5. Taxi to the Train; Train to the Airport; Flight from London; Arrival in Geneva. 5/9/22
Greetings from Geneva-
Before talking about today (which was pretty much a travel day), some of you asked about dinner last night (Sunday). I failed to mention the restaurant where we ate with friends.
We met them at Dishoom in Kings Cross. We had been to Dishoom in Shoreditch several times and the food is great and very low key; we had never been to the sister restaurant in Kings Cross. Since Somya and Sarauv are vegetarians we went with an all-veggie meal which was really good including a margarita-like drink that had tamarind in it. Got back to the hotel around 11:30 and then packed to make life easier for this morning.
We set out for breakfast at about 9:00 and headed to a nearby place, but they only had a fixed-price breakfast and we knew we wouldn’t eat any where near that amount, so we looked for another place but were running late, so we wound up at “Eggslut” and had some quick eggs. Then we took a taxi to Paddington and caught the Heathrow Express to Heathrow Airport. In 15 minutes we were at the airport and hiked (and I do mean hiked) to the Swissair area of the terminal (The Queen’s Terminal — #2); made a quick stop at the Lufthansa Lounge, and headed to the gate. Lots of walking—always—at Heathrow.
The flight to Geneva from London is less than two hours and poof.., we were in Geneva. The customs guy asked the usual three or four questions:
- Where did you come from (London)
- Why are you here (family)
- How long will you be here (4 days)
- Where are you going next? (Malta)
But then it was surprising… he asked us to repeat where we were going several times and each time we responded the same – Malta. And then he asked “where is Malta?” We obliged and he seemed quite curious.
We took a taxi to the hotel. We are actually at the Ritz Carlton, right on the Lake and downtown Geneva. We’ve been to Geneva many many times and usually stay in one of two very small hotels on the other side of the Lake. But we decided to try this pricier side. I had a lot of American Express points, so here we are! The service people are practically everywhere and whenever you turn around they are ready to help. But we don’t really need any help.
By the time we unpacked and changed clothes, it was time to head to dinner. We met Elizabeth, Mike’s sister-in-law, at Balilia a really wonderful Lebanese restaurant just on the other side of the Lake. We opted for five wonderful small plates (which weren’t all that small) and dessert. We were stuffed and happy. If you’re in Geneva, Balilia is a good choice.
So now it is after midnight and I’ve got a bit of work to do before crashing. By the way, travel has been good for my book as I seem to be able to fit in time on it in between other stuff and on planes.
Take care. More news tomorrow.
Fern
4. Art, Walking, Orange Wine, and the Unmasked. 5/8/22
Began today walking and taking tube to the 180 Strand Gallery to see the Future Shock exhibit: a series of subterranean spaces transformed through various forms of immersive digital technology, artificial intelligence, and some kind of 3D mapping—all with electronic music and lasers. Each space was handled differently and they represented the work of many different artists from across the globe. It was mesmerizing, as well as disorienting… and the content was definitely unclear. Frankly it was like a light show rather than art making a statement about the future which is what it purported to be. Seemed like a lot of escapism and contemplating one’s navel rather than being at the forefront of real ideas. But that’s just my humble opinion. On the other hand Finn seemed to like it—the bright colors and the motion, I suppose. We bid farewell to Hem and Finn who went off to a birthday party; Mike went back to the hotel and Emma and I hopped on the tube and headed to Broadway Market to get some lunch.
We had several small plates and ‘orange wine.’ I’ve never seen that on American menus—it’s made from white wine grapes and as I understand it, the grapes skins are not removed as they are in typical white wine production and the skins stay on for weeks or months. It’s an organic non-fermented wine. It’s very dry and also pretty strong, but tastes good.
After that Emma left for home and I took the bus back to Shoreditch. And then it was time for dinner.
We met up with friends we hadn’t seen in about 20 years, since they moved from NY to London. It was good to reconnect and hear about their work and their kids (one of whom is already at the university).
And then we headed to the hotel to pack… we’re off to Geneva tomorrow.
Finally for those who have asked: Covid is just not a thing in London or the UK… any more. No masks anywhere (??) No checking of vaccine information. And our friends said there is virtually no reporting on the news or in the press about numbers of Covid patients or positive tests. They said they went from daily reports to no reports. People we know here are all vaccinated, but they too are shocked at how behavior has totally changed. That’s it for today. Stay healthy.
