A Short Walk to Tacloban--via the Brooklyn Bridge

On Monday morning of last week, I drove up to New York.  I was going to see Jose that evening in "Here Lies Love" which was showing for just one night at Terminal 5 (see preceding blog).  I arrived in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, at 11a.m. and checked into my first ever airbnb on Clermont Avenue--not far from where Paul used to live on South Oxford Street.  (Note to Paul: I parked right in front of The General Greene--that great little restaurant that we used to frequent).


By the time I settled in, it was noon.  The show started at 8 p.m.  It was a bit chilly but the sun was shining and I thought it would be cool (literally) to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and make my way (slowly) to West 56th Street in Manhattan.  It was about 8 miles and I had 8 hours to get there.  If I walked at about 1 m.p.h. I would be right on time!

I love the walk across Brooklyn Bridge.  There is Manhattan spread out in front of you. The Statue of Liberty is over to your left, the Manhattan Bridge over to your right and Brooklyn is fast receding behind you.

The last time I walked the Bridge, I was also off to see a show.  I set out from Paul's (then) apartment on Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn.  I walked across Prospect Park, got to the Bridge and then walked to 42nd Street to see a matinee performance of "The History Boys".  Well worth the walk!

As I ambled along on this spectacular November day, I noticed a big electronic sign on a building. It indicated that it was -2C (29F) but it didn't feel all that cold.  Hell, several people were wearing shorts--and one lady was jogging in a tank top.  Are these people on drugs or something?  I was all rugged up and looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. But who cares? You can do anything you want in New York!

On the other side, I had to pay a visit to J&R Electronics on Park Street to check out the latest cameras. Luckily, they were beyond the reach of anyone who didn't have a key to the executive bathroom at Goldman Sachs.  Next stop was the new World Trade Center.

One tower is almost completed.  A beautiful building that reflects the blue sky and seems to be part of it.  Then I found myself in Tribeca--where Jose and Erik once lived. In fact, I wandered right past The Odeon Restaurant where we spent New Year's Eve several years ago.

I had lunch at Petite Abeille, a Belgian restaurant on West Broadway between Duane and Thomas, where I had the best lobster bisque ever and Belgian bangers and mash, washed down with a half-price Chimay.  Not bad.  Then wandered a bit more in the general Tribeca area and headed in a generally westward direction.

You think you have just 56 blocks to walk when you get over the Brooklyn Bridge but it doesn't work that way.  In Lower Manhattan they have a pile of streets with names before you get to any numbers.  I looked at my map.  I still had a long way to go.

There were such a range of interesting shops and little galleries along the way that I got quite distracted for some hours.  I was just wandering along, going down some side streets and poking my nose into various places.

I walked into one "gallery" but it turned out to be a Siberian Wood Floor shop (see above).  Does it look like a floor shop to you?  Felt a bit stupid but the owner (from Moldova) was very pleased that I thought the wood pieces hanging on  the walls were "art".  I mean, who hangs floors on walls?  I had a long chat with him about the state of Russia and how evil Putin was but I never did get offered a vodka so I moved on.

By now it was about 5 o'clock.  I still had about 3 hours to kill--and it was feeling more like -6C.  I found a great little pub (I suppose it would be called a bar in New York)  which had great big sofas and served early dinners.  Bracing for the last dash to West 56th Street, I put away two glasses of Malbec (it was happy hour and you got one free whether you wanted it or not--excuses, excuses) and had an enormous plate of pumpkin ravioli with ricotta cheese to fend off the cold.  This brought us to 6.30 p.m and I suddenly realized that I had not made all that much progress.  I was somewhere on 13th and 9th.


So, I speeded up and got to West 56th in about 40 minutes.  Still had time to kill.  I noticed that there was rather an attractive lady sitting in a shop window.  Were we in Amsterdam?  Turned out to be a psychic who read palms, faces and Tarot cards.  What the hell.  I would get out of the cold and I would find out what the future might hold.  Actually, it was a bit alarming.  She got an awful lot right without my saying much more than "yes" and "no'.  The good news is that I am coming into money sometime in February (this is when I knew she was a fraud) and that my life line showed that I was going to live to 91.  Well, it looks like I had better start thinking about that long-term care plan that I have been putting off for some time now.

Descending into the dark again with the prospect of money and another 20-odd years to live, I walked to Terminal 5 with a spring in my step.  I discovered Erik standing in the line and about half an hour later I was with Imelda in Tacloban.  The rest is history.