“Ahhh, New York!”

Squibs and Blurbs

by Jerry Zimmerman

TEANECK, NJ—(Weekly Hubris)—6/14/10—I’m a big fan of Gotham, the Big Apple, New York New York. My parents used to bring my brothers and me to New York as kids, all the way from the hinterlands of Pennsylvania, not quite right off the farm but, basically, from a pretty low head on the urban-experience totem pole.

Our excursions were educational and entertaining flights of fancy. In those days, the 50’s and 60’s, we dressed up to walk around, to shop, to see shows and to eat—everything was a big deal! My parents were pretty omnivorous grazers in the Manhattan field of possibilities. We saw Broadway shows and sports events (including a rodeo in Madison Square Garden—talk about mixed metaphors!), visited all the regular sights like the Empire State and Rockefeller Center, and ventured out to some not-so-regular events, like shopping at the first Japanese department store in America, Takishimaya, which blew my mind, and being some of the first customers in line to dash into Alexander’s Department store, the harbinger of famous discount stores, when it opened in the Bronx, which blew my mother’s mind!

We were good at finding entertainment and shopping, but my parents were truly amazing at finding places to eat, which, really, was and is the whole point of being in New York in the first place. As a kid, I ingested a dizzying melange of haute cuisine, low cuisine, street cuisine, foreign cuisine and the holiest of cuisines, the offerings of the Jewish deli.

If you had the time (and my memory didn’t short-circuit from the effort), I could regale you with tales of myriad food moments that still resonate with me some 50 years later, from eating at the best Nathan’s Hot Dog stand (built into one of the outside corners of Macy’s on 34th Street, also known to be the most expensive piece of real estate per square foot in New York City or maybe even the world) to a defining lunch in La Fonda del Sol, New York’s first truly four-star Mexican restaurant, where the decor was Mexican and exquisite, as was the food, and my parents were flabbergasted to see the movie star Tony Perkins eating there—actually, they were mostly flabbergasted that he was wearing loafers with no socks. I’m not making this up. This was a long time ago.

But deli food was the real star of Manhattan eating, at least in the eyes and in the stomachs of my family. If you have ever discussed pastrami and corned beef sandwiches with a New Yorker, you know not to even get me started! Suffice it to say that we were very familiar with the Stage Deli and Carnegie Deli, but my father’s true allegiance was to the now-dearly-departed-and-always-mourned Gaiety Deli. This cornerstone of my family legacy was located somewhere on the west side of mid-town Manhattan. I’m not certain where, because I was always half-asleep when we got there: the ritual was to leave for home in our car the evening of the last day of our trip, religiously stopping off at the Gaiety for a final gluttonous round of the juiciest, most aromatic and gut-slappingly-delicious corned beef and pastrami sandwiches on this particular planet. The ride home from NYC was always accompanied not by a soundtrack but by a taste track of the most voluptuous greased up meats and a smell track of biting brine aromas, rye bread waftings and the indelible odor of brisket massaged and soaked and mysteriously brought to deli perfection.

Embarassingly, I am drooling right this very second!

These days I’m an adult in New York City, but the same awe and excitement courses through me every time I’m in the city’s confines. I love the GW Bridge with its elegant bare-bone structure. I love cruising down the West Side Highway on a spring day with the Hudson glinting on my right and the densely marching apartment buildings on my left, all accompanying me down and down into the meat of the place. I love crossing the achingly famous Brooklyn Bridge into that swirling, throbbing groove that is Brooklyn, “top of the food chain,” the unchartable map of neighborhoods that seem to morph before my eyes, changing as I stroll through, the people and places all exotic and tough and hip and warm and new and grim, with tiny shops run by unknown masters of whatever arcane designs they are promoting.

And downtown! I’ve spent the last two decades roaming through Soho, the Lower East Side, the East Village, the West Village, Nolita, Boho, Tribeca . . . Momo, Jojo, Koko! OK, I made those last couple up, but they will be there soon and they will be crazy!! My gorgeous and titanically-missed late wife Rhona, the hippest non-hipster to roam NYC’s lower points, was my sharp-eyed guide through the maze of neighborhood streets and attractions on our weekly quest for food, bars, shopping, movies, cafes, and, especially, anything or anyplace that actually didn’t exist until about 25 minutes ago!  From the trendy to the most ancient, from the ritziest to the ridiculously funky (is this so bizarre it’s funky or is it so funky it’s bizarre? Who cares: it’s totally groovy!), we saw it all;  we ate and drank and hung out,; we walked and shopped and just basically sucked all that joie de vivre right out of the living marrow of New York New York.

Wow.

My life has changed, now. To a certain extent.

I now explore the city with old friends and some new friends and, when I’m lucky, with my kids. I still love ferreting out a new wine bar, café, or ridiculously terrific little restaurant (I have a new favorite that is as delicious and gorgeous as they come, hidden behind an exterior that looks like a long-shuttered tenement, the kind of place that is the poster-child of the eternal Downtown treasure hunt) but I often return to old, comforting favorites.

Forget alternative energy. The real energy is here, right around the corner from that old bodega, or next to that refurbished bakery, or right inside this miniature shop that sells beautiful artisanal . . . what the hell are these?? These places are the loci of so much that is magical and compelling in New York, places that vibrate and stimulate, that offer respite or catalyst, places that make me feel lucky to be able to live here, places that just make me feel . . . happy.

No wonder I still love this city.