I was born in New York City and lived in the East Village for most of my life, including through all of the extremes of the 1960’s. To me, though, New York is all about the performing arts. All types – from Opera at the Met to the bars on Avenue A. It’s why young people all over the world arrive every day to study and perform there.
New York is quite literally alive. It is in constant motion – back in the 60’s if you happened to be on St. Marks Place at 4 AM in the summer, there were still crowds of people hanging out. It’s also in motion because the people are always moving – it’s a great place to walk from one neighborhood to another and experience the differences.
Restaurants were open 24 hours a day in the 60s. One of my favorites was Ratner’s which was also a bakery. No one baked onion rolls like theirs. It was a huge place that was known for it’s dairy meals and wise-cracking waiters. It was right next door to the Fillmore East so it was always mobbed after the shows. I saw the Grateful Dead perform there early in their career.
If you walked west a few blocks, you’d be at Washington Square Park, another place that, whenever you’d walk by, always had groups of young people hanging out. This was where all of the folk singers met and played. And a little west of that is Bleeker Street where many of the coffee houses and folk cafes were located.
It’s how we spent our time – each weekend walking to a different area of the city to hear a new artist perform. It was the best time to live there.
Posts Tagged ‘music’
I <3 NYC Series: In the 1960’s
The Best Thanksgiving Ever
It was the year 2008 when I celebrated the best Thanksgiving of my life in New York City. It is certainly one of the best times of the year to be in New York. I decided to throw a bash at my place and invited all my friends. We bought a huge turkey and cooked a delicious meal out of it for dinner. I arranged for the best possible wines and some unbelievable barbecues. There was live orchestra at my place and people were dancing to the grooves of the music. I had made arrangements for strobe lights at my place so that the guests could have fun to the fullest. After the hearty meal, the men played football in the nearby playground while the ladies were busy drinking and chatting at my apartment. We all headed towards the Statue of Liberty to get a glimpse of the beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline. The cool breeze and the entire ambiance at the venue was making the entire moment extremely romantic and therefore, memorable. At midnight, we cut a ten-pound cake, which was homemade and delicious. Basically it was one Thanksgiving that I, and probably all present at the party, will remember throughout our lives.
Jazz Time
My favorite place for hanging out in New York City is “Blue Note”, which in my mind is the world’s finest Jazz Club & Restaurant. Since I am a die hard fan of jazz, I always end up going there in my free time.This place offers fine jazz music performed by jazz, R&B and soul musicians, which I am quite sure that you can’t get anywhere else in New York City or even in the whole world. The place has very good acoustics too, which makes listening to jazz music even more wonderful and enjoyable. Along with the music, Blue Note serves very delicious food. Another good thing about the place is that, you can book online without paying any service charges, which is rare nowadays. When I don’t want to order dinner there, there are lots of nearby places to choose from as well. For vegetarians, the world’s best cheese steak is just opposite to the street, while for others some of the good options are Babbo, Lupa, Mirchi, Shopsins, Gallo Nero which are very close to Blue Note.
Underground Music, Literally!
Several years ago, my family took a trip to New York over the Memorial Day holiday weekend. We stayed in Elmsford and rode the train from Tarrytown into Grand Central Station. At that point, we would just get on the subway to see the sites over the course of weekend. My son was 7 at the time and my daughter was 3. Before arriving in NYC, I had repeatedly told them that when the subway arrives and the doors open, GET ON! And, when the subway comes to our destination, GET OFF! So, after purchasing our subway passes, we headed to the platform. The subway arrived and we quickly got on. With it being a weekend, there were very few travelers, so there wasn’t much need to rush. I had seen movies of the subway and saw thousands of people rushing on and off the train. Boy, was this completely different. Eventually, the subway doors closed and pulled away, headed towards Battery Park. Immediately, an elderly man started singing, “Take me out to the ball game.” In the car with us, as we would soon discover, was a high school choir group from Iowa. Within seconds, the entire car was singing enthusiastically while the lights flickered and the car shook from side-to-side. My kids were enjoying the ride and had no worries in the world. We arrived at our destination, quickly departed, and stepped lively as we approached Lady Liberty. This was an unexpected start to our day, but certainly an uplifting experience!
A Fantastic Fiasco in NYC
Last September, I took a road trip to the Big Apple with three friends of mine. The reason for the trip was to see Lupe Fiasco play one of his NYC concerts on The Beach at Governors Island, but that wasn’t the only “fiasco” on our trip. We left Charlottesville, VA, an hour later than planned, and we got to New York two hours later than expected (that NY traffic is really something!). Fortunately, we made the concert with two minutes to spare, and we got to enjoy Lupe perform an amazing show.
After the show, however, we were so consumed by the bright city lights that we wanted to experience more of New York before we came back to Charlottesville. So we drove around a little bit, until we discovered that we had absolutely no idea where we were, besides the fact that we were in the middle of Manhattan. Instead of asking for directions, though, we decided to keep driving and just soak it all in. As a result, we got to see Times Square, Wall Street, and get a McDonald’s meal on Broadway for $10, before we found our way to the bridge to get us back to the New Jersey Turnpike and on our way back home. As crazy as it was, we definitely enjoyed rolling around the city that never sleeps.