My New York Minute

No country for old men

I’ve been visiting Manhattan since I was old enough to take the bus by myself from Passaic County, where I grew up. I liked nothing better than wandering its streets, including in my later years, especially in the Village. My wife and I started visiting by renting in the storied Lower East Side some years back. We do that now about once a year, or every other year. We went again this week.

First time we had some dumpy apartment and, looking out the window, saw a building with a huge statue on top. It turned out to be a statue of Lenin. The building was an apartment that a sociology professor somehow came to own.

Near the statue was that nutty clock. I’ve forgotten the story about it, except that it had something to do with the comic book character Mister Mxyzptlk. I had heard the statue was moved to Seattle, but Wikipedia says it’s still in NYC.

The LES has vibrant street life, mostly younger people in my recollection. I don’t know how they can afford to live there. Everything costs five dollars. You can always smell marijuana, just walking outside, though this trip I never saw anybody smoking. In the past, we’ve taken in the Tenement Museum, the Eldridge Street synagogue (posted pictures on Facebook, long ago), and Chinatown.

Walking around, you have to keep your head on a swivel. You have folks on all manner of electric conveyance — bicycles, unicycles, hoverboards, roller skates.

I went back to Chinatown for one of my faves, dim sum, and for the second time at a place mostly patronized by Asians, was ignored by the wait staff for ten minutes. Never again, now that we found a great Chinese place near our hotel, a bit north of Delancey. Dumplings seem to have become a big hit, though I struggle to find places that have everything I want.

It’s funny that NYC is said to be economically crippled by regulation, but on every street this is a riot of small shops, holes in the wall, selling anything you might want to eat or buy. Traffic enforcement is casual. Just driving around for a couple of hours, I must have run four different red lights.

I went to the Upper East Side to take in the Met. Mob scene of students. The streets there are a little more barren, more apartments, fewer shops. Lots of people walking packs of dogs. Apparently that’s a big source of employment. On the street, Hispanic women were selling meals in aluminum foil containers out of coolers to the fellows doing public works. I assume they couldn’t afford the eateries. Again I wonder about the affordability of the place. But if you can figure out a way, how can you stay away? I couldn’t. You have theaters showing films you can’t find on Netflix. Come on!

We took in museums and our regular stop, the Strand bookstore. I loaded up at Zabar’s, since I live in a delicatessen desert. I bought fewer books this time, since I’m getting more into Kindle and other ebooks.

The mayoralty race there will be interesting. Adams’s name is mud now. There is an interesting lefty contender, one Zohran Mamdani, about whom I hear good things. I’ve long thought if the Left can’t stand up a solid candidate in a place like New York City (or Washington, D.C.), that’s pretty sad.

Mayor De Blasio did something important, the preschool thing, but he doesn’t seem to have left office covered in glory. Then they got the crooked Adams.

It’s interesting that the institution of ranked choice voting has not been a boon to the Left. Apparently it helps centrists more, since they get more of the “meh” votes, from those picking less-preferred candidates. Perhaps it will take a few more years for the masses to wise up.

As we were leaving the city, we saw a video of a protest crowd that had gotten into Trump Tower. I hope somebody took a dump in the lobby. The kidnapping of Columbia student activist Mahmoud Kahlil by the Department of Homeland Security is blowing up. Now a new day is coming, we can always hope.