As we drove up to the restaurant at 11:30 Stephen and Mrs. Stern were already there waiting in front of Arthur's Tavern at the corner of Washington and Third Streets [the restaurant opens its doors at 11:30]. I parked in the public garage around the corner  -- in fact the main reason we had chosen this restaurant  - which none of us had ever been to - was because of the nearby garage. Henry and his mother and his son had been sightseeing in Jersey City and we had thought this might be an opportunity to get together since I was also scheduled to be in the area.

Arthur's is an old style saloon [remember "Hoboken the Mile Square City with a saloon on every corner"] that has been modernized into a restaurant; front barroom and a back ladies' room [which gave us a conversation topic on women in saloons in Jersey City and Union City]. What was unusual was that both rooms were so large. The premises seem to have been taken over by a small New Jersey chain of bar & grills with three other locations in northern New Jersey.  The place was empty when we arrived, in fact we 6 were the first customers of the day; but by the time we left, about two hours later, it was over half filled. large back room front room back room conversation on women in saloons

My sister and Mrs. Stern had eggplant parmigiana with side orders of pasta, Carol had a grilled chicken Caesar salad, Henry and I each had a pastrami sandwich and Stephen had French onion soup, a Caesar salad and a tuna fish salad plate. Everyone was generally satisfied with the food and would return but Henry and I, perhaps being picky, found the pastrami, an enormous amount, enough for more than two sandwiches dry, probably because it was very lean with the fat removed.

We spent a long time talking with different topics like altar girls, liturgical dance, the prices of Hoboken apartments, Jersey City then and now, plays in new York, and father-bartenders dealing with their daughters who went into saloons even after it was legal. 

Stephen noted his impressions of Exchange Place, the Katyn Murder Memorial and the Lackawanna train station and told about his research trip to Guyana. It was especially interesting because Carol has a noticeable number of Guyanese immigrants in her school and the observations that Stephen had made about life in Guyanese cities seemed to really jive with what Carol had experienced with the Guyanese students  at her school.

[Click picture to see full size] Henry and his family went back to their sight seeing tour and Carol, Loretta and I walked a little down Washington Street to buy some cake at the City Hall Bakery; they also did some shopping at an outdoor stand.

Driving back through the Heights we called my cousin Peggy up and stopped at her house. Since she's still recuperating from surgery she's housebound for  a while. We had tea and some of the cake we had bought and after an hour or so left for Kearny where I dropped off Carol and Loretta.

Drove back the same 6 miles but must have been day dreaming because instead of turning at the mouth of the Holland Tunnel right to go to the hotel in Jersey City, I turned left and headed to Hoboken;  it was only a matter of one block but because it was the height of the rush hour  it took 10 minutes or more to get straightened out.

I checked into the Candlewood Suites Inn, [the one hotel of the 4 with included parking] washed my face and hands and walked over to the Pavonia Avenue tube station to take the tube to the west Village. I went to a restaurant I've been going to since college. The husband died a few years ago and his wife has seemed physically fragile for a while. The food was always good but it isn't the food that I eat there for; it isn't the location [many times it's inconvenient];  it's because it's tradition or an unbroken chain. So nights when the food is off I don't care too much. But that night the food was off; the prices had gone up about 20% since June; the waiters who have been there for the last 20 years were not there; the proprietress went upstairs [she lives in the apartment in the brownstone above the restaurant which. I believe, she inherited from her father] earlier than she usually does. It may just have been a quirky night but I got the feeling the restaurant may not be there or may not be there the same as it is much longer. It was sad.

I took the IRT uptown to 49th Street and walked down to the TKTS booth. They were offering very little and what they offered I wasn't interested in and there was a long line. I  had brought along discount coupons I had gotten off the internet but which I knew were NOT valid at the box office. But I tried anyway and went to the Shubert went to Gypsy box office, found out I couldn't use the coupon ---- but they would sell me the same seat at the same price as a different discount. So at 7:52 I got a ticket for the 8:00 performance for $26  -- but in the last row of the last balcony.