Fern
Greetings from London –
Today we headed to Brighton from the London Bridge Rail Station. We met up with Emma and Hem (Hemma for short) and Finn to take the one-hour train ride to Brighton, at the sea. Mike and I hadn’t been to Brighton in decades and when we were last there it was a honky-tonk working class vacation place; no frills; inexpensive; and the visitors were clearly there to spend hard-earned and saved money to take their annual seaside vacation from northern England. Today, it’s a hip place where Londoners have their bachelor/bachelorette parties and where Londoners have pricey homes in the Hove area.
The train was efficient and we watched Finn play numerous games, put dinosaur stickers into scenes, and eat about every ten minutes. Mostly he was looking forward to seeing sharks at the aquarium. We arrived in Brighton and walked the ¾ mile to the aquarium—the oldest aquarium in the world, built in the 18th Century.
After checking out all the various fish, we walked to Salt House for lunch where we were joined by two old friends from Finland who now live in Brighton. After living in NY for decades they relocated to London and then during the pandemic while working remotely they decided to see if they liked Brighton as the thought of living by the sea was appealing. They found, after two years, that they really liked it and bought a place in Brighton Hove (which they will move into on July 1). It’s an hour train ride to his office in London and post-pandemic he is only going into the office on Mondays.
Good lunch – all fish—and then Hemma and Finn left for the train. We strolled with Pia and Sami, reminiscing and talking about Finland’s potential to join NATO. They left us off at the Royal Pavilion and they headed to their team’s football (soccer) game. They became fans of the Seagulls when they moved to Brighton. I get the sense that it’s not a very good team but it has a lot of loyal supporters.
They encouraged us to visit the Pavilion and we did. The Pavilion—built in Indo-Saracenic style has an interesting 200-year history. It was built to be the seaside pleasure house for King George IV. Its dozens of rooms are furnished both elaborately and eclectically with a good deal of Chinese artifacts. The current look of the Pavilion, with domes and minarets, came from the extension of the building in 1815. When George’s successor, Victoria, visited for the first time, she supposedly stated that she didn’t like the ostentation and also didn’t understand why a palace would be built at the sea and not have views of the sea. Apparently George’s interests in being at the sea had little to do with the waterfront and more to do with his own activities inside the palace with his women friends. Bottom line… amazing craftsmanship and upkeep—definitely not my style!
We then walked uphill through the town to the train station. By the time we reached the station we had clocked in at nearly 17,000 steps and over 7 miles, so it felt good to sit on the train. And once we reached London, we decided to take a taxi from London Bridge Station to the hotel. Just enough time to freshen up and head for dinner.
Off we went to Oklava where we had been once before but for lunch… tiny, tiny place with amazing Turkish food. We started with tomato rice stuffed courgette flowers and ox heart skewers with some kind of molasses and cumin; followed by this amazing pide (sort of a big bialy with some kind of cheese baked and an egg yolk floating at the top and some garlic and I think za’atar; and then we had the sweetbreads and a salad (with lots of ingredients). And for dessert—an amazing concoction of warm pistachio halva with tahini and fresh grapefruit, topped with a small serving of ice cream (flavor unknown)… And as usual a picture can replace a thousand words.
Strolled back (or rolled back to the hotel).. OK… that’s it; tomorrow is another day.
Stay well.
Fern
Greetings from London
We had a big agenda for today, and some went as planned, some fizzled, and some new things popped in. Our plan was to visit the Museum of Everything – dedicated to “outsider art,” with which I have a long-time fascinations, beginning in art school. And we thought we might go to the Gallery of Everything as well. But we hadn’t really looked into the details. As we finished breakfast at The Breakfast Club, we checked timing and location and learned that the Museum had closed and that the Gallery was installing a new show so we dropped those plans.. and decided to walk the two +/- miles to the Tate Modern. Frankly, for those of you who know me and my basic distaste for museums… I wa more interested in seeing the bubble gum art that someone had done on the Millennium Bridge…which you cross when walking to the Tate Modern. But as we walked the bridge that leads to the Tate Modern it seems as if (perhaps during Covid) the city had cleaned the area and the gum art was gone.
Thus we went into the Tate Modern and figured we’d see the Kusama show but tickets were sold out until October! So, we walked through the Lubaina Himid show which was interesting, but also a little problematic for me. Himid’s work depicts scenes from of the African diaspora and a quasi-everyday life of contemporary Africa. She has a very “studied” primitive style, having attended art schools and institutions of higher education. There are also two sound installations—one of which is really good, using interviews (or supposed interviews) where people state their real name (African roots) and what they are called now… and what they did in Africa and what employment they have today.
