Too Soon To End

Nicole John. Daughter. Sister. Niece. Friend. Classmate. Schoolmate. According to an aunt, she is artistic. On her blog, Nicole describes herself as having a wild streak. We all wear identity tags, some of them lightly. One was weightier than most. "Daughter of US Envoy" is how the New York Times described her because her father is the  Ambassador to Thailand. Yahoo News wrote she attended "the International School in Bangkok" as if ISB is the school and the only one of its kind in Bangkok. We both came to New York City from Bangkok along different trajectories. But we are not so different from the thousands of other newcomers to the City, filled with hope or imagining a faraway future around a twisty bend. What we seek to find we cannot tell; and not knowing, we can lose our way.

Nicole John fell to her death from the 25th floor of a midtown apartment building at four a.m. on Friday. She had been to a party there. Police think she crawled out onto a ledge to take a photograph of the Empire State Building nearby. Her host has been arrested for serving alcohol to underage minors. She was just seventeen. In the Times photograph, he is a pudgy man, smiling for the camera with hands cuffed behind him. The trendy nightclub where Nicole had also been partying earlier that night is under investigation.  She had used a fake ID to get in. On it, her given age is twenty-three. These facts are part of the news reports.

Nicole would have been a freshman at Parsons New School of Design. The class of 2014 will begin their first classes Monday without her. All the old clichés surface: too young to die, a waste, promise unfulfilled, she had her whole life ahead of her.  "Clubbed to Death" and "Plummet Gal" chortled one tabloid uneasily, tasteless footnotes for another young girl dead before her time. Because she fit the Paris Hilton trope: young, privileged, wealthy, beautiful, idle--and careless--she has earned the front page of the tabloids and significant column inches in the Times NY/Region pages. Nicole is this weekend's news.

Her family will remember this weekend for the rest of their lives. It is they who must also live with the sorrow and the regret, as well as the terrible question, how could we have kept her safe? Unfortunately, children make choices without heeding their parents. As parents, we know this truth. We know children do not think of us before they act. Nothing done can be undone. If only they knew that.

Why is New York so fascinating?

42nd Street Times Square, between 7th and 8th Avenues

Today we went down to Times Square to buy those elusive tour tickets for Yankee Stadium. According to Where New York magazine, we can buy the tickets at Times Square so we don't have to go out to 161st Street in the Bronx to buy them. When we got there, the ticket booth was empty and the salesperson told us that they don't sell tour tickets here. This was our third try to get tickets so we gave up. The first time we did go to Yankee Stadium but the tour was sold out. The second time, we went to Times Square on a Sunday afternoon, and a different salesperson said to come back on a weekday. Well, this is a weekday, and we still got nothing for our trouble.

On the map, this area is also called the Theater District.  We could see the American Fantasy Machine in full swing: Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, Mary Poppins The Musical, The Lion King The Musical, and dotted in between, the souvenir shops and the ubiquitous McDonald's. But the sidewalks are trashy and the gutters are wet and slick with pulpy paper from yesterday's rain, touts in red vests line the street corners, and so do the discreet women of dubious virtue. And still the tourists come to this place, this Mecca of Fantasy. It's hard to say why people come to Times Square. Is it everything they expect? Some glitter amidst the sham?

I heard a tourist ask a cop in Times Square, where is SoHo? He had the hardest time trying to explain this because many of New York's districts are without borders. There is nothing to delineate, say,  Chinatown from Little Italy, except Canal Street, and even then, you will find Chinese businesses in Little Italy. New York districts are also a state of mind. People living around Columbia University like to say they live in Morningside Heights, not Harlem. 

That's what makes New York City fascinating. People make up their realities as they live them.

Finding a Chinese Eatery in the 'Hood

Anything good to eat?

We came uptown after our fruitless search for tour tickets to Yankee Stadium, and went into this little restaurant at the corner of 99th Street and Amsterdam Avenue across from St. Michael's church. It looked clean and it had white tablecloths covered with a sheet of white parchment paper. That's unique, I thought. We sat down to order the lunch specials; starting at $5.50, you get soup or egg roll, and rice with the entrée. AJ ordered sweet and sour chicken. I ordered the shrimp in black bean sauce. We both ordered soup, wonton for AJ, egg drop for me, and both of them a curious sunny shade of yellow.

Shrimp in a spicy Black Bean Sauce

In the new minimalist style, my lunch arrived on a large rectangular plate. The rice was a round scoop and the entrée was carefully arranged in a compulsive square on the right. Both the rice and entrée were disconnected by the white plate that surrounded them. By eating them, I brought them together!

Koko's View of Manhattan

The power of the judiciary at Federal Plaza, Manhattan

Peekaboo!

That's how you move lots of people. Put them on wheels.

To me, it looked like a giant pterosaurus landed in the fountain.

MOCA, High Line Park, and East Village

MOCA

No, that's not a new coffee drink! MOCA is the Museum of Chinese in America. In a city known for a variety of museums, this is a small one located on Centre Street between Howard and Grand. One fine day, we walked from 38th street down Third Avenue, then west through Cooper Square and picked up Lafayette and Centre. MOCA is at the junction of Soho and Chinatown. But all New York neighborhoods are a state of mind anyway. You are where you want to be.

Replica of a Chinatown shop

 The Chinatown shop replica was way too clean, spacious, and well-lighted to be real. Chinatown shops to me are dark and musty and have a particular smell of herbs and preserves. In addition to the shop, the museum has posters, photographs, and film documenting the lives of the Chinese in the United States and celebrating their accomplishments.

Walking the tracks at High Line Park

Besides MOCA, another interesting site to visit is High Line Park. A clever concept that, to recycle some old elevated train tracks into a public park. It begins at Gansevoort Street in the West Village near the Hudson River and continues all the way up to 20th Street. That's just phase one of the park. An extension is planned all the way up to 34th Street. I got onto the park through an elevator at West 14th Street and Tenth Avenue. There are wooden benches and chaise lounges for sitting and sunning. However, owing to the lack of trees and the concrete, it's hot up there!

Getting some sun

People forget that New York is constantly renewing itself. High Line Park is a nice reminder that demolition isn't always the way to make way for the new. Sometimes something old can be turned to another use. New York also has quaint neighborhoods. Not far from Cooper Square is this little neighborhood on Eighth Street where we found a banh mi sandwich shop. I don't know if the bull on the roof is supposed to be a reminder that New York is the financial center to the world.

Bull

The street was tree-lined and a little faded, with that Boho touch that is so fashionable these days and much imitated. In one small block there were several cafés, at least one deli, a yoga studio, and a shop selling used CDs and DVDs that were shockingly overpriced. Haven't they heard of the free downloads at Limewire and Pirate Bay?

Eighth Street's got something for everyone. Like New York itself.

New York City, Redux

New York assaults the senses. It's hectic, noisy, crowded, and anonymous. AJ and I are trying to remember our way around but I confess I often get turned around and go north when I want south and go west when I want east! Despite these mishaps, we've been as far downtown at St. Paul's Chapel near Ground Zero, and as far uptown as Columbia University. In between we've been to the American Museum of Natural History and Chinatown, Grand Central Terminal, the New York City Public Library, and we're exploring the Murray Hill neighborhood where we're currently staying. We walked to the end of 42nd Street where it ends in FDR Drive and saw the UN Plaza. We can just see the Empire State building from Susan's kitchen window, too. What I like most is how the city offers spaces, like the Grand Central Library, where you can nurture the spirit--or the mind.

@Grand Central Library, 46th Street between Lexington and Third