At Rossolimo's old store...

...in Greenwich Village.

This is again a chess room (with an associated chess/backgammon store two doors down), giving some competition to the chess place that has been across the street since Rossolimo moved there from here back in the early 70s.

This place also offers online access, obviously.

The trip into town went off smoothly. I started off by buying a round trip LIRR ticket with two subway rides for $22.50. At around Sea Cliff, I started the "difficult" sudoku in today's Post and finished it just as the train pulled into Jamaica for the transfer to the train that took me into Penn Station.

I blew one of the subway rides taking the "1" down to Rector Street, at the bottom end of Manhattan, where I visited a client of mine, with rather unspectacular results. My commercial mission accomplished, I walked north a couple of blocks to Ground Zero, took the obligatory picture through the fencing, and then began to walk up Broadway, looking mostly up.

I plan to walk up to Central Park South in time for my 3:30 pm appointment, after which I plan to burn the second subway ride getting back to Penn Station for the trip home.

Cheers...

Day in Manhattan, part 2...

Nobody was playing chess, either in the Rossolimo studio or the place across the street. The same could not be said of the chess tables in the southwest corner of Washington Square Park, which were fairly full.

As I approached the tables, a couple of hardy souls tried to recruit me for a "friendly" game or two, which I avoided. I kibitzed one game where one player was so bad, I could not understand what he was doing in the park (unless he was clumsily trying to hustle a few games). Generally speaking, the level of play among the denizens of this corner is pretty high, especially in blitz play.

I took the long way around the park to get to Fifth Avenue and found other hardy souls engaged in playing cards, Parchesi, and Scrabble, although for the most part, the park seemed populated by students from nearby NYU.

The walk up Fifth Avenue was pleasant, if tiring. The weather was sunny, but the temperature was a little higher than I would have preferred. There seemed to be a lot of scaffolding set up all along the avenue, presumably to protect pedestrians from renovation work being carried out above.

I kept my eyes looking upward as much as possible, and got a load of what Ayn Rand may have been talking about in The Fountainhead. There is a lot of incomprehensible "classical" architecture along Fifth, with flutings, columns, doodads, and other decorations that simply don't make sense (and most certainly don't mesh very well with neighboring buildings that, generally speaking, date from the same era). Of course, in recent years, there's been a lot of incomprehensible modern stuff put up, too.

I also noticed a number of buildings where the original name of the building had been removed, leaving a flat surface marred with the scars of the bolts used to hold the original letters of the name in place. (One place that won't happen any time soon, I would imagine, is the "Fred F. French Building" - somewhere in the 50s, if memory serves - which is so designated on at least two sides, together with another "The French Building" in bronze over the entrance, in case you missed the big letters up above from a distance.)

I eventually got up to 59th Street, which is also known as Central Park South along the blocks where the park is across the street, and saw the empty Plaza Hotel, which I understand is going to be converted into apartments, or something. The Plaza was a true landmark, along with the Trader Vic's in the basement. I have a pretty good memory of one evening at Trader Vic's, from my college years, which may be told someday when the kiddies are asleep.

I cut directly toward 7th Avenue to the clinic, got my test and my certificate, and used up my second subway fare to get to Penn Station again. I got out and walked east along 33rd Street, toward where I used to work for three summers in the purchasing department of an architect-engineering firm during college, hoping to find the Blarney Stone (an Irish bar, with eats) which I did. I had dinner there - corned beef and cabbage, don't you know - with a pint (almost) of Guinness draught.

There was still some time before my train home, so I stopped at Lindy's (on 7th) and had some of their "world-famous" cheesecake. It wasn't bad, but I've had better.

The trip home was straightforward, not even requiring me to change trains at Jamaica. The LIRR cars are a welcome upgrade from the old, rumbling coaches of my youth.

It turns out I've been away from New York long enough so that the many sights I had become used to when I lived in the Big Apple are new again to my eyes, and I can appreciate how confusing the city can appear to strangers. I have no burning desire to go back any time soon, but if and when I do, I should probably pick a day other than the Jewish New Year to do so (lots of interesting-looking places were shut for the holiday).

Cheers...