Then we headed to the Blackfriar Bridge to walk again across the Thames. We took the tube to Belsize Park in Hampstead area to see the Isokon Flats which I had read about some time ago, but never visited. It’s a modernist building built in the 1930s as an experiment that was the dream of Jack Pritchard, a furniture designer in the early 20th century. The apartments were purposefully small to accommodate working adults who Pritchard felt wouldn’t have time to cook and entertain. There was a communal kitchen and other spaces to be shared by tenants. Pritchard engaged the architect Welles Coates for the design and it has a ship like metaphor for the building’s vocabulary. The Pritchards had their own penthouse at the building. There are some interesting stories tied to the building as Agatha Christie lived there for many years and several famous architects from the Bauhaus lived there after the war. And interestingly at one point there were at least five Russian spies living on the block and in the immediate neighborhood, including one famous one living in the building. It fell into disrepair in the 60s and was eventually restored in the 80s. As we were photographing the building, an older man got out of a car and started to talk with us. Turns out he has lived in the building for about 20 years and gave us some additional information. He is a retired faculty member from Cambridge and University of London—in psychology and philosophy.. and a bit of an architecture buff.. however he didn’t pick the flat because of its fame or who had lived there (Chermayeff, Moholy-Nagy, Breuer, etc.). He picked it because he likes the neighborhood and its proximity to transit. He has another place in Cambridge.
We then took the tube back to the hotel to relax before heading to dinner. We had tried to get reservations at about a dozen places without success. People are truly out and about and Shoreditch is a popular zone. Finally, we landed a reservation at Bubula – a modern Israeli restaurant that is super-tiny. We got reservations for 9:45. That was the best we could get. Turns out Bubula was quite good.. vegetarian, fixed menu, and very very tiny.. about 36 chairs. We feasted on the set menu of 11 different dishes—all sharing style. From pickled veggies to amazing flatbread with hummus and labneh with roasted garlic and herbs and some kind of oil to roasted fennel with pear and I have no idea what else to aubergine to a “deconstructed” potato latke that looked like a piece of cake to skewered oyster mushrooms marinated in tamari, zaatar, to a wonderful baked haloumi and some other goodies to a bunch more things that I cannot remember. Good wine and homemade date ice cream… We floated back to the hotel about a half mile away.
Didn’t feel too guilty about dinner since we walked about 8 miles today and I’ve been getting well over the 10,000 steps each day. OK.. that’s it for me today… We head to Brighton tomorrow with Emma, Hem and Finn. Keeping fingers crossed that it doesn’t rain.
Best –
Fern
1. London. 5/5/2022. Travel has returned… Sort Of
Greetings from London-
After several planned trips “across the pond” and an equal number of cancellations, we finally took the plunge and decided it was safe to go to Europe. We are still hoping to do a more exotic trip to places we have yet to see, but most of those places don’t yet seem ready for us. Still we were anxious to see Mike’s nieces (one in London and one in Geneva) and their combined three kids all of whom are under 5-years-old. When we last saw everyone the kids were little slugs… now they are real people with personalities… and opinions!
It was a very very long day, so this note will be short as it’s already after 1 am here and I’ve been up for about 30 hours.
We arrived in London at about 6:30 am on Thursday; left SFO st 12:20 on Wednesday. Flight was fairly uneventful except that despite rebooting multiple times, they could not get the video monitors to work without freezing every 10 minutes into a film. They actually had a pretty good array of films, including several of the 2022 Academy Award winners and other prize winning films that I had not yet seen. Still, the lack of visual stimulation enabled me to finesse another chapter of my book and helped me move closer to completion (I’m aiming for summer). So it wasn’t all bad and far more productive than anticipated.
We trekked to Heathrow Express (about a mile walk, maybe more, from the Queens Terminal 2) and went straight to Paddington where we got a taxi to Shoreditch where we are staying, at the rather hip Mondrian Hotel. Since it was way too early for check-in, we headed to the rooftop deck for breakfast and then sat in the lobby for about an hour before finally getting into our room.
At around 11am we finally got our room. Mike immediately hit the bed and was out like a light. I showered and headed out to see what was new in East London. Mostly I just strolled for about 3 hours and took advantage of an unusually nice day.
I can report that Shoreditch gets more hip and upscale with each visit.
