Famous Ankles

Christmas Eve was a day that I did a lot of wandering.  My habit on that day, and on Christmas Day, is to wander about and wish people a Merry Christmas.  It’s fun, unexpected by the recipients, and is almost always welcomed by them.  I get a lot of “Merry Christmas” responses, but it is usually the more boring “Happy Holidays”.  I can’t believe people actually say that.

Anyway, I was down in the West Village and ran into a place that is not very “Christmassy” at all:  Tiles for America.  I’ve seen it many times, but it really touched me on that day simply because things like Tiles for America remind you of things that should be remembered.

It is a very simple set up.  There’s a parking lot with a chain link fence around it.  On the fence, people have put up decorative tiles centered around 9-11.  The display covers the fence along Seventh Avenue and Greenwich Avenue.

It is an amazing thing to read and quite heartbreaking.  The tiles with hearts below are some of a handful of ones dedicated to young children that died that day.  They are apparently children on the planes.

But this one is the one that caught my eye.  It reads “Sometimes I still think I might see you and get a chance to say goodbye.”

I am generally pretty cynical at such items and I don’t really know if this is a true statement from an affected person or a poetic truth from someone who wanted to express themselves.  Nevertheless, I think it speaks for all of those people who were affected.

-H

I need a new chair.  Hey, it’s NYC and there are lots of places to buy chairs!  Right?  Well, how come I’m having such a tough time?  Ehhh, it doesn’t matter.

I decided to go down to ABC Furniture at Broadway and 19th Street to see if they had an acceptable chair.  The store is huge (by Manhattan standards) at six floors and is about as eclectic as you could ever hope for.  The store is so eclectic, it’s on two sides of the street!  Rugs on the west side, everything else on the east.  It has a wonderful selection and has the coolest floors around.  Old stuff.  Big herringbone in some areas, creaky old floorboards painted white in others.  It isn’t your standard mall anchor store or your suburban furniture place.  Honest to goodness, the place has character.  It doesn’t, however, have a chair that I like.

Anyway, as I was leaving I started looking at their windows in the front and saw a Christmas window that beats everybody else’s.  I haven’t been by very many so far this year, but they are always similar.  This store has the one I truly love.

It’s as if they remember what Christmas is really all about.

But you have to remember, this is NYC.  Other windows are more Buddhist and New Age than anything else and there’s an awful lot of Hindu stuff in the store.  But they did have actual Christmas music playing (not “holiday music”, but Christmas music).

-H

I recently saw a notice that the Merchant’s House Museum was giving a special showing of the servants’ quarters.  Well, that led me to try and figure out what the Merchant’s House Museum was and why would I care about the servants’ quarters.

It’s actually a house of a former NYC resident.  Former, as in the early 1800s.  It was originally built by Joseph Brewster and bought by Seabury Tredwell, a merchant who did import/export around the time of the Erie Canal.  He did very well, and build this house to show how well he did.  His family lived there until 1933 and was then given to the City.

As houses in America go, it’s not particularly large, but it is good sized for NYC.

It has at least four floors, with the top floor being the servants’ quarters.

When you go in, your receive (for your $8) a notebook with a self-guided tour.  You first go to the basement and look at the living areas down there.  There are some displays of how life was for the era.  The kitchen is very interesting.

Just past the table you can see a white object.

Yeah, it’s the family bathtub.  They’d bathe every week or so, whether they needed it or not I imagine.

Pardon the poor quality of the pictures.  They don’t allow flash photography and the lighting is poor so my shutter stayed open forever.

The main floor had the living and dining rooms.  It doesn’t appear to have original furnishings, but ones from the proper era.

Notice the coffin.  Technically, it’s not the living room:  it’s the parlor.  Deaths were frequent in those days and homes were traditionally part of the funeral process.

The upstairs held the main bedrooms.  I did like the built-ins.

But the area that really makes the place is the back courtyard.  What I wouldn’t give…

And a wonderful view of the back of the house.

The servants’ quarters are currently used for storage, so there’s really nothing to see other than the space itself. 

The house feature that’s interesting is that the money for building the place was spent in making it look good to impress the frequent visitors.  Then, as now, the servants’ quarters weren’t places that the visitors would go so they were the worst looking and maintained.  However, the front of the house was on full display, so the quarter’s external visage was equal with the rest of the house.

Overall, the museum isn’t a don’t-miss kind of display.  But I enjoyed it and found it interesting and my $8 reasonably well-spent.

-H