There were  good sightlines from the seat [and in fact, because there was no overhang, the seats in the second balcony were actually better than those in the first balcony which is called the "mezzanine"]  the play was, unfortunately, miked but that did make the sound  audible; the only drawback [for me or anyone without 20-20 vision] was the fuzzy expressions on the actors' faces. The house was sold out; I'd guess mostly tourists and out-of-towners; next to me were noisy Slavic tourists/immigrants who  got quiet after the overture.

As background: I believe that Gypsy is one of the top five musicals ever written; from working at the Opera, I saw it performed at least 20 times in the production with Angela Lansbury which was said to be as good, although in a different way, as the original with Ethel Merman. So I had a lot of expectations this productions had to meet.

The production was very good and slick and worthy of the show. After a really bad start when the brass went flat on the opening notes of the famous overture, the orchestra did well. There are two numbers that always stick out for me: All I Need Now Is the Girl which was done really well [and I found out in the program that the actor/dancer had gotten a Tony for it .......... and of course everyone in the audience knows that Tulsa is NOT going to have a successful theatrical career] and You Gotta Have A Gimmick, which was also done well but in which only Miss Mazeppa really shone.  

Sparse. The  show is set 80% in theaters or at the edge of theaters but that isn't, in my opinion, good enough justification for what this production did to the staging. Sparse is the nice word for it. There are drops and props but no real scenery; almost every scene looks like it's on a bare stage with props that the actors and crew carry on and off. Maybe this was supposed to make a point of theatricality but it struck me not as as cheap and as preparation for a road tour, not as well-thought out sparse. They did keep the original effect for the children growing up and did it well.

Gypsy Rose Lee/Louise was being played by the understudy. She appears in boys clothing through most of the show until the last 15 or 20 minutes. Physically the actress is beautiful and curvaceous and could handle the role of a classy stripper well. But she didn't do as well in acting. There's a segment where Gypsy has her first striptease as a shy, embarrassed teenager and that then segues through three or four different burlesque houses in different cities where she gradually gains more and more confidence. But this actress went from shy to complete in one city and there was no development.

Bernadette Peters has her name above that of the show and in print almost as large as the title; so she is announcing that she's something special. I found her good [just as good as probably 20 other actresses could be in the role] but also unconvincing. She did everything technically correctly but I never believed her. At times she seemed very distant as if she were telephoning in her part, and this was a Friday night show.

As I said, I'm very picky about this show and so if you have a chance to see it, do so.

The show ended at 11 and since I had had a 4˝ hour drive up and a full day of socializing I decided to go straight back to the hotel. I was there before 11:30 but since I wanted to plan the next morning out, I didn't get to sleep until about 12:30.

Saturday I slept late, until 8, and was not out of the hotel until after 9, so I wasted a big chunk of the partial day I had left. [Since driving in the dark is a strain on my eyes, I wanted to leave for home early enough to reach the Washington area before sunset at 7pm.]

The weather was dry and pleasantly warm but by early afternoon it had gotten uncomfortably warm. I walked over to the Pavonia Avenue tube station and since I had my camera with me was able to take a picture of the recently re-opened side platform. With the real estate and office boom in Jersey City the station had gotten really crowded, then when the Islamic terrorist attack shut down the downtown line the station became unbearable. Almost every hour of the day, not just the rush hour, the one [narrow] platform was jammed shoulder to shoulder, as late as this July. I realized this morning what I hadn't noticed last night, the crowd was spread out and comfortable since the station size has been more than doubled. 

Originally I had intended to take part in the Open House New York Celebration that weekend. You're able to visit many architectural monuments, some of which are usually pay and some of which aren't even open to the public. I had reservations for several places like the Tweed Courthouse, Steinway Hall or the Little Red Light House and the High bridge Water Tower  in Upper Manhattan. But I realized I had to be back in Jersey City to check out of the hotel by 12 and then had to be back in my car by 3 to get home before sunset. It would have been too much running back and forth. So I cancelled the reservations and instead made up my own architectural walking tour of the West Village so I'd stay near Tube stations and be able to get back quickly to the hotel.