I met up with Mike at about 6 pm and we headed to his niece’s house in Leyton—in East London. It’s a working class area that is rapidly gentrifying. They have a cute house and we got to see the garden and backyard they did during Covid. And the best part was seeing Finn, now just a little past three. He appeared to know us, but I’m sure there was a lot of prepping on that before we arrived. He’s super cute and like hundreds of thousands of other kids spent more than half of his life at home with his parents and has only recently begun full time pre-school.
Once Finn was settled and asleep we had dinner and got caught up on life over the past 28 months. They had initially planned to have a friend watch Finn so we could all go out for a quiet meal, but she went into early labor and was having her own child (a bit early). So it was takeout from their nearby Ottolenghi… not a bad option. Since both Emma and Hem have to be up early for work and to get Finn to “school” (he was previously at the “child-minder” – gotta love those British terms—for a few hours on certain days and apparently on and off due to covid… so now, he’s in a more “official” child care center, which is privately run but receives government subsidies. It’s new and he’s not totally gung ho about it yet.
We decided on a taxi to get back to Shoreditch, and then it was email catch up… and now I’m signing off. Tomorrow we are on our own and will reconvene with Emma, Hem, and Finn on Saturday morning when we all head to Brighton by train to go to the aquarium and walk the boardwalk.
Best – Fern.. More to come…
6/13/22. Detroit Day 2
Busy day in Detroit, where we lucked out with weather fairly mild (80 degrees), but can still feel the humidity.
We set out after having breakfast in the Apparatus Room of the hotel (where they used to keep all the fire truck gear) – simple “overnight oatmeal with almonds and blueberries. Then after a lot of discussion about what to do today, we headed out to see an urban farm that was established a few years ago in the North End of town which is predominantly African American and where there had been a lot of abandonment, vacant lots, and diminished population. The urban farm stretched about two city blocks and was apparently spurred by some students from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor a few years ago. It seems to be thriving, complete with irrigation, storage sheds, and some places to sit and eat the produce or relax from working in the farm.
As we roamed the neighborhood we stopped to admire some of the many huge murals on sides of buildings and houses. At one, we met the owner—a 55-ish year old African American who was mowing his lawn. We asked about the origins of the mural, who paid, who selected the artists, what responsibility he has regarding upkeep and what responsibility the city has (they paid for the murals). He was a bit surprised to hear that two of us were from California.
Then we headed to see the “Heidelberg Project” (named thus because it is on Heidelberg Street). It’s an outdoor art project that stretches about six or so blocks and includes the remaining houses in the area, the sidewalks, and the linear green space that spans the distance on the other side of the houses. It’s in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood on Detroit’s east side (a little north of the city’s historically African American neighborhood. It began in 1986 when Tyree Guyton (along with his wife) began to address (in their own way) the blight of their street and adjoining streets. It’s part political statement about neighborhood deterioration and abandonment. According to the story, Tyree returned from the Army and was shocked to see the condition of his childhood neighborhood which had been declining since the 1967 riots. He said it looked like “a bomb went off.”
He began by painting several houses on the street with bright colored dots and then started attaching found or salvaged objects. It became his world and his work… and it grew like Topsy, from one street to the next. And across into the park open space. The “art” includes piles of shopping carts; a wall of shoes; a little mountain of stuffed animals; and more. Strangely it changed from a neighborhood where people were leaving and afraid to be out in the dark to a place where tourists were coming to see the “art.” Guyton worked on the Project with kids in the area. He and his wife gave lectures and art workshops locally and across the country. He sees it as an indoor and outdoor museum. We met Tyree (who seems to always be on the street) and got a bit of his local wisdom.
Then we headed to Corktown, the oldest neighborhood in the city—where we had a great pizza and chopped salad (at prices that were probably the norm in the Bay Area about 25 years ago). We strolled a bit and then went to see the Guardian Building – built in 1928 and a bold example of Art Deco architecture. At that time, Detroit was a worldwide industrial center and a wealthy commercial hub. The Union Trust commissioned Hinchman and Grylls to design their headquarters; Wirt Rowland was the architect in charge. The building was completed just as the stock market crashed, but it was saved by some investors. I will send a bunch of photos and some more information on this in a separate note.
Then we walked about a mile to what is known as the “Z” – an alleyway that is totally covered with murals… and finally back to the hotel to get ready to head out for dinner. More on that in next travel note.
Eventually, we headed to dinner at TownHouse, a very downtown restaurant only a few blocks from the hotel, We walked, despite the impending rain forecast. What we quickly learned was that Detroit is a small town. The host greeted us and said immediately “Don’t you remember me?” And we all laughed since he was the guy who sat us at our table the night before when we ate at a very different restaurant (The Selden Standard).
