I’m writing this on the bus as I trundle my way from New York to DC to see Samir. My internet access has been sporadic so I’m just typing out a summary – It’s been an interesting week. I could go on and on. But then New York stories always spool on and on -
- I got in on Monday with Janice to get to her Soho apartment on Labor day weekend
- Tuesday I found myself systematically trawling through the Bronx with Tony, a guy I met last summer at Redeemer Presbyterian who works at Columbia (teaching sociology) and Christianity Today (as a journalist). I met him in Brooklyn at a little cafe, where he whipped out a map of an uncovered portion of the Bronx. My task was to write down the name, address, leaders, phone numbers and neighbourhood attributes of all the religious places of worship on every street we went down, and then colour in the streets as finished when we called it a day. It was fascinating. We met with a pastor who literally built his church with his two hands, had lunch at a Mexican place where we argued briefly about whether the term “evangelical” was worth rescuing, then ran into a Puerto Rican lady who had built a neighbourhood garden with her husband. Along the way, we met a police car chasing down a drug-deal related shooting, and talked about Tony’s start in journalism in newly-opened 1980s China.
- I spent Wednesday morning with the good people of International Arts Movement – at breakfast in a lovely little French pastry shop, then I was off to view Matisse: Radical Reinvention at the Moma. Yeah, the Moma pretty much took up the rest of my day.
- Thursday I woke up groggily and hauled myself off to Housing Works Book Cafe, where I spent a leisurely afternoon typing up a review of the exhibition – fingers crossed it’ll get published; otherwise it will come up here, for sure. Then Janice had a friend over for pasta she had hauled over all the way from Boston and we got a little tipsy on the wine
- Friday I moved over to Rachel’s stunning midtown apartment, and we caught up over Dominican stew. It was Fashion’s Night Out in New York, so after drinks at a Soho bar we were milling about the ultra hip and stalking unabashedly into boutiques to partake in their free champagne and cocktails. Then we had dinner at New Malaysia, the best fix for Singaporean/Malaysian I’ve had in the States.
- Saturday I met up with Melissa to see Lady Liberty – a long overdue expedition, where I learned that the Americans, upon receiving the statue, decided it was not functional enough and knocked off the copper of the torch and turned it into a lighthouse, before realizing this severely weakened the integrity of the structure and hastily returned it to its original metal – only this time overlaid with gold. Melissa found some ancestors on Ellis Island, where I pondered once again whether the American Dream is, after all, a thing I want to chase (As seductive as New York can be, I don’t think it is….) And because it was September the 11th I went to St Patrick’s Cathedral at 7 to hear the memorial service, only to be struck with a splitting headache which made me desperately cab over to Janice’s to lie down for a bit.
- Spent a lazy Sunday morning making breakfast at Janice’s, then getting down to Redeemer’s Hunter College service to hear the legendary Tim Keller, who never fails to deliver. We’ve found Janice a church! Then Ramen with Janice and Rachel, this being my final night in the city.
- Monday, and I spent my last hour in NYC treating myself to some Brazilian pasta on Grand and Broad. I sometimes wonder if there was ever or will ever be a city like this city, but then I realize that this is the story of every metropolis of every time – only this is the New York of our time, and that there will always be great cities, where art and life and high and low and peoples from every corner and every nation gather to work and live and love and hate and dance and kill and laugh and play and cry. And that this one, in all its greatness, is not very different.
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