New York City 2012 - Day 3

Our NBC Studio Tour was scheduled for 9:15, so we left the hotel at 8:00 AM. The kids are finding it difficult to jump out of bed and hit the streets first thing in the morning. They keep asking when they can sleep in and I avoid answering the question, because according to my itinerary… they can’t. But they got over 8 hours of sleep last night and that’s really impressive for a vacation. For a Niemeyer vacation, anyway.

Jackson, Ali and Ashley bought bagels and donuts off a cart near Rockefeller Center. Chad, Leah and I got breakfast at Starbucks in The Concourse and sat at the windows overlooking the ice skating rink until we had to gather in the NBC Store and meet up with our group. There were 30 of us taking the tour.

Our tour guides' names were Tiffany and Rachel and they started the tour by showing us an 8 minute film on the past 80 years of television and NBC. After the film, we moved on to the studio where they film Nightly News and Rock Center with Brian Williams. Then we stopped by the studio where Dr. Oz films his show. Which just so happens to be David Letterman and Conan O’Brien’s old studio.

Next was the studio we were mainly interested in: Studio 8H – where Saturday Night Live has been broadcast since before I was born. We were unable to go into the actual studio and sit in the audience chairs, because the crew was getting the set ready for taping. They had 10 hours until taping and they were still painting the set. We got to watch for about 15 minutes while the tour guides shared all kinds of tidbits with us. (Interesting fact: It takes 350 people to put together Saturday Night Live each week, compared to the 15 crew members on Dr. Oz.)

We then moved to a small room and they asked for 2 volunteers. Jackson raised his and Tiffany chose him and a teenage girl. They took the volunteers and everyone in their parties to another room where there was a news desk, cameras, a green screen and some audience seats. The guides quickly showed the girl and Jackson what they needed to do. The girl was to sit at the news desk and read the teleprompter and then pass it off to Jackson, who was “The Weather Man.” I’ll save you all the details and let you see for yourself how hilarious Jackson was. The audience’s reaction is what keeps my boy alive.

When the tour was over we took the subway to the Upper Eastside and went to Dylan’s Candy Bar which is owned by Ralph Lauren’s daughter. It’s a really fun and colorful candy store where the prices are astronomically inflated, but that doesn’t matter to folks because there was still barely room to walk! Chad bought a candy called, “Everything But the Kitchen Sink.” It was glorious. Here is the description from the Dylan’s Candy Bar website: “Hand poured smooth milk chocolate, salted pretzels, airy kernels of popcorn, tasty cashews, buttery toffee bits, graham cracker pieces, marshmallows and peanuts cover every inch, making each sweet bite chock-full of flavor and crunch.” In one single bite it became the best candy Chad has ever eaten.

Next, we walked to Serendipity to try their world famous Frozen Hot Chocolate and even though we got there 3 minutes after they opened, the line was so long, we would’ve had to wait for over and hour and a half just to get through the doors. So we moved on to Bloomingdales - where I saw a child’s coat that was size 2T and it cost $450.00. There is so much I want to say about that, but I need to move this along…

From Bloomingdales we walked to Le Parker Meridien. I’d read about The Burger Joint which supposedly has some of “the best” burgers in New York City. You wouldn’t know The Burger Joint was there unless you knew where to look. It’s hidden behind a floor to ceiling curtain in the lobby of the hotel. No signs, no indication that a restaurant is even there. I asked an employee, and he pointed us to the tiny hallway behind the curtain. There was only a neon sign of a hamburger to light the way. We stepped into the tiniest, darkest, dumpiest place we’d been to so far. And it was PACKED. The line was to the door, the few booths and tables that were there were jammed full and it was a madhouse. They have a sign that lets you know if you’re not ready to order when you get to the counter, you go to the back of the line. And they have a sign that says, “If you don’t see it, we don’t have it.” They mean business. I ordered our food and we had to eat in the lobby of the hotel because it was so crazy. I get a bit bummed at this point of the story because they didn’t include Leah’s burger (which we found out after we made it to the lobby) and she had to leave in 10 minutes for her 2:00 matinee of Sister Act. There was no time for her to eat and the line to the Burger Joint was now twice as long as it had been. I wasn’t about to go back in and tell them they made a mistake. They scared me the first time. Leah and the kids took a taxi to the hotel so Leah could get ready for her play. We walked back (I’m sensing a theme here.)

Let me explain why Leah went to a show by herself, in case you think it odd that someone would do that. She is the biggest Theater Nut I’ve ever met and she would spend every waking moment in New York at a play if she could. This is her 5th trip to New York and she’s seen everything. It’s pretty impressive, actually. I had scheduled this afternoon to be museum-time and Leah would have none of that because she hates museums, so she had the perfect scapegoat.