We ate in the Atrium portion of the restaurant and decided on a series of the shareable small plates including:
- • Bigeye Tuna with vinegars and crispy rice
- • Squash with lemon tahini, harissa, golden raisins, and some seeds
- • Crab with cucumbers dill kosho, lime and tobiko
- • Toro Hamachi with pomegranate, serrano pepper
- • Brassicas (sauteed greens, pickled cauliflower, etc.) with hot honey, goat gouda, and walnuts
And for dessert we shared a raspberry brulee and a cherry mousse that was stuffed into an enormous chocolate cherry that also had almond cake in the center..
We walked home and beat the rain. Happy campers!
More tomorrow.
Fern the best –
Fern
Greetings from Detroit
As you know I don’t usually post my travel blog from trips within the US, but given Covid times I’ve sort of rethought that decision. This is my annual “girls trip” although we don’t have the full cohort of “girls” are not here and the trip hasn’t really been “annual” given Covid times. But here I am in Detroit with two friends—one from L.A, and one from Chicago.
Having recently returned from London, Geneva, and Malta (hope you got those travel notes)… and then a trip related to my book to Phoenix, it was a little grueling to think about yet another set of flights. But now I’m glad I did.
We all met in Chicago and spent a great day (even great weather) at Millennium Park revisiting “the Bean,” officially known as Cloud Gate is Anish Kapoor’s first public outdoor in the U.S. Regardless of how many times I’ve seen it, it never fails to impress. Technically, it’s 110-tons and is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which forever reflect Chicago’s skyline, the clouds above, and all the visitors who walk through and around the sculpture. Everywhere there were adults and kids taking photos, selfies, and touching the sculpture. It’s always great to see how interactive it is and how much everyone seems to enjoy it.
We also strolled the park and stopped at the Crown Fountain which was designed by Jaume Plensa, a Spanish artist. It’s basically two 50-foot glass block towers separating a shallow reflecting pool. These ‘towers’ project images of Chicago residents… and like traditional gargoyles the faces in the videos have water that spouts out of their mouths. Apparently the faces (which change) were taken from a cross section of 1,000 residents. Kids were having a blast in the shallow pool as it filled with water.
We made a stop for lunch at the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel which is an amazing restoration of a 125-year old building with ornate millwork, marble and mosaic tile floors, elaborate plasterwork and custom stained-glass windows and then walked to a street fair in Old Town (where I had met Adrienne decades earlier) and then to Adrienne’s condo located on the 25th floor of one of the Mies towers on Lake Shore Drive. Eventually we walked the mile or two to dinner outside at Gilt which was perfect on this balmy Midwest night.
This morning we headed to Midway and off to Detroit which was the focus of the trip. As soon as we landed we headed to Eastern Market where vendors sell everything from tacos to produce to locally made jewelry. Then we headed to our hotel—The Detroit Foundation Hotel which was created from an 1893 fire station that closed in 2013. The renovation is wonderful and we will be here for three nights. After drinks at the hotel’s Apparatus Room, we headed to the Selden Standard where we had a fantastic dinner including Lemon Chitarra; roasted asparagus with sunflower seed tahini, lemon, cumin, and some other spices; crispy walleye with pureed carrot and chili butter; pork with gribiche and greens; and finally ended with an amazing key lime pudding.
By then we were ready to crash.. and figure out tomorrow’s agenda. I brought a lot of work with me, but somehow I think not much will get done.
Fern
June 14, 2022
Greeting from Final Day in Detroit.
We started out the day at the Detroit Institute of the Arts (DIA), specifically to see the Diego Rivera mural(s) – 27 panels – depicting industry at Detroit’s Ford Motor Company (and more): “Detroit Industry.” Painting began in 1932 when Detroit was one of the foremost industrial centers in the world. But it was also a city hit hard by the depression; the workforce in industry had declined by about 35%. Interestingly Diego arrived to begin his project (which was totally funded by Edsel Ford, then president of Ford Motor Company) when there was a hunger strike and workers were at the gates of the Ford Motor Plant protesting the company, demanding employment. Guards shot and killed six of the protesters. Rivera proceeded to hire as many workers as he could to help with his project. It is an amazingly impressive set of murals that encompass the entire “room” of the museum. It’s complex, it’s political, its portrayal of workers is intense; and it was controversial. So much so that the Catholic church apparently asked for it to be whitewashed, and one councilmember followed suit. Rivera was paid $10,000 for the commission which took 8 months to complete (working day and night).
