Our New York December   This year we came back from Tampa to New York for a long period, and it probably won't be the last long stay here. Now that I think of it, the eight months we've been here, June thru January (less our Europe trip), is the longest we've ever lived in our Manhattan place at one time since we moved in in the summer of 1995, a point which coincided exactly with Bev's being diagnosed.

Why did we stay long this particular time? It's always a lot of fun here. I have a feeling that part of it is the fact that after Nine Eleven last year we didn't come back for December and stayed in Tampa for eight months. Also, the neighborhood here has thoroughly rebounded, and there is a cameraderie and sense of the future that wasn't here before at all, and it's great to be part of it.

I want to talk about are some unique experiences we usually enjoy as part of our New York December, and how they worked out this year.

South Street Seaport: Ship Lighting   Our first December event was a change of plans. South Street Seaport is a 15-minute walk across the point of lower Manhattan down the length of Wall Street, over on the East River. We're members there, and always enjoy their Holiday Party. The highlight is where everybody walks over a block, flickering candles in hand, to the water's edge where the historic ships are docked, the Wavertree and the Peking. On a signal, a Christmas tree on each ship is lit, high in the rigging of the masts, and everybody sings carols, trying to keep warm in the winter darkness. But this year that day was the day we had an early snow. Not much, but curiously as much as fell on the city all of last winter. In any case, it wasn't wise cutting across to South Street, especially with a wheelchair. Happy ending. I hadn't realized that the same evening the lighting of the Christmas tree and the menorah across South Cove next to our building was scheduled. It always happens, I just hadn't heard it was that same date. So in the early evening we went out right next to the Regatta to listen to carolers, drink hot cider and cocoa and eat cookies, all provided by the Battery Park City Authority. One of the park vehicles brought Santa as well. The light snow added to the festivities. Along with the cookies we had some gold-foil-wrapped chocolate "quarters". Only later did I realize (I hate it when I miss the point) that that was Hanukkah gelt, good-luck "money". The event was well attended, with lots of kids. The neighborhood was back.

Phillipsburgh Manor and The Merchant's House   We had another change of plans. There was a conflict, and I had decided to go up to Sleepy Hollow in Westchester, where we're members of Historic Hudson Valley. They have their party at Phillipsburgh Manor (Photo by Daderot), a restored farm from the early 1600's. We've always enjoyed going thru the buildings at night, including the working water mill and barn with live animals. But that night it was raining in the City, and the hour-long drive inland would have involved sleet and possible ice, so we went instead to the party ten minutes from here on East 4th Street at the Seabury Treadwell House, usually referred to as the Merchant's House (Photo by Beyond My Ken). It's an elegant townhouse from the 1840's, and is unusual in that it stayed in the same family until the youngest daughter Gertrude died in the 1930's, and therefore has retained all the original furnishings, and also a large collection of clothes from the period. It is thought that Henry James used Gertrude as the model for his heroine in "The Heiress", which takes place in Washington Square, only a few blocks west.

The party was as much fun as ever. Although there was a string duo playing upstairs in the living room, most people stayed down in the basement, in the historic kitchen area with the snacks and drink. One of the interesting people I met turned out to be from Berlin, so the conversation changed to German for a quarter hour or so. He's always lived in Berlin, so I asked him if he had been an Ossi or a Wessi, an East- or West-Berliner. That's where the story got really interesting. He had lived in the East, and in the 1970's he jumped into the Spree and swam over to the West, under fire. Where he lives now is along the riverbank.

La Bohème   Puccini's opera is now on Broadway, in a production by Baz Luhrmann, who did the new movie of Moulin Rouge. At the time it was written, opera was the pop culture of the day, much like TV, and Luhrmann wanted to get it nowadays out of the opera house and into the theater. They do it in the original Italian, with supertitles above the stage and on the sides. The time is updated from the 1890's to 1957, with appropriate costumes. That year was the last year tuberculosis still existed in France, to make Mimì's death plausible. The Italian remained the same, but the translations were contemporized. Where he says he saw her "in un coupè", which would have been a very fancy carriage, it's translated that he saw her in a Rolls-Royce. Interesting. It would be impossible for the same leads to be in nine shows a week, so there is a rotation, with three couples that do Rodolfo and Mimì, and two couples that do Marcello and Musetta, with the rest of the cast staying the same. We saw a delightful newcomer named David Miller doing a superb Rodolfo. I spotted Mary Tyler Moore in the audience milling around during intermission and at the end.