After a bit of a rest, Chad, the kids and I headed out to MoMA. We walked in the doors and the place was swamped. The lines were huge and we almost lost each other in the crowd. And once again, thank God for the City Pass. We just walked right in! We went because primarily, I wanted to see Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. Any other great work of art was just going to be a bonus for me. The painting was actually stunning and I was surprised at its size: 29” x 36 ¼”. I’ve wanted to see that painting since Mrs. Weaver taught me about it when I was in elementary school.

The kids were looking at Cezanne’s The Bather (see photo) and Jackson said, “Hmmmm, this is a complicated piece. No one really knows whether he is wearing whitey tightys or tighty whiteys.” Then, as he studied it a bit longer he said, in a totally confused voice, “Why is that dude’s nipple so huge?!” I love looking at art through my kids’ eyes.

We saw some works by Pollack, Warhol, Cézanne, Picasso, Rousseau… That part was really remarkable. And then it happened… The same thing that happens every time we go to an art museum… Blank canvasses... A canvass with a solitary black circle... No canvass at all, but words on a wall that read, “A Wall Pitted By a Single Air Rifle Shot”...   And people were actually 6 inches away from the wall, examining it, trying to find a mark of some sort. We saw a large square of sheetrock cut out of one wall, exposing the plywood and beams. I thought “oh, they must be repairing the wall, that’s strange.” NOPE!!! It was somebody’s “art.”  The “artist” cut away the wall and they hung a label next to it. Jackson stared at a blank space on a wall for awhile, where the label stated, 90mc Carrier Wave. The artist had hidden an FM radio transmitter somewhere out of sight and called it art. The label read, “the project challenged long-held assumptions about what defines a work of art…” And my very smart, very astute young son said, “Wow, ANYONE in the entire WORLD can be an artist.” Yes, my boy. Yes they can. You just have to know the right person. I'm hoping The Met will have art that really speaks to me, instead of this art, which whispered insults to me in a mocking hiss.

A side note about the grumpy security guards – at first I thought they may be grumpy because they are constantly reminding people to not get too close to the artwork, or not to touch the pieces. What I think it REALLY is, is that they have to stand next to a damn bucket and bicycle wheel for 8 hours a day and pretend that it means something. (I’m sorry I said the “d” word, Jesus, but you’d be mad too if you saw what we saw.)

We rode the subway up to Central Park and had about an hour to play until we met Leah for dinner. The kids enjoyed the giant rocks more than they’ve enjoyed anything else on this trip. Sometimes I forget how easy it is to please them. We took them to Strawberry Fields and explained it to them. They had no concept or care for any of it. We walked by the Dakota and showed them where John Lennon was shot. And then explained 3 times who exactly John Lennon was.

Across the street from the Dakota was Sambuca, an Italian restaurant where we were meeting Leah. She rode a cab that the doorman at our hotel had hailed for her. It was a big black Escalade with an angry Middle Eastern driver. He drove so aggressively that when he turned a corner too sharply, she slid off his freshly Armor-All’d seats and got wedged between the 2 seats. And he was yelling angrily into his phone and Leah said she was pretty sure she heard the word, “Allah” so she was convinced he was going to crash into a building. She has a vivid imagination, in case you don’t know her.

Dinner was fantastic. We ate shrimp with broccoli rabe with garlic and olive oil, and chicken parmigiana. And my after-dinner Americano was better than most coffee houses in Washington. What a great meal!

We walked out with Leah and hailed her a cab because she had a ticket to yet ANOTHER show. This one was an unauthorized parody of Silence of the Lambs called, “Silence.” The 5 of us rode the subway back to the hotel and called it an night. Jackson conked out quickly, the girls laid in bed and read magazines.

When Leah got back from the show, she told us the play was so inappropriate that had there been an intermission, she would’ve walked out. (Mooommmm, Leah saw a naughty plaaaaayyyy!!!) She had to climb 3 floors of some old building down in the East Village and she said the theater was about as big as our suite. She had tried to get tickets to Book of Mormon, but couldn’t, and someone in the lobby told her this play was better. She gave it a try and said, “well, it was an experience.” I hope my mommy knows that I would NEVER see something like that. And my mom is so pretty, too :)

I realized today that I may have over-planned a bit. Chad reminded me that our bodies weren’t meant to get up at 6 AM, walk all day without sitting down, and then collapse at midnight. I think that our bodies are actually made with a stipulation that, when we only have 6 days in a city like this one, it’s perfectly fine to do such things. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

“They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway. They say there’s always magic in the air…”

The Niemeyers