4/9/04 Rich Packs for Easter Cooking; Crowd crowds Rector Subway Entrance; Fairway, Inwood, Erin's new Place with Erin, Aaron, J.D., and Joey; Kura:

The morning, Richard is preparing to go to New Jersey for his extended Easter vacation. Because he's now a bit of a chef, he's taken on some of the responsibility of cooking a few dishes for the family, and I find him cleverly packing some of the cooking tools he needs into one of his handy film-industry-grade carrying bags.

I notice a bit of a ruckus out the window. A whole bunch of people are inexplicably standing around the entrance to my subway station, the Rector Street entrance to the 1/9. I watch as New Yorkers push their way through this herd of seemingly lost tourists.

In fact, they're standing out there so long, that about 10 minutes from now, on my way uptown, I get to push through them myself. "Excuse me," I say, realizing as I'm passing from the phonemes I'm hearing, that they all speak only French. Their leader was downstairs, flabbergasted, dealing with the token booth clerk, trying to buy rides in bulk. I swipe trough the mess. They had so thoroughly surrounded the entrance that other tourists were starting to wait behind them, as if on a queue. Oh brother.

Admiring some of the views from 72nd and Broadway.

The decorative elements on this building are over the top.

Some men service the Chase clock on the side of this building. I meet up with Erin, Aaron, Erin's Brother, J.D., and their friend Joey. JD and Joey were visiting from California. Today we planned to have brunch at the Cafe Above Fairway, and then head up to Inwood for Erin to begin closing the deal on an apartment she's found up there.

Cafe Above Fairway was a fairly frustrating experience, because they didn't have the two things I went there for. No fresh squeezed O.J., and no Pancakes. I had a bagel with lox and enjoyed it, reluctantly.

We then took the 1/9 train up to 181st street.

It's one of those fun, really deep stations with an overpass inside a round tunnel arch.

And the only way to get upstairs (to street level) is by elevator.

Until very recently, all elevators were operated by a person. It seemed silly at first, when I discovered these elevator-based stations, that a person was there, full time, to push an elevator button for you. But, I came to enjoy their presence and the feeling of safety that came with them. Now, one elevator in each station will be manned 24/7, while all others will be rider-operated. More budget cuts.

The "Staffed Elevator" is posted. So you have a choice. Convenience (when the other elevator comes first) or safety.

At Broadway and 181st street. 181 is a major commercial thoroughfare. It's like a Canal Street without the Chinese theme. It's got a Spanish speaking theme instead.

They were selling my favorite ices (behind Erin).

Erin needed to go to a Western Union.

This is what it looked like on the inside. [Sketchy].

Retro ice cream truck nearby on the street. Awesome.

We walked along 181st street to Ft. Washington Avenue, the location of the real estate office. On the way, some interesting architecture. For example, this building obviously used to be something else. A theatre, I think.

It was a real old move house. And, it seems to be coming back? What's Pronta Apertura? A move? A store?

Walking up the hill on 181.

Looking down 181 towards the Hudson. Two kids on bikes.

The realty office that Erin is working with. Erin's brother below.

Aaron and Joey act out a drug deal.

I don't know how the conversation turned to it. Probably because we were loitering (in hats and hoods in some cases) waiting for Erin to come out of the leasing office, and so we looked like drug dealers, perhaps.

Very slick. Assumedly, Joey would have had drugs in his hand. In this reenactment, no drugs.

The building on the opposite corner. Manhattan's architecture above 96th street is just as fascinating as it is below.

A gentleman passed us twice, selling flowers to the neighborhood from a shopping cart.

Lots of signs.

Erin's brother, like all the members of her family, is very athletic. He likes to climb things (like James Granger).

He is literally scaling the brick wall of a building. I tried it and got to half this height. He's making it look easy here.

Erin finishes, and we take a leisurely tour-like walk of Erin's soon-to-be neighborhood.

This park is the highest natural point on Manhattan Island. It's right over there where the rock comes out of the grass. 276 feet, I believe... just about the height of the Brooklyn Bridge towers.

Walking down Ft. Washington Avenue, going Uptown.

We make a right on 187th street, which is a staircase instead of a street. It becomes a street again at the top and bottom, but only people can go between these two avenues here. No cars, please.

We walk 2 blocks from the staircase and make a left on Bennett avenue.

Bennett Avenue is a string of brick apartment buildings, built uniformly, and in a row like row-houses, but larger and more modern. These are all from the 1930's. Pre-wars with little rickety elevators going up about 6-8 stories.

