This morning I woke up for the last time at my AirBnB in Harlem, and on my way to Brooklyn to meet up with Natalie, Timmy, and Kim, I had tea and scones at a delightful shop called Alice’s Tea Cup. There are three locations, and I visited the original one located on 73rd Street at Columbus Avenue (whimsically called “Chapter I”). I’m so glad I discovered this place, as not only am I quite fond of tea, I’m also quite fond of the UK, and this tea shop reminded me so much of being back in a delightful tea shop somewhere in a quiet nook in London or in a sleepy corner of the English countryside. They offer over a hundred varieties of tea, but I couldn’t resist but to try their Fancy English Breakfast, and I paired that with a pumpkin scone and mixed berry scone. It was just so delightful! The parallels to the UK continued when I received my check only to discover that all the Alice locations have gotten rid of tipping. I do highly recommend a visit to Alice’s Tea Cup, as I have nothing but positively delightful things to say about it! (Well, the only slightly negative thing I have to say is that the clotted cream that came with the scones was nothing like real clotted cream that I had while in Devon. But I’ll forgive them.)
Following tea, I met up with the others at a Food Bazaar Supermarket in Brooklyn on Broadway. Sadly, I had only a short hour with Natalie, Kim, and Timmy, as they needed to board the train to catch their flight. But it was so lovely to hang out with them one last time and to see them off. I had a really fantastic time with them, and we all remarked how we all made such good traveling companions. I’m sure this won’t be our last excursion together.
My next stop was to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. The cemetery as been around since 1838, it sits on 478 acres of rolling hills with almost 7000 trees (some of them a century-and-a-half old), and it is home to elegant statuary and mausoleums and 560,000 permanent residents. A tall brownstone gate of three towers and two archways greets visitors at the north entrance. It was built during the Civil War and was designed in flashy Revival Gothic style by Richard Upjohn and his son Richard M. Upjohn.
I’m always fascinated by visits to cemeteries (my visit to Glasgow’s Necropolis was especially memorable), but Green-Wood has a special place in my heart, as two of its residents are Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre Bernstein. (I don’t have the space to go into Bernstein’s sexuality and his complicated relationship with Montealegre, but this article by Michael Roddy provides a good, yet heartbreaking, concise overview.) The Bernstein gravesite is actually quite unassuming, the husband and wife buried side-by-side, the location of their bodies marked by simple but elegant lawn-level markers, and at their heads stands a small, stone memorial bench surrounded by various greens and shrubs. It is a graceful and simple location for the Bernsteins, and it was an especially poignant moment for me to visit this site. I may have to come back from time to time.
After my visit with the Bernsteins, I walked a little farther south to enjoy views of a magical little area where a willow tree creates a natural tunnel on Larch Avenue, and I then made my way a tad bit west to view the catacombs. These catacombs were built in the 1850s and are closed to the public. But the gated entrance allows a glimpse down the long, long, arched hallway with small passageways on both sides of the hall into the 30 vaults. Afterwards, I made my way farther west to view the Roosevelt family plot (the resting place of, among others, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt’s first wife who tragically died of Bright’s Disease at only 22 years old after giving birth to Alice Lee Roosevelt; Martha Bullock Roosevelt, Teddy’s mother who tragically died of typhoid fever 11 hours before Teddy’s first wife; Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., Teddy’s father; and Cornelius and Margaret Roosevelt, Teddy’s grandparents). The gravestones were sadly so old and worn that it was difficult to read any of the names, but the 20-odd headstones (my best guess from memory) form a giant arc 30-feet (or so; I’m so bad at guessing distances) in diameter. Like the Bernsteins’ plot, this plot, too, was unassuming and humble, and I wouldn’t have known it was there walking past it had I not had a map with me to point out where it was.
I could have spent hours here, but I had to begin making my way back to Manhattan to check into our second AirBnB near the Queensboro Bridge, so I walked back towards the entrance past the quint Valley Water pond and past the Green-Wood Chapel (a Beaux Arts building built in 1911).
By the time I got to Manhattan, I needed to waste a little time before checkin, so I found a craft beer locale called the Jeffrey where I had a pint of an Oxbow Luppolo (an Italian style pilsner) and a Brooklyn Cider House Kinda Dry. And then, just like that, Amy and Aaron arrived at our apartment on East 58th Street. And how exciting it was to see them!
We had tickets to go see some standup at the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village, so we quickly made our way to the area to first have some dinner and then attend the show. We discovered a restaurant nearby the Comedy Cellar called North Square. The place got generally positive reviews on Google and Yelp, but the three of us ended up being rather unimpressed with the whole establishment. The only thing positive about it was that the host who sat us was friendly. After that, everything kinda went down hill. It took 10 minutes for us to get menus, the bread arrived at the same time as our entrees, and I’d rate the food (I got the duck entree and Amy and Aaron two different fish entrees) with meh-and-a-half stars. So, don’t go to North Square. There are many other better places in Greenwich Village that we discovered on our Greenwich food tour on day 6. (Stay tuned!)
After our disappointing meal, we had just enough time for a beer at the Old Rabbit Club right across the street from the Comedy Cellar. It’s a cool little hole in the wall, and I highly recommend a visit. It’s darkly lit, filled with old bric-a-brac from across the decades, and their beer selection is quite impressive.
Then, it was off to the Comedy Cellar. This venue has been around since 1982, founded by Bill Grundfest who was a standup comic himself and who currently works as a television writer and producer. Each night you can partake in any of the three shows they offer (one at 7:30, another at 9:30, and one more at 11:30), and each show usually has five to seven comics who do their schticks of about 20 minutes. The night we attended we got to enjoy Modi, Phil Hanley, Kevin Brennan, Nikki Glaser, and Mike Vecchione. All of them put on especially funny shows. I had the pleasure of sitting very near the front, and sitting in the front, of course, means you’re more likely to interact with the comedians on stage. Phil Hanley was especially interested in talking with me, and I had a really good time bantering with him. It’s all very good fun.
But then the evening turned towards the most unexpected. Sometimes there’s a surprise comedian, as there was with tonight. And it was none other than Louis C.K. I used to admire him. I used to adore him. But I can’t any longer for reasons that are obvious.
I am going to forego discussing what happened that evening in this post, as it deserves a response all on its own. I’ll try to finish that in the next day or two.
Stray Observations:
1. The walk to the Bernsteins’ gravesite from the north entrance will take you past the Civil War Soldiers’ Monument. Erected in 1869 and standing 35 feet tall, it’s an impressive column sitting atop a four-sided pedestal with statues of soldiers from the era.
2. There are some very tall hills within Green-Wood Cemetery that allow for some lovely views of the skyscrapers of Manhattan, much like how the Necropolis in Glasgow offers similar views of the city because of its placement on a tall hill.
3. As I was writing this post, I discovered that one of my favorite artists, Jean-Michel Basquiat, is buried in Green-Wood. I’m really disappointed I didn’t discover this while I was there. I was already inclined to visit the cemetery on my next visit to New York, and I will be sure not overlook paying a visit to Basquiat.