Dave Frishberg, the witty singer/song writer/musician, now an LA resident and formerly a New Yorker, is often asked that question. So he wrote a song: “Do You Miss New York?”. And, the answer, of course is: Yes!! HG/BSK have lived in the Western United States (Colorado and New Mexico) and Canada (Vancouver and Prince Edward Island) for the last 31 years. BSK does not miss New York (or New Jersey). HG has complex feelings. There’s nostalgia, of course. HG is nostalgic about the Upper West Side in the sixties. Movie houses. Street scenes (old Holocaust survivors; junkies; professors; musicians; writers; sex workers; crazies; burglars). Apartments (huge and cheap). Food (Zabar’s, Barney Greengrass, Citarella’s, Nevada Meat Market, Broadway Nut Shop, etc.). Dining (Fleur de Lis; Paramount Famous Dairy; Gitlitz Delicatessen; Tip Toe Inn; many good, cheap Chinese and Cuban joints.) HG got a jolt recently while watching Mad Men. Roger and Joan get away from Madison Avenue and dine at Tip Toe Inn (set designers did a great job). They are mugged after their meal. Yes, that was a possibility on the old West Side before the real estate monsters and condo-maniacs chewed up the neighborhood. Zabar’s, Barney G. and Citarella’s remain. All else is gone. Today’s New York? It’s a place where foreign bad guys hide their money and a family has to earn a million bucks a year to enjoy an upper-middle class life (Condo or coop; housekeeper/nanny; summer home; private school for the kids.) HG/BSK had all of those things on $40,000 (or less) a year. Didn’t have a coop but paid $292 a month for a huge apartment (big living room with view of the Hudson River and The Palisades; separate formal dining room; modest windowed kitchen; four bedrooms; three bathrooms.) Read it and weep. There are things about the New York of 2016 that HG loves. The museums are still great (the new Whitney on the West Side and the Met Breuer on Madison are grand additions). Strolling on the High Line. HG daughter Victoria and husband /chef Marc Meyer’s four superior downtown restaurants: Rosie’s (Mexican); Vic’s (Italian); Cookshop and Hundred Acres (farm to table ingredients, American with Mediterranean flavors). Good value, wonderful food, deft service, joyous atmosphere. Dining with SJ in Flushing (Chinese and Korean) and the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens (robust Uzbekistan cuisine). HG’s annual lunch with Victoria at Balthazar, better than any Paris brasserie. Shopping with BSK at Uniqlo. Gallery and museum hopping with BSK. Wandering (and eating) in Brooklyn, much hipper than Manhattan. HG/BSK mourn that they can’t eat at Oni Sauce, the fabulous Japanese home cooking and Asian sauce stand daughter-in-law Exquisite Maiko Sakamoto (and partner) are running at Smorgasburg, Brooklyn’s famous al fresco food court. So, does HG miss New York? Not often, but sometimes.
Leave a Reply