Some of the controversy centered around Diego Rivera himself who was seen as a Communist. And some were angered by the fact that a Mexican artist had been selected for the commission when Detroit artists were available and starving. But there were other issues. In the upper right corner of the room there is a child being vaccinated in a laboratory with animals around (the animals supposedly provided the serum for the vaccine). The composition of that panel is filled with Christian nativity scenes with the baby surrounded by Mary and Joseph. And there are three wise men. Rivera believed that technology and medicine would be a new savior, not religion. To make things worse for those in opposition to the entire project, he used images of the Lindbergh baby who had been kidnapped as a model for baby Jesus and the image of Mary is based on the movie star of the time, Jean Harlow who Diego either had a crush on or perhaps an affair. Joseph is depicted as a physician looking like the museum director at the time. The three scientists (the wise men) were referred to as a Catholic, a Protestant, and a Jew—ecumenical wise men. There are many more interesting stories that are embedded in the mural, which by the way is really a fresco.
From the DIA, we made a brief stop at the Shinola headquarter store where everything from their bikes to watches to leather goods and even jewelry was displayed beautifully and was pretty enticing—but with prices well out of range. We looked but didn’t buy; proud of our restraint.
And then we headed cross town to the north and east to Rose’s Fine Dining – a diner-style little place where the owner, Molly (there apparently isn’t and never was any Rose) has created a small but great breakfast and lunch menu with many ingredients grown in the back of the building, along with roses (hence the name?) and all ingredients sourced locally. They bake amazing bread and all of the sandwiches are panini-style. We had the grilled cheese with fresh basil and the pulled pork with dill and pickles and melted cheese, and we had side salads including carrot slaw, roast potato salad with local herbs, and green salad. After chatting with staff and getting the story of Rose’s (which is about 8 years old) we headed to the African Bead Museum which was (naturally) way back in the opposite direction. Another treat was in store.
(Olayami) Dbals has created yet another world—houses clad in broken pieces of mirror and random paint and scraps of wood and found objects. He’s decorated two or three houses this way and then behind the houses are purposeful collections of found objects—often of similar types that he has arranged, sometimes painted, sometimes assembled out in the urban “landscape” with trees and grass and weeds growing around them, through them and whatever… all exposed to the elements of rain, snow, heat. Place-based installations that encourage contemplation and a sense of African traditions and culture. When Dbals started this work and created this museum and installations, the museum world was run by Europeans. He realized that going to these traditional museums was a form of cultural colonization and indoctrination, so he chose to develop a museum that talked about art from an African perspective.
Dbals is also a musician, playing diverse African drums. Within one of the houses he’s set up an African bead store with literally tens of thousands of beads organized in hundreds of small jars, alongside strings of beads already assembled—all from various parts of the African continent. The “shop” is about 500 sq feet and there isn’t an inch that isn’t covered with jars of beads on shelves going from about one foot off the floor all the way up to about 7 feet. The day we were there the shop was managed by a lovely and beautiful woman who has worked for Dbals on and off for about 8 years. She herself is an artist having done many residencies across the US and abroad. Both she and Dbals are Detroiters with huge optimism about the city. There was some similarity in the work of Dbals and the work of Tyree (from Heidelberg Project) but Dbals is more animated, more cheerful, a natural story teller, with lots of heart. He played the drums for a while when we were walking around the site and managed to get both Adrienne and Carol to follow his rhythm on drums. I was talking with the shopkeeper at the time (I think her name was Jazz), and met Dbals a bit later. Carol purchased a necklace and some gifts and I got a few random beads.
And then we were off again… to take the bridge to Belle Isle– a great park that sits in the river, from which you can see Canada whose border is just north of Detroit. The park was pretty active with all sorts of outdoor and water activity. Then we noted on the map that the oldest cemetery in Detroit was not too far so we decided to explore. Carol (the one who is not Jewish) noted that there was an old Jewish cemetery within the property so we decided to search. Sure enough there was a small section –gated off from the rest of the property—that housed Jewish tombstones/monuments that dated back to the late 1800s until the mid-1950s. I think the Jewish section of the cemetery is no longer active.
