SUMMER 2021: IS IT TRAVEL TIME YET? NEW YORK CITY, WASHINGTON D.C.

“PCR Test Results, check.  Attestation form, check. PLF form confirmation email, check, New York State health form, check, vaccination certificates, check, dusty copy of marriage license translation, check… Ok, we’re cool with all the documents…” 

Travel in the age of, how should I call it, “mid covid?” Panicking, we can’t seem to get a consensus on the necessary documents. From Europe to the States for non US citizens, you need proof that the U.S. citizen you’re traveling with is indeed your spouse.  Not to forget a PCR negative test. For Americans going to Europe it’s more open: the “passenger locator form” and proof of full vaccination waiving the PCR test. 

We’re on our way to the States to visit family for a couple of weeks.  The plane from Athens to New York is only about 1/3 full.  The customs area at JFK airport is usually the scene of shouting and jostling one another, of thousands of tired faces trudging through a network of lines that snake around endlessly in this cavernous room. Now it’s eerily empty. In a short direct line (can it really be?) we go through customs in only 10 minutes.  Two weeks later on our return, it’s totally different.  The plane is completely full with tourists going to Greece.  I can hear a voice behind me slowly practicing “kalimera, parakalo, yiasas.”  Summer tourist season has begun!

New York seemed to have scars, not so much in boarded up buildings but in a general feeling of a city abandoned. It just felt seedier than what we know, with more garbage, more down and out looking faces, with the smell of weed part of the hot and humid atmosphere you breathed. Whenever I visit over the years (which is almost every year) I still tend to compare the city with when I left in 1983, with the good and bad changes.  When you move away after having lived in NY, you experience of change as a kind of “betrayal,” as Nora Ephron expresses it. How dare they close my dry cleaner, my bakery, my diner!  And Manhattan is a very changeable place.  Of course, cities must change, they’re living and growing.  But still…

There have been good changes over the years, such as the “reading library” in Bryant Park, in back of the New York Public Library, with its books and magazines you can browse and read outside and then return, honor system, to the carts when you’re done. Such a lovely place in the heart of the city to sit and read. Around lunchtime the park is particularly lively and in past years, there was a rich program of lunchtime entertainment, as well as a film and music series in evenings. .

Two years ago we happened to be in Bryant Park for their annual (cutthroat) musical chairs contest. So competitive was it that near the end the announcer warned the contestants: “I didn’t think it was necessary to say that you shouldn’t sit on the head of your opponent.”

Now, with the presence of commercial kiosks in the park, the scene has changed a bit. The kiosks used to only up only at Christimastime, but now they seem to be permanent.

You can already feel the stickiness in the air on this hot humid Sunday as we slowly make our way down to Greenwich Village. We walk through Madison Park at 23rd Street where Broadway and Fifth Avenue meet.  A family is setting up balloons for a birthday party and the guitarist is tuning up. 

Besides the original “Shake Shack,” the popular burger place, the park used to have a popular (with canines) dog run but it’s gone (Another change!)  Not that I have a dog to run here but I love watching dogs at play. In the park is a temporary installation called “Ghost Forest” of 49 dead cedar trees from the New Jersey pine barrens. The artist is making a point about the environment; now very much depleted, once these trees were common on the east coast.  It’s really kind of creepy looking against the background of green in the park.

Madison Park is in what’s called the Flatiron District, named for the unique triangular Flatiron building, one of New York’s early 20th century iconic steel skyscrapers, and built to fit into this wedge shaped space. Fun fact: this area was the site of the first hotel in the country (1860’s) that had an elevator.

Near the Flatiron is a shop selling …. hands? There wasn’t really a clue, just this sign in the window.

Near the hand store was a family out for a walk and a little girl in a lovely kimono.

There’s a line to get into the Strand bookstore on 12^th street.  If you browse on the bargain shelves outside the store first, it looks like there’s little change here, as if it’s the same titles frozen over the years: a 1978 guide to Brooklyn, Dr. Spock, Baby and child care, the 1965 edition, a manual on how to set up a rock garden, and a well thumbed copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince.  The 96 year old store is a landmark of literary New York. During the pandemic, like many independent shops, it fell into severe financial problems. An appeal from the owner (granddaughter of the original owner) drew many donations to keep the store alive. Boasting “18 miles of rare, used and new books,” the Strand is the only remaining bookstore from the area, which at one time was known as “Book Row.” There are three floors of books with overflowing shelves, and one floor devoted to rare books.

