Trip Part II: New York City

Yet another Bats does a whirlwind tour of random New York City stuff trip report. Photos posted to Flickr here.

The big item that I have been anticipating was going to see the Metropolitan Opera's production of John Adams' Doctor Atomic.


I've been a huge fan of his work for ages, and I jumped at the chance to take a trip down to New York and see this opera produced (it was debuted in San Francisco in 2005). The opera is set on the night before the Trinity test in Los Alamos in 1945, and touches on the moral qualms that many of the scientists are feeling and the anxiety building up to the test shot--a more background here. The opera itself was great (New York Times review here); the staging, the music, the singing. I do have to admit, though, that I'm more of a fan of Adams' instrumental (rather than choral) works.

But as the singers were taking their bows, the audience went up in a roar--John Adams came on stage, and took a bow with them! He's the unfortunately washed out face in the photo below.



The opera was an afternoon performance, so I still had some daylight left. I decided to head uptown (178th Street) to check out the George Washington Bridge Bus Station--this infrastructure dorkery was inspired by the fact that San Francisco's St. Mary's (a.k.a. Our Lady of the Washing Machine Agitator) was designed by the same structural engineer, Pier Luigi Nervi. The bus station is, well, a kinda sketchy bus station ("... all the charm of the Port Authority..."), as you would expect--although I did not personally observe any pimps trying to scout out new "talent" among teenage runaways. But the structure itself is magnificent--huge soaring open spaces--check out the concrete trusses, and the triangular "waffle slab" ceilings!



Also, the upper bus deck is a perfect spot to get a shot of the George Washington bridge--the station deck feeds right onto the bridge.


Next, I decided that while I was up in this part of town, I would hit a place that I saw while channel surfing on Food Network: Melba's Restaurant in Harlem--they are famed for their fried chicken and waffles. The story the owner told on the show was that the origins came from jazz musicians back in the day, coming up at all times of night for food, sometimes breakfast, sometimes dinner.

To get there I took the A train... however, contrary to the song, that night, it wasn't the quickest way to Harlem... due to a service interruption on the AC line. But that doesn't scan very well, does it?

Melba's is a high class restaurant (i.e., not a no-atmosphere-fluorescent-light-linoleum-floor chicken shack)--a great meal there of fried chicken, cheddar grits, and sauteed spinach.

After dinner, I hit the other end of the musical spectrum, and caught a set at Terra Blues--a real, down home blues club in the West Village. The main act was SaRon Crenshaw (note--music-enabled page)--four piece blues band; did a kickin' renditions of Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine, The Sky is Crying, and some BB King favorites. Blasting loud and packed--all good.


Walking around Greenwich Village, there was a plethora of the out-on-a-Saturday-night-young-hip-stylish-clicky-high-heel women up and down the street, showing off their legs... uh, I mean outfits. I had a bit of my reaction of "[roll eyes] ...yes, yes, you're hot... and good for you... now go away..." (for background, see previous blog posts on the subject). I was worried that I'd end up getting annoyed at a club with lots of that population... but instead, the blues club was an older crowd which was there pretty much for the music, not for the 'scene.' Big win.

I chuckled to myself about the concept of writing the Existential Blues sometime (which I periodically suffer from).

After crashing at my sister's place, the next day, I headed to MoMa for their exhibit Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling. It actually warrants an entire post by itself, which I plan to do tomorrow. An interesting exhibit, but a lot of it filled me with frustration. I checked out other exhibits--for instance, the furniture and industrial design gallery (check out this version of the Eames chair done in carbon fiber composite, named Carbon Copy. Heh.) It's the exhibit that has a lot of great industrial "functional" art--a ball bearing, railroad springs, a circular saw blade.


Then I ran down to Chinatown for sammiches--I went to Bahn mi Saigon--a review of the place here--thanks to Jess for pointing it out! I asked for it hot (I didn't know that was a common option)--it was superb (although I must have bitten into an ass-kicking bit at the end). The review says that their bahn mi Saigon (roast pork) is highly recommended--I'll have to try it next time.


Anyway, a day on Long Island, and then off to Canada!