1. Sally gave me a ride to the Metuchen train station where I bought my New Jersey Transit tickets and vaulted onto the train for Penn Station, New York. I started reading East of Eden. I arrived at Penn Station and leaped off the train into a simmering pot of pea soup. It was as if all of the summer New York City heat was trapped underground at Penn Station. I looked left and right and saw the sign I wanted to see directing me to the 34th and Penn MTA station hosting the number 1 train and walked through a maze of underground hallways to reach my destination. I bought a subway pass, made my way to the correct platform, and, before I knew it, I was on my way to the lower reaches of Manhattan.
2. I got off the train at Rector Street, took a few minutes to look at a map on my phone to make sure I was oriented, and walked about two tenths of a mile up to O'Hara's Restaurant and Pub. I walked past Trinity Church and could see the World Trade Center looming over this part of town and remembered all I learned last time I was in O'Hara's, with Ed and Mike, of the terrible damage O'Hara's had suffered on Sept. 11, 2001 and how the place recovered.
I sat at the bar, ordered a bottle of Dirt Wolf, and waited for Scott Shirk to arrive. He sauntered in, joined me in drinking a Dirt Wolf of his own and our afternoon and early evening in Manhattan was underway. We had a lot to talk about over the next several hours: theater, music, movies, travel, some of the latest developments in our lives, and a beer at O'Hara's got us off to just the right start.
3. Scott and I left O'Hara's and started walking north on Broadway, talking, admiring buildings, getting hungrier. Scott spied a small diner, called Square Diner, in TriBeCa, and we slipped in where Scott ate a stack of pancakes and a couple of eggs and I enjoyed a Cuban sandwich and fries. By now our conversation veered deeply into music and musicians, with special emphasis on The Band and Little Feat. We finished up and continued to walk north and a little west to The Malt House in the Village.
The Malt House was quiet, except for crappy house music, which we ignored, but had to shout over to hear each other talk sometimes, and I introduced Scott to Sierra Nevada's latest Grose, Otra Vez (which made an appearance on tequila night at Beer Club). Meanwhile, Cate swept into the bar and joined Scott and me. Her arrival made me very happy. I hadn't seen Cate since I officiated Scott and Cate's wedding in Savannah back in October of 2016. She joined right in, and elevated the premium yakkin' Scott and I had been engaged in for the last several hours. I ordered a small pour of Firestone Walker's Leo vs Ursus Doublus. We finished our beers and headed out.
Next stop was Generation Records, a used record shop on Thompson St. For the first time in many, many years I flipped through record albums and looked at used cds and let the thrash metal house music occupy me, a welcome relief from the junk that had been playing at The Malt House. Punk over junk.
Refreshed by combing through albums and cds, we strolled half a block to The Half Pint, endured the exact same junk music playing on the house system here as at The Malt House, and each ordered our last beer. I'd had a beer with a Latinate name from Gun Hill Brewing of the Bronx back in April of 2017, and now I know that Gun Hill is brewing a series of beers under the name E. Pluribus Lupulin. I drank a pint can of E. Pluribus Lupulin VII, Vox Populi (I think -- I wish I'd written it down). Whether it was VII or VIII, it was a very interesting and enjoyable beer.
Scott, Cate, and I ended our evening at Washington Square Park where we listened to a jazz combo, watched jugglers and guy on a unicycle, listened to a man shouting at no one, and saw a generous number of people relaxing on benches or milling around (like us), all enjoying the lovely August dusk.
Scott, Cate, and I meandered over to the 4th Street subway station. I headed for the A or C Train and they headed for the train to Brooklyn. I arrived at a cooler part of Penn Station, followed all the the signs to New Jersey Transit, discovered that the train I wanted to ride was boarding, scurried to the correct platform, got on with plenty of time to spare, and rode back to Metuchen. I ate the half a sandwich I carried out from Square Diner and Sally picked me up at the station.
It was my favorite kind of day in NYC -- great conversations, schedule-less meandering, hanging out near the Village, drinking a couple of East Coast beers, and a couple of West Coast beers, and soaking in the vitality of the place. The day was made all the more enjoyable because the weather was moderate, not a humid scorcher. I'd say my entire eight hour or so visit was perfect.
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