One of my holiday rituals is to visit Myers of Keswick for stocking stuffers. The Greenwich Village store is filled with British specialty items. No nonsense Frank Cooper\u2019s orange marmalade. Homemade bangers and sausage pies. And most importantly from my point of view \u2014 one of the most impressive assortments of Cadbury chocolates outside the British Isles.\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
I usually combine the visit with lunch at Mary\u2019s Fish Camp; a nearby restaurant that serves a lobster roll the equal of anything I\u2019ve sampled in Maine, if at an exorbitant price. I comfort myself that it\u2019s no more than a semi-annual indulgence. But when I checked their hours \u2014 I had a doctor\u2019s appointment uptown and feared I wouldn\u2019t be able to make it the Village before lunch service ended \u2014 I discovered that Mary\u2019s closed its doors in April of last year. Could it be that long since I visited?
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
Patronizing restaurants that no longer exist is a painful phenomenon that I associate with age. You turn the corner, your appetite fully whet, only to discover that a restaurant that supplied tasty food and ample memories across decades has vanished forever. I suppose more surprising are those vintage establishments that soldier on long after time seems to have passed them by. I don\u2019t know why I should be shocked when they go under. They\u2019re no less mortal than their owners and probably more so. But they take a bit of me and their other loyal customers along with them when they go.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
Their demise raises an adjacent and more alarming question. Am I also becoming obsolete as well? Has the city where I was born, grew up and lived for most of my life left me in the dust? I received another scare when I decided to drop by Bauman\u2019s, a rare book seller on Madison Avenue. Bauman\u2019s is unaffordably priced but I always enjoy picking up their holiday season catalogue. It makes me feel prosperous. I own some of the titles they sell and its fun to think they might fetch anything approaching their price tags.\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
But, again, when I arrived at the store it was gone. Before turning west to join the Christmas tree-gawking crowds at Rockefeller Center \u2014 approximately 97% of them seemed to be tourists \u2014 I performed a brief Internet search while standing in front of Bauman\u2019s former storefront and discovered that the book seller hadn\u2019t expired. It had merely moved a couple of blocks south. Their new location is more modest \u2014 the conceit that you\u2019ve entered a book lover\u2019s Victorian library doesn\u2019t quite hold up \u2014 but at least they haven\u2019t perished. I bagged a catalogue before continuing on.\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
It\u2019s not as if the city is dying. Quite the opposite. It appears to be thriving. A building boom is occurring in my neighborhood accompanied by the high-end restaurants and retailers that cater to their residents\u2019 fancy expectations. Who all these real estate buyers are that want to live in generic luxury high-rises, let alone can afford their astronomical prices, remains a mystery to me.\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
At the same time the planet seems to be barreling towards climate collapse. (Hold on, I\u2019ll be getting to the redeeming holiday cheer in a moment.) American politics, currently characterized by gleeful cruelty, doesn\u2019t give one much cause for comfort. The world feels less stable than it has at any moment since the 1930\u2019s. The Atlantic magazine titled a piece by journalist and historian Anne Applebaum about the Trump administration\u2019s new national security strategy targeting Europe, not China or Russia, \u201cThe Longest Suicide Note in American History.\u201d
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
And yet. My grandchildren are applying to nursery schools, their parents attending more screenings and auditions than seems justified considering that the pipsqueak candidates aren\u2019t yet three and desire nothing more than to don princess dresses and butterfly wings and dance around the apartment. \u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
And my other daughter and son-in-law just opened a restaurant in Brooklyn that has lines out the door. It seems that Millennials and Gen-Zers, or Zoomers as they\u2019re called, ultimately want the same thing that Boomers did and still do: dependable food at a fair price served by friendly people in an inviting setting. While it\u2019s almost an hour away from our apartment by subway I\u2019m thinking of dropping by and taking a seat at the counter. Gracie is too busy to chat as she takes orders and rings up customers. But I\u2019m not there for the conversation.\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
It\u2019s that sense of belonging that increasingly seems to elude me in the city. I don\u2019t feel the least bit self-conscious as the oldest person in the restaurant and not just because my daughter runs the place. There\u2019s a peculiar bliss not just in knowing, but in watching, life go by.\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
It\u2019s not entirely dissimilar from taking a walk through a hushed forest. You\u2019re being included in something larger and more profound. Even amid the insanity of this city it\u2019s still possibly to discover subtlety among the dazzling holiday decorations, to bathe in humanity, and to hope that subsequent generations will soon stumble upon the solutions that eluded their parents. Or just muddle on. Happy Holidays!<\/p>\n
Ralph Gardner Junior is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found in the Berkshire Eagle and on Substack.<\/p>\n
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of my holiday rituals is to visit Myers of Keswick for stocking stuffers. The Greenwich Village store…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-77991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}