Lucia   We once again went to Ulrika's restaurant on St Lucia's day for the Luciafest. Ulrika Bengtsson has had a Swedish restaurant near Bloomingdale's for three years now. It turns out she's from the village of Hultebruk and knows Bev's cousin Berit there. In Sweden Lucia is regularly celebrated with someone dressing up as Lucia with a crown of lighted candles. At any rate, as usual we had a fine Swedish meal, during which the restaurant lights dimmed and from the back you could hear five soprano voices singing Santa Lucia. They came in in white gowns, holding candles in their hands, but Lucia had a crown of five large candles on her head. They sang a half dozen carols in Swedish. When they got to Stilla natt, heliga natt, that was the only one they also did in English as Silent Night, Holy Night. Then they left again singing Santa Lucia. Just beautiful. (One problem--you've seen candle wax that’s gotten onto a tablecloth. Well, as Lucia left, her long blond hair had a thin streak of candle wax down the back. I bet the best solution would have been to have ironed it out.)

Building Party and Winter Garden   Our building had its party in the lobby. We have a very large lobby and it accommodated everybody. The board of managers had it catered, but they also worked it out for donations of food platters, such as from real estate people dying to do business in our building. For the first time, and I couldn't believe it, they managed to get a case of champagne donated. Not only that, it was imported from France. Not only that, it was Veuve Cliquot Yellow Label. Amazing.

You are aware that after Nine Eleven real estate prices plunged around here, and you can understand why. Some people thought the neighborhood was doomed and started moving out. But there has been such a rebound and prices have soared so high, that there are real estate flyers in your mailbox all the time (note the above donations). A few weeks ago, the agent that sold us our one-bedroom in 1993 told us its current value, which is up 2/3 from what we paid for it, and is equal in value to what we sold our one-acre home in Westchester for. Amazing again. The only thing is I've been casting an eye on one of the duplexes on the top floor above our duplex. If ours is up in value, so is it. You can't win.

I'm of a generation where I remember people asking "Where were you on Pearl Harbor day?", but now, you don't even hear people asking "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" any more. The current question of course regards Nine Eleven, and that was a major topic at the party, and always will be in this building. We met Mike, who was the guy we met and invited in to a glass of wine by candlelight one of the evenings before we were evacuated. It turns out he was the last one to leave the building, and the building stayed empty for a few weeks, except for the resident superintendent. I had always thought all the building lobbies on South End Avenue must have been used for triage and other medical reasons, but now I understand it was uniquely the Regatta, because it was furthest away down South End Avenue, the lobby was so very large, and one end of the lobby is a three-story window looking out into the atrium, which was a great source of natural light since there was no electricity.

It is incredible how things work out. There are now so many people, New Yorkers and visitors, coming down to our neighborhood to see the WTC site who then stay and take a look at how nice the neighborhood is, that locals are starting to complain. Can you believe it? Someone was complaining about how many visitors have discovered the Esplanade behind our building along the river, and are starting to crowd it.

Finally, this past weekend we at last got to revisit the Winter Garden. Its restoration had been rushed to completion by the first anniversary, and we still hadn't walked up to see it. Even marble workers in Italy worked overtime to redo the damaged marble. I remember in August when the delivery of the tall palm trees by truck from Florida had arrived to replace the former ones.

Anyway, the Winter Garden is one of the finest interiors in the City, if not beyond as well. It is equal to the restored Grand Central Station and the restored Reading Room of the NY Public Library. It is of course of contemporary design, and entering it on a dark winter's evening is spectacular. There are white holiday lights everywhere, the 16 palms look gorgeous, and the rounded staircase as impressive as ever. Of course, beyond the top of the stairs there is no longer the bridge to the WTC, but a window wall instead. Around the bottom of the stairs is the display of the seven proposed designs to replace the WTC. I think some are off-the-wall, but some are impressive. I like the one by Norman Foster, which is in many ways the simplest. The memorial is a pair of walled-in areas covering the footprints, with separate entrances for family and for visitors. Looking up from these "voids" you see only sky, and no buildings. His proposed building is higher than I want to see, but he claims there are redundant safety features. Things here are progressing. Happy Holidays.