New York City: Dec 3: The New York Times Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Selected Shorts

The day's main goals were to see an exhibit at the New York Times building (which wasn't yet installed when I lived in the city), walk across the Brooklyn Bridge (which I never managed to do previously), and watch a staged reading of short stories by Selected Shorts (which rarely tours in California). These pictures document the day's adventures.

First, I took a slightly delayed train from Newark's Penn Station into Manhattan's Penn Station. (B and C say the rush hour trains run on time and the off-peak ones get less attention.) After grabbing breakfast at a mini-chain bakery in New York City, Hot & Crusty, I walked uptown to the New York Times building.

I went to the Moveable Type exhibit in lobby of New New York Times building. I heard about the exhibit in a radio segment (WNYC's On The Media via NPR). The lobby is filled with many dot-matrix/teletype-like screens that light up in a variety of ways. The exhibit was less cool in person than I imagined it would be--too many of the things the screens display were non-sequitur (e.g., noun phrases that lacked context). I started to like the exhibit more the longer I stood there, which I guess is because I got to see more patterns I liked displayed by the screens. For instance, I liked seeing the crossword puzzles filled in, reading interesting place names, learning about people's lives (as seen in obituaries), and seeing phrases with numbers in them (which usually conveyed a neat fact, or made one wonder why the New York Times printed that number).

After grabbing a train to south-east Manhattan, I ate lunch at Nyonya, a Singaporean/Malaysian restaurant of a type I ate at in Singapore. Indeed, it was recommended by a friend of mine (Mr. Lau) who lives in Singapore. The menu was full of familiar choices: all the standards from Singapore. I even saw them making Hainanese chicken the traditional way. I wish this place was near my apartment.

I walked by the edge of Chinatown, then spent a while hunting for the pedestrian entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a good day to walk across the bridge. Although cool, the sky was clear, yielding high visibility. Incidentally, the bridge has some bas relief panoramas (of the same view that the person standing in front of them sees) with notable buildings labeled: a nice way to inform the viewer what's what.

A short subway ride later, I made it to Pommes Frites, a Belgian fries shop in the East Village (a recommendation of another friend). My fries we made fresh when I ordered them: thrown into their own vat of hot oil, removed, salted, and tossed. Good quality.

With time to kill, after wandering a little, I ended up at the New York Public Library. I looked through the exhibits. I was struck again how fancy and lavish it is--everything is simply bigger and grander than, say, Boston's flagship public library (which I previously visited).

Given my large mid-afternoon snack, I wanted a light dinner. I headed to the upper-east side to try Papaya King, an acclaimed hot dog vendor. Though it has a few locations now, this is the original. I didn't think this hot-dog-and-papaya stand was significantly different than others I've tried in the city.

After a slow cross-town bus, I arrived at the theater to meet C and see Selected Shorts on stage. This was one of the reasons I made this trip to New York. Selected Short is a radio program where talented actors and actresses read literary short stories. I've listened to this show for years and wanted to attend a reading in person. The stories are often hit or miss for me, with the majority actually a miss, being too literary for my tastes. Nevertheless, I enjoy listening, and even the ones I don't like make me feel more sophisticated for having heard them.

The show is usually recorded in New York City, though sometimes they go on tour and record in other New England destinations and, occasionally, in Los Angeles. At one point, I almost planned a trip to Los Angeles simply to attend the performance. Well, given that I was in Boston, New York wasn't that far away, and I had other reasons to visit the city, I figured now was my chance to attend a reading in person.

I attended the performance Neil LaBute Presents The Grand Illusion: Tales of American Couples. The first two stories were too morbid for me. Intermission had a fun sing-and-answer game (which I never heard on the radio!), though some songs were too old for me to recognize. As for the final story, Neil LaBute's A Second of Pleasure, I really liked it. An amazing story composed entirely of (natural) dialog, further improved by great acting by the readers. C and I left in the middle of the worthless Q&A that followed the final reading.