Is anyone else sick of the rain? I went into the city yesterday to find some of the pocket parks on my list. The weather forecasters said there would be scatter showers, but not the torrential rain I experienced when I walked out of Grand Central Station! I stood under an awning on 42nd Street with a bunch of other people for about 10 minutes waiting for it to let up before I gave up. I ended up going across the street to one of my favorite atriums, one of the first free spaces I found when I first moved to New York.

When it was apparent the rain was not stopping anytime soon, I decided to visit the Museum of the City of New York up on 103rd Street and 5th Avenue. I have wanted to go there for background information on Manhattan’s street grid system and to find out if their museum shop might be a good place to sell my book. I’m happy to say it will be and now I have two lovely docents at the information desk ready and waiting for it to be published!

I highly recommend a visit to this museum. It explains how the streets were laid out and has several other wonderful exhibits. While I was viewing the Stories the City Tells Itself exhibit that displayed the work of Neil Goldberg, I came upon a simple video of gay men brushing their cats, each saying, “He’s a talker.” I have no idea why Goldberg chose that phrase, but I was touched when I read more about the display. I believe it began as a simple project of a few friends petting their cat. It ended up being a record of several men who passed during the AIDS crisis. Right after that, I went to Timescape: A Multimedia Portrait of New York. It showed us the history of the creation of New York and runs through June 19th. The best part was the three old ladies who crashed the movie, complete with walkers and loud chatter while they found their seats. ‘Gotta love the elderly! They either didn’t care or didn’t realize that we could all hear them as they looked for seats about 5 minutes before the end of the 22-minute movie!


Despite my change of plans thanks to Mother Nature, I had a great day and learned a lot about the city I love so much.