And then we rushed to freshen up and head to dinner at Chartreuse which is a bit of an homage to the chartreuse liqueur and is painted in that green color. Food was OK but didn’t stand up to the other two dinners. We thought about canceling earlier when we found out through the bead store folks that there was a Senegalese restaurant nearby called Baobob. But we already had confirmed reservations at Chartreuse. We needed to get back to the hotel at a decent hour as Carol and my flights were at 7:00 am… It was another long day and not much time to sleep before waking and packing and heading to DTW.
A few things I forgot to mention. Detroit’s land mass is huge (139 sq. miles)… The cities of Boston, San Francisco and the island of Manhattan can all fit within its boundaries and still leave room for more! There are so many vacant lots and big distances between things that they appear to be filling in (in some parts of the city) with agriculture and tree farms. But I don’t know a lot about this venture.
We did ask about homelessness since we all noted the fact that we saw NO tent communities and no homeless population on the streets which was amazing given the situation elsewhere. We were told that there is a sizeable homeless population but that there are so many vacant properties, the unhoused are mostly squatting and therefore not on the streets.
That’s a wrap for Detroit (and Chicago)…
Not certain what next travels will be—domestic or international. For now, I’m hunkering down for a few months in Oakland to work and also to finish the book.
Best-
Fern
Day One in the Big Apple: 12/20/21
Greetings to all –
Here we are again with travel plans reorganized due to Covid. We nixed Japan and Korea and decided on what we thought would be a calm and safe trip – with a visit to Geneva to see family that we have not seen in two years followed by a week in Malta (whose Covid rates were very low) and then a few days in Paris. Well as things go, even this supposedly “safe” trip got turned inside out with the ever-changing Covid rules and the difficulty of traveling in Europe. So here we are in New York City! Long story, but we planned this as a backup when Europe was looking kind of dicey. Although I had just been to NY in late October, I’m always ready to head “home” to the Big Apple.
We arrived last night (December 19th) at around midnight and we are spending the first four nights at the 1 Brooklyn Bridge Hotel – a pretty chic, eco-focused hotel with rooms that support fantastic views of the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. It’s located in the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) neighborhood. The hotel is adjacent to the somewhat new Brooklyn Bridge Park which is an amazing public amenity. Our room has a wonderfully sweeping view of the bridge, Manhattan, the park, and the ferries that now move regularly between DUMBO, Williamsburg, Wall Street, and numerous other parts of the city (predominantly Brooklyn and Manhattan). The hotel is well designed and the location is fantastic.
We started out a bit late this morning, but hell… it’s a vacation and our body time was three hours earlier than NY. We walked to the East River ferry (which is a stone’s throw from the hotel) and got off at the first stop – South Williamsburg. And then we walked about ¾ of a mile to a little restaurant called Sunday in Brooklyn (although it was Monday) for a great brunch including bloody marys… We then strolled back to the ferry through Williamsburg and along the water – gazing at how different this neighborhood is from when we knew it. In many ways, this trip is a cross between memory lane and visiting a place we know well (Brooklyn and Manhattan) but seeing it a bit like a tourist and for the first time being here without any real purpose. Together or alone, we generally (in pre-covid days) come to NY several times a year – but always either for work or to visit family and friends.. and always for short periods of time, perhaps a weekend or maybe four days at most. Anyway, as my notes will reveal, the plan is to move around a bit within the city so you’ll hear about our stays at different parts of my home town.
Following brunch and meandering a bit in Williamsburg (a totally changed neighborhood where gentrification ran rampant for the past 20 years). The neighborhood had always been considered a haven for low income Eastern European refugees, beginning after World War II, and continuing with Hasidic Jews locating there. Over the years, large populations of refugees from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic also settled there. But with the decline of heavy industry, in the 1960s, Williamsburg suffered from unemployment, crime, gang activity, and drugs and many people fled the area. For anyone who remembers the story of Serpico (the police officer who had been a major figure in exposing police corruption in NY and who was shot during a drug bust where his fellow officers didn’t call for assistance – the story was part of the movie by the same name which starred Al Pacino) – it was based in Williamsburg.
One interesting observation… Looking at Manhattan from the Brooklyn side… and from the vantage point of the ferry… the FDR Drive is now painted lavender (at least the part you can see from the water). A little research seems to indicate that NY’s Office of Economic Development seemed to feel this would have a calming effect…. On ?? Not sure if the color is seen on the Manhattan side – at least I never noticed it before.
We hopped on the ferry to make a pit stop at the hotel and then walked through Brooklyn Heights and the edge of Cobble Hill, stopping every so often to check out interesting streets in the neighborhoods, and eventually wound up at the Hertz in Boerum Hill to pick up a rental car that we will need on subsequent days.
