QOTD: "If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." - Maro Andretti
Reading: Armistead Maupin, The Night Listener
Listening to: Steve Goodman, City of New Orleans
Decluttering accomplishments: donated a tchotchke I've never really liked to a white elephant auction at work, threw out a few old magazines, handled several papers
"Management or literature?" I have to admit I'd never been asked that when checking into a hotel before. It proved to be an easy choice. "Literature," I said, and I was soon enough nestled into the Poetry room at the Library Hotel in New York.
The excuse for this excursion was finally getting to see "Urinetown" on Broadway. It was, indeed, as funny as I'd expected. And I was glad to see John Cullum was in good form. The last time I'd seen him was as Captain Andy in "Showboat" and he hadn't seemed as energetic as I expected. Maybe it was just the role, as this time he proved that he can still dance up a storm.
Anyway, when I'd bought the tickets, I'd asked my mother if she was interested. When she said she wasn't, I suggested that maybe I should just stay in the city, instead of having to deal with the Long Island Railroad. Which meant finding somewhere to stay, but it's not like there's a shortage of hotel rooms in New York. As soon as I read about it, I tried to get a reservation at the Library Hotel, but their web site said they were booked up and referred me to the Hotel Casablanca. The latter was actually more convenient, being just across the street from the theatre, versus a few crosstown blocks away. And it's significantly less expensive.
So I flew up yesterday morning. (I'd have preferred the train, but flying is actually cheaper.) I took the bus from La Guardia to Grand Central Station and walked up to the Hotel Casablanca. Only to hear the desk clerk tell me that there was a "situation" and they didn't have a room after all. But they had arranged a room for me at their sister hotel - the Library Hotel. Which is exactly where I wanted to be in the first place, so it worked out quite nicely. And I was paying the Hotel Casablanca rate, not the Library Hotel rate, which was an added bonus.
Why had I wanted so much to stay there? There are any number of hotels with equally convenient locations. (It's at 41st and Madison.) But the gimmick is one I couldn't resist. The hotel is organized according to the Dewey Decimal system. So each floor has a theme, and each individual room is decorated accordingly. There are bookcases everywhere in the hotel. For example, the room I was in was 800.003 (well, room 803, but they label it by Dewey Decimal) and the theme is poetry. While there were three different editions of the collected works of John Donne, there was actually a fairly wide variety. I glanced through an anthology of verse about film, browsed some American light verse, and reread my favorite works by Yeats. ("The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is as evocative as ever.) Incidentally, if you get absorbed in a book while staying at the hotel, you can purchase it. The room was a bit on the small side, but comfortable enough and thoroughly charming.
At the risk of sounding like a hotel brochure, they include a continental breakfast, early evening wine and cheese, and have stuff like coffee, tea, juice and cookies available all the time in the second floor Reading Room. There's also a business center, which I ignored, but which could prove useful for a longer stay.
The other things I did in New York included eating a quintessential deli meal (tongue sandwich, cole slaw, and full sour pickles - why can't you get such great pickles anywhere else?) and walking around a lot. I'm always amused by listening to tourists. One fellow was excitedly jabbering on about the Empire State Building and I didn't have the heart to point out to him that he was off by eight blocks and was actually pointing at the Chrysler Building. (Which is, by the way, a particularly attractive building, albeit a shorter and less famous one than the Empire State Building.) I did do two touristy things, which is more or less a New York record for me. The first was going to the newly opened Museum of Sex (27th and Fifth), which managed to be remarkably dull given the subject matter. And this morning I took the U.N. tour. Yes, I grew up "45 minutes from Broadway" and had never gone to the U.N. until today. The tour guide was an earnest young Japanese woman who reeled off lots of dates and statistics. I can't say I learned much I didn't already know. The single most interesting factoid was that the seating positions of the different countries in the General Assembly change each year. In order to avoid always having Afghanistan in the front of the room and Zimbabwe in the back, each year there's a random drawing for the first seat. Then things proceed alphabetically. Right now, Lebanon is first, making Latvia last.
Overall, I had a very enjoyable excursion. New York continues to be both an assault on the senses and a thorough delight. I don't particularly want to live in the midst of the crowds and noise, but it's nice to be close enough to be able to immerse myself for a weekend.
Copyright 2002 Miriam H. Nadel