Another New York
May 29, 2014
We took a road trip to New York City last week, not Manhattan, but Jackson Heights in Queens, the wonderfully diverse neighborhood where our son Seth lives.
It was a jam-packed forty-five hours.
We hadn’t seen Seth since Christmas, so after a tearful reunion (my tears only), we took a mile-plus walk to the Louis Armstrong home in adjacent Corona. Armstrong lived there for thirty years until he died in 1971 at age 70—an unassuming house in a poor neighborhood when he could afford to live anywhere. The house is as it was, its 1950’s kitchen with aqua cabinets and appliances, its bedroom dresser still with his wife’s huge bottle of Shalimar on top. Worth a trip, especially if you are heading toward a Met’s game, just two subway stops away.
Dinner that night was at Ayada, a tiny Thai restaurant in Elmhurst, only a ten-minute walk from Seth’s home. Small, unassuming, but different and delicious. A New York Times food critic’s favorites are noted on the menu.
The next morning we headed to Manhattan and my first-ever visit to the Frick Museum. It’s been on my destination list forever, and I shouldn’t have waited this long to see such a gem. A Broadway matinee, some chair-shopping with Seth, and dinner with cousins at a local restaurant on the Bowery followed.
Seth walked us to our car the next morning. He suggested that I not cry and I didn’t. I could only think how lucky we are to have had such quality time with him.
And how exhilarating, expensive and exhausting New York City can be.