At about 7:45 we set out to meet Frances Bronet, President of Pratt Institute for dinner at Ceslestine where we had reservations and were looking forward to the food and good conversation. We were about two blocks from the restaurant and received a call from Frances saying the restaurant was closed. Strange, since we actually had reservations and they had contacted us yesterday to confirm the reservation. So, no explanation. Fortunately we had decided to drive the short distance to the restaurant, thinking that we might not want to walk back at midnight; also that area is pretty empty at night so not really conducive to late night strolling. We all hopped into our car and headed to Fort Greene to have a very nice, quiet dinner at Osteria Brooklyn. We got caught up on all sorts of things going on at Pratt, in Brooklyn, and throughout the city. It was great to reconnect.
Arrived back at the hotel around midnight and now I’m calling it a day. Tomorrow is Mike’s birthday and we’re headed to all sorts of random parts of Brooklyn and for dinner at a new but very highly regarded restaurant. It’s sort of fun to be a tourist in your own home town!
Best to you…
Fern
Day Two: Brooklyn by Choice: 12/21/21
December 21, 2021 – Winter Solstice, Shortest Day of the Year, Persian celebration of Longest Night of the Year, and Michael’s Birthday!
Started out for brunch in Cobble Hill at LuluC and walked along Smith Street to see changes in the area. Cobble Hill and Carrol Gardens had already undergone gentrification ten and 20 years ago, so while the names of shops and restaurants have changed, it was pretty much as we remembered it (at least how we remembered it over many visits during the past 20 years—but quite different from what we remember earlier than that.)
It’s here that you find good neighborhood restaurants and cafes and little shops that are dedicated to promoting the borough of Brooklyn. From there we set out for Coney Island along a very meandering route that took us through Boro Park (where I grew up) and the edges of Park Slope (where Mike grew up). Park Slope has undergone real gentrification (which we have seen over these many years and Mike can no longer say he grew up on a street without trees and in a railroad apartment; well of course he did, but there is no longer any physical proof of this as his street is totally tree-lined and what were those long narrow windowless railroad apartments are now condos that have combined units so that they are no longer windowless other than front and back). But my neighborhood is quite different in that what was once a lower-middle class area with about an equal mix of Italians and Jews but now is about 95% Hasidic, with storefront synagogues and “yeshivas.” So it’s a pretty alien environment.
My two residences when growing up – one was three apartments (all occupied by extended family) – with our family occupying about 600 sq. ft. (one bedroom which my brother and I shared; parents sleeping on a sofa bed in the living room; our next “larger” apartment was in a four-unit building and our unit was about 750 sq feet. Both of these houses are now occupied by Hasidic families who have many children and have transformed the fourplex into a duplex and the triplex into what I believe is a house for just one family, but I’m not certain. The two houses are just two blocks apart. In reflecting back, like many of you, I cannot believe that as a family of four we lived in such a small space. We were always renters, so we only had the use of the actual apartment, no access to the backyard.
I’ve been back numerous times to see what’s the same and what has changed. Frankly, this time things looked a little better than the last time.
From there we did a really long and winding route to Coney Island, mostly along the five-miles of Coney Island Avenue, a wide four lane street with parking on both sides… and totally commercial so the street is lined with small shops that change by ethnicity as the avenue moves south/southeast and accommodates the different people who live in each enclave of the strip.
We walked the boardwalk (all shops and food stalls were closed) and even out onto one of the piers. As a child, each section of the beach (divided into “bays”) had a number. It seemed to me that now they have names. Growing up in Brooklyn, each bay sort of “belonged” to a different high school and you hung out at that bay.
By the way, for those who do know the area Nathans (the original one on Surf Avenue) was open and we thought we’d actually grab a snack.. but that was the first and only place that was not checking for vaccines and we saw people go in without masks – so we left. In response to some questions – NY is very strict about IDs and vaccine proof, so it was a little surprising to see Nathans ignoring the law. Or maybe not so surprising.
We then meandered back to the hotel through different neighborhoods (not along Coney Island Avenue) – and headed to Dyker Heights which is famous for its Christmas light decorations. When I was growing up this area was predominantly Italian American and I think that still holds true based on the number of Italian restaurants and other stores and shops that feature Italian specialties. I’ve attached some photos so I will not say any more about Xmas in Dyker Heights.
More soon about Mike’s birthday dinner.
Fern
Fern's Travel Notes 