Left Christopher Street station and cut diagonally through the village on Bedford Street past the 19th century houses; there was an official walking tour already in progress at a stop on Morton Street that I listened in on, but since this was a one-man company tour, I decided not to hook up on it for free. At two points I passed Hollywood / television crews with stalls set up for free breakfasts for the staff making movies.

Basically walking southeastwards towards Van Dam and King with another row of 19th Century house and on to Houston Street and the Harrison Row which is very pretty but only a half block long and isolated by commercial buildings and Sixth Avenue.

After the history part of the walk I crossed Sixth to the edge of the western part of Little Italy. It started at Houston with Rafaetto's  which sells famous pasta but I didn't think they would stay cold until I had gotten home.

I began walking northwards and then southwards and then northwards again through Sullivan and Thompson and MacDougal Streets [which signs say is Little Italy but I always thought it was west Little Italy or the other Little Italy]. The buildings are the same as they were 30 [and 100] years ago, five and six story walk up tenements and there are still a half dozen or so Italian cafés left, like Borgia's. What has changed is the people. The streets were filled with people, young [20s and 30s], almost every building had an out door cafe in front of it but the people were all young, and based upon what was being sold in the stores, wealthy. An unfortunate reminder of the past was someone who had tied back his curtains in knots.

After making about a three mile loop time was getting short so I took a bus up to 14th Street to get a loaf of bread that was said to be the best rye bread in New York. On the one hand, when I got there the bread was sold out; but on the other, the bakery is in the Chelsea Market, a new food super store that is in part of the old Nabisco factory on 9th Avenue and 15th Street --- and which was one of the stops on Open House New York, so I actually sort of did my original plan. The stores are in an inside arcade that runs through to 10th Avenue and are so food-specialized. like a lobster store, that there isn't an Asian grocery but a Thai grocery and a Korean grocery. There's also a commercial kitchen outfitters and the whole setup is very impressive.

Walked down south to Christopher and took the tube back to Pavonia. After I paid the bill and checked out of the hotel at 12 noon I was still able to leave my car in the hotel's parking lot and decided to take a walking tour of Pavonia/Erie. 

I'm always just walking to the tube station or the ferry slips or the shopping center and have never gotten a clear view of how the area is laid out. Since so much apartment and office construction is going on, there are all sorts of construction barriers  and holes and trenches that you have to pay attention to where you're walking instead of what's around you. 

It's basically an area about 10 blocks long running south from the viaduct and the entrance to the Holland Tunnel along the river down to Second Street and reaching about 6 blocks inland from the river. 75% of it had been railroad yards and the Erie Railroad Terminal and there never had been any buildings or streets and I think that the bulkhead line may have been extended out into the river so that there is another block or so of land. Almost everything is new and there are few remaining landmarks to orientate yourself or to get a connection with the past. 

The main street runs north and south and is called Washington Boulevard; it hadn't existed before and is basically a continuation of Washington Street from Lower Jersey City; the tubes run under it. Between it and the river everything is new. On the land [west] side there are a few original buildings, especially when you get 4 or 5 blocks from the river like St .Mary's Hospital and Hamilton Square and the new trolley line parallels the street and the river. The immense Newport Center shopping mall is also on the west side of the street.

I left the hotel and walked down to the slips at Harborside for the ferries to Lower Manhattan [they don't run on the weekends] and then turned north and was walking between Washington Boulevard and the river. There's the beginning of a pedestrian promenade along the river but just as in Old Town and Baltimore, it's still segmented and you really can't keep walking along it. 

There are several piers/fingers extending out into the river and one of them is for a yacht club. What I made a note of there is that the club's restaurant, Cafe Newport, is open to the public, has spectacular views of the harbor and the Manhattan and Exchange Place skylines  -- and has free parking. I made a mental note for the future.

