Like Proust’s madeleine, February’s first snowflake always throws me back to a specific place and time: Midtown Manhattan -the heart of New York- in 2005. We had just crossed the Atlantic for the first time and, from the moment I set foot on Madison Avenue and East 45th Street (to check in at the Roosevelt Hotel) until the following morning, I thought I had found myself simultaneously in Gotham City (all you needed to do was to look up to the skyscrapers vanishing into the cloudy yet brightly lit night sky, to be convinced), in a Woody Allen movie (eating hyper-delicious dinner in the hotel room picked up from the nearby deli is a scene that must exist in a movie of his) and in a “Law & Order” episode (the two cops sitting next to us at Central Café holding their iconic white-and-blue “Greek” Anthora cups give me the impression that at any given moment they might turn to me and say: “You have the right to remain silent”). It did not snow on the first day, but one week later. Dazzling and festive, the snow started to fall on the eve of our return flight, after the end of the audition, and as our first (and, who knows, perhaps also the last) trip to New York was coming to an end.
Dutifully, this year’s big snow arrived at dawn on February 1st. In a surge of enthusiasm to combine the personal with the collective, I grab the simplistic association that my anniversary with the city coincides approximately both with Presidents’ Day and with Saint Valentine’s, and, given the additional coincidence that my anniversary hotel is named after a president, I embark on a pilgrimage tour of my old neighborhood. (Anyone who wants to find signs will find them: in Athens, I’ve lived all my life across from the President Hotel.) I do recall that the Roosevelt was named after the president, but which of the two? Theodore, or his, junior by twenty-four years, distant cousin, Franklin? I bet that my sister –my fellow traveler and an incomparable adventurer (she’s the one who discovered the above mentioned nearby deli) - must remember the answer.
Taking off from Times Square, I head east, walking past piles of shoveled snow. I feel like I’ve never seen before the figure made of horizontal steel ‘slices’ standing in the pocket park on West 41st Street, just before Sixth Avenue. The sculpture (a cross between Don Quixote and the beloved monumental contemporary Greek sculpture “The Runner”) is either new or the layers of snow breathe fresh air into it. (It turns out it’s titled “Guardians: Superhero” –I wasn’t that far off-, and it’s been standing there since 2013.) With its chairs half-buried in the snow, Bryant Park looks like an open-air glyptotheque, while the surrounding view encapsulates NYC’s entire history of architecture. The American Radiator Building (23-stories tall, built in 1924, and considered by some to be the most beautiful early Art Deco skyscraper) stands out with its black brick and golden decorative details set against the vivid blue of the winter late afternoon. Further back, “painted” tonight a dreamy mauve, the Empire State Building’s top adds a romantically modern finish to the picture.
I arrive at Madison Avenue. I had read that the hotel had been unable to survive the crisis and was forced to cease operations. Well, the Roosevelt is dark, indeed, and its majestic East 45th Street entrance with its golden revolving doors and marble staircase leading you spectacularly into the magnificent lobby, is shut off with construction panels.
Built in 1924 (same year as the Radiator), the -now literally- historic 19-story hotel’s exterior is classic and elegant, but not extravagant. But anyone who has ever found themselves just once in its interior will forever remember its old New York flavor. If you were strolling around during the holidays (in the good old days, prior to the coronavirus), you were welcome to have some rest in the hotel’s lounge, gazing at the Christmas tree in the center, at the exquisite clock hanging from the ceiling and at the chandelier, while all around you unfolded pillars, balconies and ceilings flooded in marble and lustrous golden touches. Goodbye, “Roosevelt.”
I keep heading east, circling Grand Central, which I do not yet enter, although I do pause to pay tribute to a beloved detail: the (metallic!) rats climbing above the Lexington Avenue entrance. Now one detail succeeds the other, as the limits of the pilgrimage begin to merge with subsequent layers of experiences, since fate would have it that, three years after that stay at the Roosevelt, I did my grad school internship at the ‘chashama’ arts organization, on East 42nd Street and Third Avenue, just a few blocks away… (From the 32nd floor office windows we could see the luminous “triangles” of the glittering Chrysler Building across the street!)
I pass Pfizer’s headquarters and, as I’m saying a prayer that they save us, I come across an unfamiliar oasis: I did not remember that the Ford Foundation possessed the most impressive garden I have ever seen in an indoor atrium. (The plaque informs us that it has been there since 1967.) I climb east, all the way up to the historic Tudor City complex -the first residential skyscrapers in the world. In the background, the UN. (Three things about Franklin Roosevelt that you remember from high-school history: the Great Depression, the New Deal, the Yalta Conference –i.e. where the UN’s creation was decided –here goes History!)
About-face, now heading west and towards the capstone of my promenading, which I had been strategically detouring from all this time: after taking a moment to admire the Art Deco façade of the News Building (also designed by Raymond Hood, the Radiator’s architect) and the gigantic globe in its lobby, I finally arrive at Grand Central.
The conscious and unconscious images drawn from the iconic central railroad station are numerous, but I am sure I will see Cary Grant rushing to buy a ticket (he is being chased from the UN, where I’m actually just coming from, and will continue to be chased all the way up to Mount Rushmore –here go the presidents, including Theodore!). High above, on the turquoise dome, the zodiac constellations are sparkling. Two sides of the imposing space are so artfully covered with scaffolding and with a thin fabric that my mind immediately races to a potential successor of Christo’s. The circle closes as the indefatigable visual artist’s “Gates” had just been installed in Central Park that February of 2005.
(For the record, the fabric covering Grand Central is not an art installation but actual restoration work.
And the Roosevelt was named after Theodore.)
This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (online) on March 5, 2021.
It was reproduced by HellasJournal.com on May 5, 2021.
Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 5 Μαρτίου 2021.
Αναδημοσιεύτηκε από το HellasJournal.com στις 5 Μαΐου 2021.
