British Invasion Walk: Food and Private Lodging on the Upper West Side
Continue the walk
(post titled Strong Women) by returning to W. 72nd St. and proceed
east. On the north and south side of the street you'll find cafés and
restaurants representing the cuisines of the world. If you need to
balance the British theme, I would like to recommend P.D. O'Hurley's at
174 W. 72nd. Other choices could include a Kosher restaurant and deli,
a Thai place, and Earthen Oven, an Indian restaurant.
Several
apartment buildings along the street derive their names from the
British Isles. We have the Ruxton Tower Apartments, the Mayfair Towers,
and the Oliver Cromwell, all on the west side of Central Park, and on
the east side, we see The Wellesley, The Bayard, and Charing Cross
House.
The Hotel Olcott at
27 West 72nd has been converted into residences. Once the home of
"musician" Tiny Tim, the Olcott is part of the growing trend of
hotel-to-condo conversions. WOTBA does not approve, because we like to
frequent hotel lobbies of fading grandeur.
The fairest of all apartment buildings is The Dakota.
Built in 1884 by developer Edward Severin Clark and designed by Henry
J. Hardenbergh (also The Plaza, 1907) The Dakota blends an eclectic
mixture of European styles - Victorian, Gothic, and French. The dining
room on the first floor was modeled on a similar one in an English
manor house.
Judy Garland lived in The Dakota in early 1961.
Other famous residents include Leonard Bernstein, Lauren Bacall, José
Ferrer, Boris Karloff, Carson McCullers, William Inge, Rudolf Nureyev,
Yoko Ono, and John Lennon.
Image of skaters in Central Park with The Dakota in the background: from Moses S. King, King's Handbook of New York City, 2nd ed., 1893, p. 746
The
British Invasion Walk, 72nd St. from the Hudson River to the East
River. Next up: John Lennon, and What is English About Central Park.
British Invasion Walk: John Lennon
I waited until Happy Hour, EST, to disclose a startling fact, so if
you're a member of the drinking classes, I would recommend that you go
to the kitchen, get something and then come back. If you don't drink
alcohol or have forsaken demon rum, maybe a good yoga pose is in order
right now.
(music interval while I wait for you...la la la la la...I'm listening to Billy Bragg, by the way.)
OK. Let's relax. Ready?
Statement of fact: The year is 2007. Many eighteen-year olds, the age of most college freshmen, were born in 1989.
There.
I said it. Think about it. John Lennon, who many of us miss so much
because his music and ideas gave so much definition to our lives, was
shot and killed at The Dakota Apartments in 1980, nine years before these freshmen were born. John was 40. He would have been 67 next Tuesday, October 9, 2007.
His
music is still here. His intelligence is still with us, just like that
much much older Shakespeare fellow (or the collective entity known as
William Shakespeare) who is so alive in Central Park.
I'm glad that we
have memorials such as the one on the west side of Central Park near
72nd St. - the perfectly-named Imagine memorial and the adjacent Strawberry Fields, for people to connect with the Lennon of their own imaginations.
Celebrate,
all who are 18! You have so much to do! 1989 was the year ushering in
the reign of America's George I, but it was also the year the wall came
down.
Time is immaterial. Imagination is alive.
British Invasion Walk: The End of the Trail
To
complete the British Invasion Walk (see the many recent posts if you're
just jumping in), we'll stroll through Central Park and then pop out on
the Upper East Side and keep walking east along 72nd Street.
While still in the park, perhaps at the glorious Bethesda Fountain,
note that Frederick Law Olmsted, the park's famous designer, had an
important British partner in this vast undertaking. His name is Calvert
Vaux. The last name is pronounced to rhyme with "hawks." Vaux married
the sister of a Hudson River School painter and became a U.S. citizen.
The storefront at 347 East 72nd St. is the home of The United Lodge of Theosophists.
Co-founded by Madame Blavatsky and Wm. G. Judge, the U.L.T., based on a
quick read of the pamphlets I brought home with me, does not engage in
the usual Theosophist infighting. And I say, "Good for them!" They host
all sorts of events, including Spanish study groups and "Theosophic
Influences in Cinema, Theatre, and Literature."
A Ralph Lauren
store is along in here, too, on the south side of the street, peddling
its cause to Americans for the adoption of an expensive manor-born
British way of life.
Continue walking to York. Here we are. Sotheby's
itself, the New York branch of the legendary British auction house, all
nice in its glassy New World outfit. When I neared the building the
other day, I heard a man on a cell phone tell someone, "But we need to
know exactly who painted it!" And I thought, "Yeah, you do."
WOTBA's fellow countryman, the Texas billionaire Ross Perot,
a man who once described the intrigues of the 1992 presidential
election as so much "Mickey Mouse tossed salad," will be putting up his
very own copy of the Magna Carta
for auction at Sotheby's in December. The auction house does indeed
exercise considerable power on these shores, establishing currency and
reputation for all artists, both the quick and the dead.
So
this was a fun walk! It took me about two hours to walk the two miles
from west to east, and that counted all the stopping and reflecting. I
spent an extra hour in Sotheby's pretending to buy European tapestries
for the apartment.
But, alas, I learned the lesson, just like
Dorothy of Kansas, that the true source of British cultural influence
in contemporary American life could not be found on 72nd Street - "And
you were there! And you were there!, etc. "- but in my own back yard.