.
My daughter in the Empire State Building, 2005
My son’s first trip to NYC, 2011
A mini-reunion with high school friends in Manhattan in 2011.

In 2018, I just HAD to see Hamilton on Broadway, so my friend Dina and I planned to go down for the day in late March. I thought we’d be safe from winter storms, so I bought tickets to a matinee. But then a freak spring snowstorm was forecast so we went down on the train the night before, so as to not miss the show. Well, the snowstorm was so bad that they cancelled our Amtrak home and we had to stay over a second night. It was quite a snowy adventure! We ended up running into a friend who took us to see a second Broadway show (Carousel starring Renée Fleming) for free. (She had extra tickets because her friends wouldn’t brave the snow.) We ate at the famous Sardi’s restaurant after the show.

The Hamilton marquis on Broadway, 2018
My friend Dina outside the Bryant Park Grill in March 2018. Amtrak shut down for two days due to this little bit of snow! We took the bus home instead.

I went back to NYC for a conference the following month. There was no sign of snow then. I think that was my last trip to the City. I’m not sure when I’ll go back again, but I will.