I Lived in New York

Back in August I blogged about my trip to California in August. This is a post about what happened next.

What happened next was I flew to New York City to pack everything up and move myself over to Columbus. It turned out to take about two weeks, with a few final New York activities worked into the workdays.

Honestly I should’ve known better but I couldn’t believe all the work it was to get the 101 Cooper all packed up and the move all figured out. Very foolishly I thought I’d have time to get up to more final New York activities, but I enjoyed greatly the ones I was able to do.

One lucky day I was able to get Los Mariscos at the Chelsea Market (I will miss those salsas!) and walk through the West Village past my happy West Village home (2004-2008) and through Soho one last time and then get another lunch at Thai Diner before waiting on the Broadway Lafayette platform for the train back to Inwood.

There was another night when I was able to go back down to the Village and enjoy a little Whitney Museum time.

One evening I went down to Midtown for a final visit to JPress (needed to get some office pants!) before having a little supper at Le Bernadin (that’s another blog post—sorry, there’s actually a whole other New York post coming after this last New York post).

My last Wednesday in town I had time for a major outing. With the clock ticking, I made my first deep Staten Island journey and visited Snug Harbor with Patricia. I found out about it for its being where the movie Damsels in Distress was filmed, but learned that there was so much more to it than the Damsels in Distress buildings. At Snug Harbor we visited their Maritime Museum (an absolute A++ of a museum), the Museum of Staten Island (eh), their Chinese garden (surprisingly great!) and walked the grounds a good bit, too. I took a lot of pictures, they wound up a little out of order, but I hope you get the general idea here. Generally.

Oh and before getting on the ferry I walked by a Chinese buffet I used to go to sometimes during my Financial District worker days.

Then on Thursday I realized I was basically all packed up, my move helpers were scheduled and my truck was reserved! I went down to the Financial District for some final NYC activities.

I wanted to get chicken and rice but walked by a Xian Famous Foods and remembered telling Carol one time that the restaurant I’d miss most after leaving NYC was XFF as I don’t know where I could get food like that anywhere else in the country so I thought I better pop in for a pork bun. I was glad I popped.

Then I picked up some chicken and rice and ate it beside the briefcase man statue.

Then, because I love poetry and bookends, I rushed up to the Chambers Street McDonald’s, where, along with Mom and Greg, I ate my first Manhattan meal back in August 2003. They’ve fixed the place up since then but I sat in basically the same spot we sat that morning. I’d known for months, if not years, that I’d needed to have my last New York meal here and I’m very glad the plan worked out. Looking over these pictures now they give me a bad “furtively racing against the clock” feeling, these last minutes of my New York life were so rushed. That’s just how it had to be.

One last rush that night up to Lincoln Center to watch an outdoor screening of Moonstruck. A perfect New York movie, the perfect New York goodbye.

Then one last trip up to Inward, one last visit to C Town Town, and, miracle of miracles, tenderest of mercies, the neighborhood skunk I had been fixated with and tried to befriend WAS WAITING FOR ME AT MY BUILDING’S DOORSTEP when I got home. Thank you, friend!

That night during my evening prayers I wept crocodile tears of gratitude for the blessing of having gotten to live in New York and for all my New York friends and foes that made it such a rich experience. I don’t think one could have lived a finer New York life than I did, I was even the king of the city for a while there and managed to stick around long enough to see several generations of people come and go. Of the 2003 arrivals I knew I can’t think of anyone that stayed longer than me (just a few people who predate me that are still there, true Gotham barnacles). No complaints, just gratitude.

And then the next morning it was go time, no time for feelings, just time for truck retrieving (goodbye bodega cat! goodbye subway! goodbye Washington Heights! Hello and Goodbye Bronx neighborhood I had never been to before!) from the Bronx and moving. I hired some dudes to pack my truck up (the amount of things they broke in loading the truck? Astounding!) but Ned, Patricia, Rebecca, Angelique, and Jason all turned up to say adios and help oversea the job. It was a swift 3 hour loading (could’ve been swifter if you ask me) and by 11:30 or so I was on the road!

It was the kind of drive where you seem to be making good time for most of it and then takes 3 hours longer than expected at the end somehow (or, because you wanted to get your first Baconator in 16 years).

But it was all undoubtedly extremely worth it.