The entrance to Erin's building.

The doorbell.

Unfortunately, after having walked a good 12 blocks along hilly Manhattan from the leasing office, we cannot open the lock. Apparently the guy gave Erin the wrong set of master keys. So we have to go back.

Old signage in the building.

So we decide to walk to the next subway station (191) and take it back to the leasing office (181). Down the street is this hill of Manhattan Schist.

Built into the hill is an entrance to the A line.

On the A train, which we are taking a whopping 1 stop, I run into the lady who recently hired me to tape her 4 year old play at Calhoun! She knows many of the kids that Erin works with at her gym, and they exchange a few names. Then we get off the train.

Everyone gets a more thorough tour of the neighborhood then they might have bargained for.

This is the end of anything but total disgust for the New York Post. I watched this hearing. "Condi" was defensive and fairly un-informed about her own department's goings-on. Most people came away from her 9/11 panel hearing with a sense that she is a cold-hearted political player. And then I see this on the desk of the leasing office. First of all, SINCE WHEN WERE OPINIONS ALLOWED TO BE HEADLINES!?!?!?! Can you imagine the New York Times with a headline like "BUSH IS WRONG AND LOOKS STUPID." This angered me for the 5 minutes I had to look at it. I am a disgusted liberal and I'm proud.

We went to a nearby Starbucks for restrooms and refreshers. Lots of young people on cell phones and laptops. There was a real sense of neighborhood in here.

Along our walk back to Erin's Apartment, we passed 4 or 5 Jewish temples or community centers. There is a large very-Jewish (yeshiva) population up near Erin.

Erin's brother is up to more acrobatics.

Kids playing jump rope on the street. It's known as a very safe, quiet neighborhood up here.

We pass 187th street and see the staircase in the distance.

The elevator control panel.

This time we have the correct keys.

Erin's new apartment:

The first impression is that there is a great deal of light and air coming in from the back wall. This is the first thing I noticed when I was shown my current apartment (#1010) and this is one of the biggest factors in the live-ability of a place.

Nice wood floor.

It's an L-shaped space, which is nice for making a little bedroom area.

Off the bedroom area there is a little room with closets, which leads to the bathroom.

In the bathroom is a built in laundry bin.

The showerhead should always be replaced with something modern. In my opinion, that's the #1 way to make a bathroom better.

The closet space in that little hallway is plentiful.

The kitchen was better than I had expected given the age of the building, except for the counter, which has to be replaced. Erin says she expects to do that.

Ick.

Not bad at all. Very clean.

Small but useful.

The light cover needs to go.

I checked the circuit breaker box and instead found the older version... a fuse box.

The views out the windows are wonderful, because the building is higher up on a hill than the buildings behind, you can see to Broadway, and then you can see the next hill behind Broadway.

On that hill, straight out the window, it s lovely park, built right into the side of that hill. It will be very green in the summers.

The view down is the roof of the next building.

The view straight down is the area behind Erin's building.

I really like the place. It's way uptown, but that's the only way this is going to be $850 per month. God bless. My apartment is smaller and more than double the rent.

We are here on a measuring mission, to begin planning the layout of the furniture.

Erin and her father have prepared detailed schematics of the apartment. Now we're filling in the dimensions.

The bathroom, we found, also features a functional relic. A laundry drying rack! It folds right up into the wall!

Pull on a string to lift up the rack.

We finish what we need to do, and head back home.

On the corner of her building is the same phone number from her rental guy.

The long tunnel to the A train line, deep in the hill.

JD and Joey.

Erin and Aaron. Erin likes to make faces when I take photos. Aaron likes to ignore me.

We decide to try to get tickets for JD and Joey to see Avenue Q. We figure that if the four of us fill out cards, it doubles the chances that they can get the 2 tickets they need to see the show at rush discount.

None of us get picked, and so we move on.

Joey has never seen Times Square, so it was kind of fun to show him.

In the large area between the Broadway, 7th Avenue and Shuttle lines in the Times Square subway station, where there is usually some sort of performance going on, the acrobatic break dancers were at work.

This flash photo looks a little funny because all the dust in the air is reflecting my flash.

We watch for a little while, and then we head for the East Village. JD and Joey want good NYC sushi, something that is very hard to find on the west coast. I recommend Kura. On the way, we stop at Kim's Video:

Mmmm.

Erin likes Rice. When she orders "Rice," she usually gets a look from the waitress. "Just Rice?" "Yep." "Are you sure?" "Positive!" Every time.

Walking back from Kura at the end of a lovely day.