new york trip

The lad returned from New York late Sunday evening full of excitement. He’s another one who loves the vibrancy of the city. Just seemed to jazz him up completely. They kept themselves busy going and seeing as much as they could pack into the weekend.

The show, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, was everything they’d hoped for and anticipated, but I was a little disappointed to hear that John Lithgow had been replaced by Jonathan Pryce as the main character. That change must have happened over the weekend. On Friday when I viewed the show’s website, photos of John Lithgow peppered the site. On Sunday night, I looked again and all traces of Lithgow were gone, replaced by Pryce. Huh. I had a secret fantasy of becoming a John Lithgow 2. Oh well. ;)

I think it came as a surprise to his Dad when the lad requested a trip to Harlem on Sunday morning. Over the past year he’d been reading about some of the jazz greats and their place in Harlem’s history. They checked out the Apollo Theater along their travels. The speakeasy culture in New York during the 20s and the Harlem Renaissance fascinate him. Most of the outward signs of the 20s culture are gone, but being in the same place where it happened and seeing at least some of the same sights as those who lived there then made it more tangible.

And, somewhere, the lad had read about The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, said to be the largest cathedral in the world. He wanted to see it up close and personal for a story he’s writing. I had no idea it was there, either. About one hundred years old, the cathedral still isn’t finished. But, as someone notes on the web site, most of the great cathedrals in Europe took as many as 500 years to build, so there’s still time. The lad said that their was evidence of a fire at the cathedral, but I didn’t see anything on the website discussing it. Some of the fine stonework is pretty scorched.

There was, by the way, no morning run in Central Park. They found a Comedy Club on Friday night and were out very late. Saturday morning arrived, they said ‘fergedit’ and rolled over for another forty winks. Good sensible fellows.