One of the things I like about the store is that you can look at index cards with reviews of books by readers. (Very low tech). There is also an active children’s section with readings, still put on hold.

We join our daughter and her boyfriend for brunch at a Thai restaurant where we had made reservations two weeks before.  Ah New York. “You can have an hour and 15 minutes in the garden,”  we’re told by the waiter.  What? Could you be serious? And “garden” is not a word I would use for a small airless strip of concrete in the back. We’re better off on the sidewalk where we’re told we can have two hours!

Not exactly a view, but we’re around the corner actually from another architectural landmark of New York, the Jefferson Market Library, a courthouse when it was built in the 1870’s in Victorian Gothic style and soon after, voted by a group of architects as one of the most beautiful buildings in the country.

At least we’re in the open air, not in one of the “greenhouse” cubicles you see for dining all over the city. What miserable structures.

Slightly better but not by much were the wooden constructions with fake flowers and a canvas roof that looked like they were put up overnight. We were told that the state helped the owners financially to construct these, but I have doubts if all the money was spent on them.

One of the welcome changes in the city in the past few years are the neighborhood historical notes that narrate experiences through the eyes of figures that lived there at that time. I notice though that nobody stops to read them.

A park that never seems to change is Washington Square, in the heart of the west Village, a park that looks like it always has the same fire swallowers, drummers and dope sellers. As it’s a very hot day, the lawn is bursting with sunbathers and others cooling off in the iconic fountain near the marble arch. Not a bad idea.

In Washington Square, you never know who you’re suddenly going to see in front of you walking around. He must’ve been terribly warm in that get up.

Nearby, a pianist was inviting the audience to lie under the piano, a great listening experience he promised, and some people took him up on it. 

The parks in New York are essential places to cool off a bit in the summer and escape from the constant movement on the street and the noise of city construction,  One of our favorite parks is a fairly new one, the high line on the far west side of the city. (Now it was closed, scheduled to open after our return to Greece. ) The high line is built on a historic elevated rail line for freight trains dating from the 30’s. The area with the rail line was going to be demolished about 10 years ago, but fortunately it was saved and made into a park. 

Along the way you find interesting objects, like these shoes that look like they belonged to the wicked witch of the west:

Many art objects, galleries and murals catch your eye from your unique perspective above the city.

Not only from the High Line, but a lot of the street art is really colorful. I liked this mural near Macy’s.

Near one of the entrances of the High Line is what’s known as the “Vessel” at Hudson Yards, a recently built luxury complex of apartments and upscale shops. Two years ago we climbed on the “Vessel,” It’s a structure that looks kind of like a giant jungle gym, full of connecting stairways and reminded me of a nightmare labyrinth that Escher might dream up. (You can take the elevator up and walk down.) From the top you get a great view of the Hudson River. Since it was opened a couple of years ago, the “Vessel” has had a horrible attraction; three people have thrown themselves to their death, and I believe that now it’s been “closed indefinitely.”

The far west part of Manhattan is for sure not the nicest part of the city.The street we’re staying on however in Chelsea, 28th between 6th and 7th Ave., is a little oasis. Known as the flower district, it’s a street full of florists. Early in the morning, they’re out setting up and spraying and watering plants in the already hot and humid air, weather the plants must thrive on. 

Although Manhattan is bordered by the East River and the Hudson, the rivers are not really an integral part of the city, not like in Paris or Rome for example, or even Washington DC with the Potomac River, our next stop.

In Washington, with my brother and sister in law, we stroll down at the waterfront of Georgetown along the Potomac. I lived for a few years right across Key Bridge in Virginia and used to enjoy my scenic walk, taking in the whole sweep of the river, over to Georgetown.  Today, boats are out enjoying a calm but cloudy day.

This waterfront area at one time was a dynamic center of commerce and trade that became an industrialized blight. Like the High Line in New York, it was going to be left to decay but fortunately it was made it into a park in 2011. I remember the area during high school years; there was a vegetable market around the streets and a lot of vacant and ugly factory buildings.

We decide to visit Georgetown University by way of the long and narrow “Exorcist steps” that were used at the final scene in the 1973 film “The Exorcist” where the priest tumbles down to his death. It’s said that the steps are haunted and walking up (or down) them gives you a creepy feeling. (I’ll leave you to judge…)

We end up at the main campus at Georgetown University, which brought back memories of when I studied there.

