vip in the city

Mother Meryl

SK treated me to a farewell lunch of sorts at newly opened Trinity Place. I’d been wanting to check out this intriguing subterranean bar restaurant since it opened across the street a couple of months ago, so was happy for the opportunity, and the Asian chicken salad – my second in three days – did not disappoint (though I can’t help but always approach the idea of an “Asian salad” with some bemusement.) SK’s Kobe beef burger first arrived at the table with cheddar instead of the blue cheese he ordered, but when the server comped him a second glass of wine, all was forgiven.

Trinity Place occupies the space which was formerly the bank vault of the United States Realty Company at 115 Broadway. The limestone facings of this building and the adjacent Trinity Building at 111 Broadway were designed with Gothic detail to harmonize with neighboring Trinity Church. The construction of “New York’s original twin towers” between 1905 and 1907 was a major undertaking, entailing the relocation of Thames Street and the construction of retaining wall foundations drilled 80 feet into the marshy subsoil beneath.

The owners spent $1.5 million converting the swanky new space. The vault is flanked by two identical round 35-ton steel doors, nearly three feet thick, one door leading into the bar and the other into the restaurant area, which was formally a secret meeting room for U.S. Realty’s directors, which included financiers Charles Schwab and Cornelius Vanderbilt. An old caged elevator has been re-purposed as a wine cellar.

According to the website, the vault in which the bar and restaurant are located was built in upstate New York and floated down the Hudson River by barge, and transported to its current location on railroad tracks.

We continued the festivities there after work with a couple more people in tow. Apparently more than a few Wall Street-types have discovered this new happy hour spot; the place seemed pretty lively for a Wednesday evening. This night, though, I had to leave the party after just an hour to join SYB uptown at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater for Shakespeare in the Park at 8:00PM.

For his efforts of waiting in line through the night, missing a day’s work and a night’s sleep, SYB managed to score us a pair of seats in the second row, dead center.  And his dozen-year streak of attending every Shakespeare in the Park production remains intact.  Awesome!

This production of Bertolt Brecht‘s war-themed drama, Mother Courage and Her Children, features the incomparable Meryl Streep in the title role.  Fellow Academy Award winner Kevin Kline also stars.  It was adapted from the original German by Tony- and Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Tony Kushner (of Angels in America  fame.) It is SITP’s second production this summer season; I missed Macbeth (with Liev Schreiber), which ran June 13 to July 7.

This 20th-century piece is set during 17th-century Europe’s Thirty Years’ War (1618-48).  Anna Fierling, known as Mother Courage, runs a canteen wagon and makes her living off the Swedish army troops she follows through Eastern Europe — relying on the war for survival and profit, while cursing its costly toll on her three children.  The themes of war as a business advanced under the guise of a moral crusade seemed to resonate with the audience that night; during a couple of the more political speeches, several people broke out into spontaneous cheering and applause.

Streep was riveting in the tragi-comic role, holding the stage for almost the full three and a half hours, displaying impressive physicality and singing chops.  Not for nothing is she the most-nominated actor in Academy Awards history.  I truly felt I was witness to something special.

The Hayden Planterium on the walk home:

Plan B(otanica)

After work, I met up with SYB, RV and LC at Café El Portal on Elizabeth Street for some self-billed “home made Mexican” before the half-birthday festivities. Cute little spot, and the Mexican food did taste authentically homemade to my palate, though New Yorkers generally are not considered experts at judging such things – versus, say, Californians, whose tastes are finely honed by the abundance of local, authentic Mexican eateries.

After perusing the menu for an inordinate amount of time, I finally opted for the chilaquiles to compare against those I had at El Paso Taqueria a couple of weeks ago. They arrived hot and piled high on the plate, and tempting enough to prompt the woman sitting at the table next to ours to order the same.

Very tasty, if not quite as tasty as the plate uptown. Much later in the evening, I was comparing notes with JK about taquerias around the city. We were raving to each other about what we thought was the same place “in the low 100’s”, but which turned out to be two entirely different places, on different sides of Manhattan. I believe he was referring to Taqueria Y Fonda La Mexicana up on Amsterdam between 107th and 108th Streets, which if memory serves, I visited with B well over a year ago after we discovered too late that our intended destination – nearby A Restaurant – was closed on Sundays.

And speaking of Plan Bs…

We left the restaurant and made our way around the corner to Pioneer Bar where the festivities were scheduled to take place. As we approached, something seemed off. Terribly off. Two of SYB’s friends were already standing on the street outside the bar, or rather, where the bar would be… if it hadn’t closed suddenly and without explanation some time in the past few days. Whoops.

