LiCalsi and I go to church in Manhasset and he looks good on his cell phone the whole way:


After taping the High School play in Manhasset to rave reviews, my name was given to a woman who needed me to videotape a play about her that was being performed in a Church in Manhasset.


A play ABOUT HER, you ask? I'll explain when we get there. It was to start at 8pm. So I told LiCalsi to be at my place at 3:30pm. And at 1:45 I decided that I would have New England Clam Chowder for lunch at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station.


I was a little worried about time, but the 5 train whisked me from Wall St. to Grand Central in 4 stops, taking just over 10 minutes. Love this city. A Lovely day, too. Here was what I saw from my window before I left:



And I'm really glad I went. I smiled the whole time. And took some pictures.


I always assumed that the Oyster Bar on the lower level of the famous train terminal would be touristy and stupid. But, on a whim, last week, while doing "Zwiper" errands, I went, and loved it.


There are three sections. One is a sit-down restaurant section. Boring. No pictures.


The second is an oyster bar. Literally a bar, behind which they shuck fresh raw oysters as you order them:

Above it, is a sign with all the types of oysters, and their price per oyster. So nice. I'm an oyster junkie, though I've not had them there yet. That has to be planned. It gets expensive fast.


The third section is where I sat. Horse-shoe shaped bars, serviced crudely and quickly, with little time for manners, by one or two tough people. Plates of soup and fried fish, slammed down in front of you, with only the occasional smile or politeness. It's a fast-paced flurry of activity. You sit down, and get a menu plunked down in front of you. It's hand written every day and is the size of 4 sheets of normal-sized paper, front and back. It has the date on it! And if you start ordering, as the menu us being flung over to you, like you know what you're doing, the menu disappears just as fast. Then, PLUNK, you get a plate with bread and flattened sesame toast, and some butter. I ordered the New England Clam Chowder. I had come all the way from Wall St. for it. The people around me had come from much farther. All languages and accents were smattering the din under the Guastavino-tiled vaulted ceilings:



The light fixtures are nautical. For the fish. The tiling is amazing. The vaulted ceilings make the place so cozy. So good for eating hardy cream-based soup.



I love the place and want to go back. The soup was excellent. The only better place is Bigalow's on the south shore of Long Island in Rockville Centre, and it's hard to get to. So this will do when I'm stuck in Manhattan. Mmmmmm. They even have Ipswich Clams! (Clams with the soft "belly" portion still attached, much like the texture of an oyster. Excellent when fried and eaten with Tartar sauce. And French fries and root beer. Damn.)


So then I went back downtown. 3:30 rolled around, LiCalsi came over, and we began the process of schlepping the equipment out to Long Island. LiCalsi on the uptown 1 train to Penn:





Here is Peter LiCalsi in Penn Station. This is art:


Peter videotapes in style. And then we got to the church. It's a pretty building. Looks kind of like it has a lighthouse component to it:



We set up the equipment, and we went to the Italian place that we really enjoyed last time we shot a play in Manhasset. Peter didn't like that the name of the place was of one town in Italy, and it has the coliseum on the wall, which is in a totally different part of Italy:



Then, with still more time to spare, we went to a diner next store with a fun name. Here's the exterior. Old building. Pizza place on right. Diner on left.



Inside the diner, Peter had coffee:



And then we taped the play. It was a play about a teacher who works in Manhattan but lives in Manhasset. The teacher, Sue Lucarelli, the woman that hired me to videotape the play about her, got teddy bears for her traumatized students immediately following Sept. 11th, 2001. The idea expanded into a national teddy bear drive to get every elementary student in NYC a teddy bear. 53,000 ended up being delivered from all over the country to the church in which this play was being performed. The play, recently written, and performed by a traveling performance group from Northwestern College (not university), in Iowa, was sweet, and a little much. But it avoided being the story of Blane. And it was just over an hour, a saving grace. And there was a surprisingly healthy audience.


Peter getting ready to record:



And we packed up and left. We just missed a train back to the city, and had to wait an hour:



And, by accident, I ended up with a montage of pictures showing LiCalsi on his cell phone at every location on our days' journey. Here they are, in sequence:


In front of the church as we arrive:



At the diner:




Waiting for the subway:

I think he's had enough for one day.