In the neighborhood of Georgetown, at its origins a tobacco port town, it seems that nothing ever changes. Even though new trendy boutiques and restaurants replace the old, somehow it looks the same. I love the brick town houses with their manicured gardens.

The Georgetown movie theater is still there, where, not quite 16, I was turned away from entering to watch “Midnight Cowboy.”

This alley is around the corner from Blues Alley, a 56 year old jazz club.

The neighborhood residents of Georgetown deliberately chose not to have the metro nearby, and this has succeeded in keeping the area insular. When we left to take a walk here, my mother told us the same thing she used to say 50 years ago when I would hang around here with a friend in high school: “I don’t see what the attraction is of Georgetown.”  But I enjoy its charm and that it keeps the same vibes it used to have.

So we’re visiting my 95 year old mom at her senior residence in Bethesda, outside DC.

Slight digression: perhaps because of all the trees in this area, Bethesda is one of the areas being “invaded” this summer by the 17 year cicadas. It’s amazing! They live underground for 17 years feeding on the sap of trees and they get some kind of signal to surface, where they mate, lay their eggs and die after a few weeks, so in some places the ground was a veritable carpet of dead cicadas. I thought the noise from the Greek cicadas during hot days and nights can be deafening, but that’s nothing compared with the din in the trees of these insects. They can be more than annoying (some even got into Biden’s press plane and ruined some machinery) but I thought they were fascinating with their bulgy red eyes and brown wings. Here’s one resting on a hydrangea.

My mother’s residence is a happy place these days. Everyone has been vaccinated and activities have resumed to pre covid times, such as the sing along with Jerry Roman, who was doing his first sing along in a year and a half, and we were glad to be there for it. Jerry goes from one senior place to another to entertain. Still working as a journalist, he got into piano performing around 20 years ago. With Jerry (because he hates song sheets) it’s actually more of a listening experience. He plays completely by ear, and listening to his seemingly effortless playing is sheer enjoyment. That afternoon he wanted to test our musical knowledge. He played the beginning bars of songs to see who could be first to name that Broadway show that the tune was from (That’s when you have that feeling, “Oh that’s so familiar, what is it what is it…”) Jerry is exuberant, loves to interact with the residents, loves what he’s doing, and it’s so good to see him back,

Another sing along was with Vivi, one of the beloved and active residents, who’s been singing for practically all her life in a choir. She loves to organize sing alongs and other activities, and entertains with jokes and stories from her interesting life.

The songs in this particular collection are those the residents surely sang while growing up such as “Meet me in St Louis,” or even older ones like “A Long way to Tipperary” or “The Whiffenpoof Song.”

Music can create particularly strong memories of the past. Jane, 99 years old, stands up and does a rendition of one of the songs, as she used to sing it to her baby daughter in 1941…

The stereotype of someone old and doddering sitting in a chair bears no relation to many of the residents who amaze you with their vibrancy and curiosity of the world.  (Jerry Roman’s own mother is 102 and an active bridge player).

Much more than just the singalongs is a rich program of jazz, pop and classical concerts. Not to mention other non-music interactive and social activities like exercise classes, quizzes, book club, billiards, etc, etc..

Well, back in Greece now in time for European music day! It’s on the summer solstice June 21^st, (and coincidentally the beginning of a heat wave.) Traditionally on this day the Herod Atticus (Irodion) theater under the Acropolis holds a classical music concert by the National Symphonic Orchestra or State orchestra (except for last year) The inside of this theater, dating back to Roman times, is breathtaking.  As the light of the day fades and the moon rises, the musicians slowly enter the stage and tune up. Then as we hear the first sounds of the strings, there’s a hush and we enjoy the music and dry night air.

There are changes at the Irodion. Nobody approaches the theater without tickets (three checkpoints!), mask wearing throughout the performance and no intermission and now the exiting from the theater is done in an organized way.

After the Irodion, we’re happy to see that all the communities are offering cultural programs for the summer, though even free events require booking in advance. (We’re enjoying the Petit Paris d’Athenes festival this week.) Programs that will certainly keep us busy, when we’re in Athens.

So, roll on Greek summer.  Keep cool and happy travels!

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Sherri Moshman Paganos is a writer and former educator, inspired by her life in Athens, where she and her husband are happily retired and enjoying their travels in Greece and abroad. You can check out her writing — fiction, non-fiction, poetry and articles here.