NYC Sabbatical

 A lovely FaceBook (tm) photo memory popped up today -- D2 and I in Herald Square, in Fun City, as Mayor Lindsay used to call it, and my father sarcastically did, too, when speaking of its then dystopian nature.

D2 and Jonathan moved in together there in 2015, after both earning Masters degrees at UF. Originally they were to live separately -- Jonathan with some friends, and D2 to find a roommate, but Jonathan's apartment to be ended up mold infested, and I pushed strongly for the two of them to become POSSLQs, to use a long discarded term. It stands for People of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters, and came about when the US Census realized there were lots of them in the 70s. Calvin Trillin wrote a hilarious essay about them, too.

Anyway, even though NYC was in a safer period, I felt better with D2 living with a man. And the two moved into Murray Hill, or more specifically Kips Bay, a part of the city crawling with new college grads. In fact, one year while visiting, I found one of two "Hurricane Bars," where I was able to be among my brethren while we watched FSU beat us -- but it was a close game.  Kips Bay was nice but boring, and the two decamped to the West Village the following year.

Ah -- I was then truly living vicariously through them. Greenwich Village was my Dad's favorite part of the city, and mine, too, and if I have a minor regret, it's that I never had the chance to live there, and make believe I was a writer -- sipping coffee at a bistro and working on the great American something or other.

Their building was terrific, though composed of mostly older folks -- many benefitting from rent control. I met one retired teacher, who used to sit on the stoop with his blind dog -- he was paying, he proudly told me, just over $1000 per month, and had been since he moved there in 1970. D2 and Jonathan paid three times that, or just about.

It was a lovely 4 years -- I loved visiting. Wifey, too, as long as it was warmer weather. One Fall, D1 and Joey and Wifey and I flew up, rented a van at LGA and fetched the New Yorkers, and then drove up to New Paltz for a wonderful weekend at Mohonk Mountain House. It rained a lot of the time, but was still a delightful weekend -- we figured Jonathan might pop the question then, but he had other plans -- a surprise he planned well and choreographed some months later, which was partially thwarted.

Wifey and I and Paul and Patricia and Barry and Donna and Edna and Mark flew to the City for the event, and my staying at the Grammercy Park Hotel gave coveted access to the park. The plan was for Jonathan to take D2 there on some pretext, drop to a knee and give her the ring, which family friend Derek had sold him. Alas, it had rained the night before, and the prissy fools closed the park, lest a snowflake slip -- so Jonathan called an audible and took her to Washington Square instead. Then he brought her back to the Grammercy Hotel, where dear family and friends were waiting for a surprise.

It was even more memorable that the bartender failed to show in the $900 per night hotel -- so Paul and I called our OWN audible, and simply became the bartenders using their booze -- probably going through well over $2k worth of spirits. My favorite was pouring tall glasses of fine whiskey that would have probably cost $50 each. Hey -- their fault for messing up.

Since Jonathan was in Finance, we figured we'd have them in the City for a long time, but then fate smiled, and he was offered a great job in Coral Gables. D2 knew it was brewing while she was home for a visit -- we were having Daddy/Daughter pedicures. I heard her ask "So it's official?" Somehow I knew, and got teary eyed -- my beloved D2 and her fiance were coming home!

Well, the past few days I've been reading articles about the miserable state of affairs in the City -- even in the normally safe and quiet Village. Sadly, things have reverted to the way they were in the 70s -- crime rising, homeless aggressively everywhere, even fires being set on the street.

I would not be a happy Daddy in the USA if the kids were still living there.

Miami has some rough parts of town, but cops and leaders here are far less tolerant of lawlessness than they are in NYC. Hell -- Citadel is moving here from Chicago precisely because the CEO has had it with rampant crime there that progressive leaders seem to accept.

I'm a third generation Democrat, but I see first hand how going too left, especially on quality of life issues, quickly renders a city untenable.

So today, D1 and Joey are on their way over, with the toddler and baby in tow. Jonathan has work, but D2 will join us -- I'm off to Joanna's soon to fetch lunch.

Yes -- D2 and Jonathan's sabbatical was terrific. They even became food snobs while living there! But I love having them back in the 305.