At the corner of Second Street [where the hotel is located] and Washington Boulevard  and running to 3rd or 4th Street is a very attractive and large red brick town house complex in traditional style [looking a lot like the ones in the north end of Old Town]. Or at least it looks like one. When you look closely you see it is actually 5 stories tall and runs about two blocks to the river and two blocks to the tube station and is an apartment house. The architects did a very good job on it and although it is no where as spectacular as the high rise apartment buildings I prefer it. 

Between the tube station entrance building with the Marriott Courtyard and the river is a  complex of  5? 6? 7? apartment houses about 25 - 30 stories tall that stand about where the Erie Railroad Terminal was located. The complex has its own streets running north and south and east and west. On this Saturday morning the streets were filled but not crowded with walkers, baby carriages, families out for a walk, little children bicycling. There were also people waiting for the Pavonia ferry which does run on Saturdays. The whole section ends abruptly at the Holland Tunnel.

Walking back [southwards] in the section west of Washington Boulevard there are four or five 25-30 story office buildings, one or two apartment buildings of about the same height. Many bus lines from as far away as the Lakewood and Freehold and Tom's River at the Shore have stops here. Right behind these buildings the trolley line runs north [to Hoboken] and south [to Bayonne] and behind the trolley line is the shopping center, a gigantic suburban shopping mall dropped into Jersey City.

Walking further south is the Doubletree Hotel and several discount department stores Then the new buildings disappear for a block or two [they start up again at Harborside] and you still have the old factory buildings like Lorillard's Tobacco [click and it's the low building with the Lorillard's sign in white letters] where my mother worked when she left grammar school. 

After the walk I picked my car up and drove to Hoboken intending to go to the Hoboken museum.  I hadn't recently been "inland" in Hoboken more than two or three blocks from the river and thought that gentrification hadn't reached too far; but I was wrong. I drove the length of Hoboken [14 blocks] up and down on Willow, Park and Bloomfield Avenues [about 8 blocks in from the river, the whole city is about 12 blocks wide] and everything appeared middle class and even upper middle class. 

The tree lined streets are narrow with three and four story [mostly] brownstones, although unlike the brownstones closer to the river, these were never single family houses but were always apartments. Since I had been in the West Village a few hours earlier, the similarity to the West Village [NOT to Little Italy] was striking. These Hoboken streets could have been in Manhattan. As always when I drive in Jersey City or Hoboken, I'm reminded how narrow the streets are compared to here and how much more things and people are packed in to the space, compared to here.

By the way, Bloomfield Avenue is where Stephen Foster was living when he wrote  "Jeannie With The Light Brown Hair"]. The house on the right [click to see full size] is being renovated and is nothing historical but I thought the windows, window openings and brickwork on the first floor really beautiful.

I couldn't find any parking space anywhere near the museum. There were spaces but they were for residents. And unlike here, ONLY for residents. By the time I found a place that allowed non-residents to park for three or four hours, I was back down at the south end of the city. So I gave up the museum and went for lunch.

It was a restaurant that I had thought of for yesterday with the group but then decided against because of the parking: La Isla Cuban Restaurant [click here for menu], on Washington near First Street. It was better food than we had had in Arthur's but the setting isn't suitable for relaxed talking. 

The restaurant is really a large dinette or a lunch counter with a counter on one side and tables squeezed together along the other wall and in the back. It was a hectic madhouse with a lot of young customers and a lot of noise and plates and trays being carried back and forth. People drinking Italian demitasse coffee which apparently also Cyban coffee. I ordered one of my favorites ropa vieja with black beans and rice and it was very good. I'd go back to the restaurant myself but not if I wanted to have a conversation with anyone.

I crossed the street to the City Hall Bakery and the woman said it wasn't a good idea to get one of their refrigerated cakes if I had a 4˝ hour drive  coming up. So instead I got one slice of Italian cheese cake and one slice of cocoanut custard pie [when I ate them the next day, both were very good].

Just before 3 pm  I started back, allowing 4 hours until dark. The drive began badly with traffic at the merge on the New Jersey Turnpike backed up for 10-12 miles at the beginning of the drive but after the Pennsylvania Turnpike it cleared out and things were normal back to Virginia which I reached at 7pm just before sunset.