Yesterday
Ellen, Eileen and I went to visit my mom & dad in Queens. As is the usual scenario, Eileen stays with her grandparents while Ellen and I go out, usually to Manhattan. We decided to visit Soho and the Scholastic Bookstore. We boarded the #7 Flushing subway line and took it to Queensborogh Plaza to get the Broadway N line. Once we got to Prince Street the Scholastic store was right there. Scholastic Publishing earned the rights to print and distribute the Harry Potter books and other items, so besides the books, there were ties for sale (one for each of Hogwarts’ houses), a sorting hat (I wonder what house it would have put me in?), and models of the steam locomotive and the English Ford that would take Harry and Ron to school from London or Surrey. While we did not buy any Harry Potter items, we did get some reference books for Eileen, as she is still being tutored at home and then in September will start the life skills course at Islip High School. After paying for the books we walked through Soho to Houston Street and admired the historic buildings. Then Ellen asked if we could eat dinner at the White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street. I said sure, why not. We had walked past it countless times, but never went inside. The pub has a very important place in literary history, since it was the favorite haunt of British poet Dylan Thomas when he visited new York City. Being the lush that he was, it was in the White Horse Tavern that he drank himself to death (actually he keeled over on the front sidewalk and was rushed to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he actually passed away). We appreciate Dylan Thomas as the provider of Robert Zimmerman’s stage name – Bob Dylan, and the author of the poem “The Boys of Summer” whose title Roger Kahn borrowed in 1970 when he wrote about the Brooklyn Dodgers. When Ellen and I walked in there were no drunks, only a family of German tourists who spoke very loudly. I opted for a bottle of Blue Moon beer and a steak & kidney pie. It’s something that I would never make at home and had not had since I was last in London 30 years ago. After our dinner we walked into Chelsea to the former National Biscuits Company (Nabisco) bakery at 75 9th Avenue. Today the ground floor is a collection of food stores – the Chelsea Market – with some unique but a bit expensive shops. On the upper floors are the offices of EMI Music. One of the reasons that we walked there was that another of the Statues on Parade is there – the Detroit Tigers. Ellen managed to take my picture with the statue using my cell phone camera. After we walked out of the Chelsea market we headed to the subway at 8th Avenue & 14th Street to head back to Queens.
On the major league baseball front, both the Mets and Yankees won on Sunday.