I later learned that Pioneer Bar is indeed no more, soon to be replaced by R Bar, which is scheduled to open in early September 2006.

After brief consultation with AB, the other half-birthday reveler, she and SYB decided to move the celebration to nearby Botanica on Houston. SYB began frantically calling around and texting the 60+ people on the invitation list to let them know about the change in venue.

The new locale turned out to be just fine for our purposes. We set up in the back lounge, and it was like having our own private – if very dark – living room, complete with worn, deeply squishy couches. Spent some time talking to MW, whom I hadn’t seen in ages – probably since the night of our dinner at Le Jardin Bistro.

I also met for the first time DX, SYB’s International Center of New York English conversation partner, who hails from Qingdao, China, site of the world-famous Tsingtao Brewery.

Just after 12:30AM, SYB set out to camp overnight in front of The Public Theater for tickets to Shakespeare in the Park’s production of Mother Courage (starring Meryl Streep) on Wednesday night. I got a text from him at 1:21AM, informing me that he was 6th or 7th in line, with just about 12(!) hours to go before ticket distribution. That’s dedication!

Factotum at The W

Attended a screening of Bent Hamer’s Factotum tonight at the W – Union Square hotel’s Grand Ballroom.

In its previous life, the 20-story in Beaux Arts–style building now housing the W New York – Union Square was known to 20th century New Yorkers as the Guardian Life Insurance Building. Originally named The Germania Life Insurance Company (after its founding by German immigrants), the company was renamed to “Guardian” after the German association became a liability during World War I. And not coincidentally, the name change did not require changing any of the decorative “GLIC” masonry carved throughout the building.

The company headquarters was built in 1911, and boasted one of the early versions of neon signage on their distinctive four-story mansard roof. The current “W Union Square” sign is a tribute and close style reproduction of the old sign.

In 1998, the Related Companies, LP paid $45 million for the landmarked tower at Park Avenue South and 17th Street when Guardian decided to move its operations downtown to Hanover Square. The company spent an additional $100 million to transform the Union Square building into a boutique hotel, while maintaining some of the original old–New York charm, including the marble stairwells and moldings, original tiled elevator landings and a spectacular marble-columned, plaster flower ceilinged, double-height ballroom on the second floor that once had been Guardian’s bank hall, then employee cafeteria.

Here, the ornate white marbled grand arcade, with elaborately scrolled arches and overhead domes (with “GLIC” detail):

The Rockwell Group designed the space to accommodate old and new. The modern main staircase emerges from the sleek lobby, following the arch of the original one, which was removed during the years-long renovation.

At the pre-screening reception, CS and I were treated to an open concessions bar: funky glassed Voss water (Norwegian water in honor of the Norwegian director?), sodas, Twizzlers, M&Ms, Junior Mints, Red Hots, Pirate’s Booty, popcorn – the works. Also some tasty Crème de Cassis-concoctions in martini glasses, but those seemed like potential trouble, so we demurred after just one each.

As the title frame informs: “Factotum” means “man of many jobs.” The film is an adaptation of prolific cult author Charles Bukowski‘s 1975 novel and incorporates elements from his many short stories. A portrait of the artist as a young drunk, the film is a series of booze-soaked vignettes revolving around the debauched misadventures of Bukowski’s alter ego, Henry (Hank) Chinaski (played by Matt Dillon) — a self-destructive, self-proclaimed story writer who burns through a series of menial jobs in his quest for the fleeting satisfactions of gambling, women and drink. For a time, he maintains a relationship of sorts with Jan, another hard-living, vulnerable soul, played to raspy effect by Lili Taylor (who is in my mind indelibly associated with her role as would-be folk singer Corey Flood in one of my favorite movies, Say Anything. “The world is full of guys. Be a man. Don’t be a guy.”) Hank and Jan’s rushed coupling seems doomed from the start, yet despite being fueled by mutual drunkenness, loneliness and brutality, there are surprising flashes of tenderness, such as when Hank stops in the street to place his own shoes on Jan’s feet when she can no longer walk in her high heels. The movie as a whole was like that, too, and despite suffering through repeated indignities and failures, Hank seemed to view his life with bemusement rather than rage or desperation, while making no apologies for his degeneration.

After the film, we enjoyed tasty chicken salads, al fresco at Republic on Union Square.