Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin
First we take Manhattan…
–First We Take Manhattan, Leonard Cohen

I took a long enforced hiatus from my blog at the end of March because we left for New York City on March 23rd and didn’t return till April 2nd. It’s amazing what not blogging does to your blog hits. My visitor stats declined by half to one-third. I’m hoping that in resuming my blogging eventually I’ll get back to my previous level.

We had a mixed trip. While we accomplished all of our major personal and business objectives, we had to stay three more days than planned and that took a lot out of all of us. It was a drag to be forced to stay in New York so much longer. We were so glad to return home when we did.

Normally, we stay at the Brooklyn Marriott, whose staff is among the most responsive and attentive of any New York hotel I’ve ever stayed at. We just love this hotel. It’s near Jonah’s cousin, Sam. It’s near some great restaurants in Cobble Hill and Smith Street. And finally, it’s near the Promenade, Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum. How cool can you get?

However, as Jonah gets bigger, we decided that we need to stay in a suite hotel in order to give Jonah his own room. It’s such a drag (as it was at the Brooklyn Marriott) for Janis and me to have to sit on the bathroom floor until Jonah falls asleep because we’re all sleeping together in one room.

So we located the Battery Park Embassy Suites Hotel opposite the World Financial Center. It’s a very nice facility and the harbor view of the Jersey City skyline from our hotel window was superb.

Jersey City office building gleams at twilight	Jersey City skyline from Embassy Suites 14th floor
Jersey City skyline before sunset	New York Waterway ferry at Battery Park terminal

The price is reasonable and you get a decent amount of space plus that wonderful extra room for the kid. There is also a splendid playground and pond at the riverfront just outside the hotel. But the hotel staff often seemed clueless. Whenever I either called or visited the Concierge desk, the concierge wasn’t available.

But there was one shining staff exception: the doorman, Willie, befriended my son in a big way and that made all the difference both for Jonah and us, his parents. Willie is a big, tall guy with a wonderful smile and hearty laugh. Whenever he saw Jonah he bounded over to him, gave him a big laugh and said: “Here’s my boy. I just love this kid.” If only Embassy Suites could teach the rest of their staff that sort of attitude toward their customers!

My wife, 2 year old son and dog spent Labor Day weekend in Salem, OR visiting my brother Todd, a professor at Willamette University and his friend, Rosalie. Most parents will recognize that when you’re on vacation the entire schedule must be arranged to pique and satisfy your child’s curiousity. If you don’t make this effort, you will inevitably suffer the consequences.

While Janis and I generally have been underimpressed by Salem and its lack of cultural, artistic and culinary diversity–I must say that we found some great things to do for and with our son, Jonah. A work colleague of my wife told us about A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Village; and I met a home relocation expert who was demolishing a lovely old Madrona craftsman; he told me about a historic Frank Lloyd Wright home he had helped relocate to the Oregon Garden. Both these leads turned out to be gold. In addition, my brother took us to a recently and meticulously restored carousel in the city’s Riverfront Park. The two things we missed doing on this trip are a railroad ride from Salem’s historic train station and a riverboat ride on the Willamette Queen, which plies the waters of the Willamette River.

A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Village is a wild, woolly and wonderful collections of old historic homes, rickety old science exhibits and a monumental playground with the biggest, tallest wooden maze you’ll ever see. The Gilbert family residence is one of the old Victorian homes on the site. Another home was relocated from property in or near downtown Salem. The homes look like gingerbread castles in a fairyland because they are completely dislocated from their surroundings. At one time, these homes were stately and held commanding views of the river. But now they are surrounded by concrete and metal bridges, parking lots and roadways. In addition, some blithe museum designer (if the creators of this attraction even used such a person) decided that they would put the homes’ rooms to “good use” as a child’s science exhibit. You’ve seen almost all of these displays at another children’s museum somewhere (and done much better). They are fun and help your child wile away the hours. But they’re not terribly challenging or innovative. On a positive note, there is a tremendously overlarge rocking chair on the front porch (it appears about ten times normal size). It’s a blast to photograph your child sitting on it.

I would much rather have seen the creators restore these homes to their previous Victorian grandeur, instead of bowdlerizing them into a science museum.

Which brings me to the labyrinth, possibly one of the seven wonders of the [children's] world. It is an almost entirely wooden structure (with reinforcing metal frame and plastic slides) about 4-5 stories high. It is riddled with warrens, passageways, nooks and staircases which lead somewhere or nowhere depending on how well you penetrate the maze’s secrets. There are three sprial slides of varying heights. The tallest one is particularly scary (in a good way) in that you cannot even see into the slide to view the descending hole that will take you to the bottom. Jonah didn’t want any part of that, though he did go down a shorter slide. I was amazed at first when I heard that Janis’ colleague and his kids had spent four hours at the Village. But I’m not amazed anymore.

One more word on A.C. Gilbert, he was one of the first big American toy manufacturers in the early decades of the 20th century. As an inventor (he was also a magician, world traveler and Olympic athlete), he created the erector set and American Flyer trains. While he made his fame and fortune in the East, Gibert’s birthplace was in Salem.

Oregon Garden is a recent addition to the regional tourist circuit in a small village, Silverton, east of Salem. About a decade ago, the Oregon Nurserymen’s Association joined with the city of Silverton and others to create the concept of a garden that represented the finest plants grown in Oregon. The garden is organized around themes like Children’s garden, Northwest garden, etc. While it appears that the plantings are quite recent and therefore far from imposing or mature, one can see the promise of a fine garden in the making. An added attraction is the Gordon House, a Frank Lloyd Wright home relocated from Wilsonville, where it sat on a bend of the Willamette River with a bird’s eye view of Mt. Hood. Of course, its present site is nowhere near as impressive. Nevertheless, much of the striking newness of its architectural style when it was first built (in the middle of rural Oregon no less!) is still evident. One of its finest features is a large wooden cutout in a vaguely Mayan design which covers a good part of the home’s picture window. The great geometric patterns in the cutout add great liveliness and variation to the facade.

On a negative note, I do not understand the impulse to save old homes by moving them to sites that divorce the homes from their original context. Usually, some desperate owner or city wants to do the right thing with a great old historic landmark which is in the way of “civic renewal” in the form of a new Walmart of State office building. So they rack their brains and try to find a site, any site that would be ‘appropriate’ (what my idea and their idea of appropriate is varies considerably). So they plunk the house down in the dirt somewhere and leave it to its own devices. Most of the time, these people are doing a tremendous disservice to the homes and to the cause of historic preservation.

Am I saying that they should simply tear down the home? No, definitely not. There should be stronger historic preservation laws on the books across this country which force us to confront our historic legacy and preserve it whenever possible.

I do have a quarrel with the design of the Children’s Garden. It was clearly designed without a child in mind. I wonder whether whoever put the garden together consulted any children before making the crucial decisions in its design. First, the Children’s garden lacks a ‘children’s garden,” that is, a garden designed by and for children with vegetables, flowers and plants grown by the children themselves. That should’ve been a no brainer for the creators of this garden. Second, there is a single measly sandbox with two trowels for children to play. What about buckets, soil, planting pots, little wheelbarrows, all the little things that children can do in a garden? Someone forgot about that. At the New York Botanical Garden they’ve displayed giant 2 story metal ‘insects’ which amaze every child who sees them. That’s the way one should evoke wonder in a child before the awesome force of Nature. The Children’s Garden fails on this score.

The Oregon Garden is a fine garden in the making. It looks good now but will look much better in a few years after the plants and trees have taken hold and added some height and depth. It’s worth a visit.

I visited New York City with my wife and 2 1/2 year old son. My wife was visiting mostly for business and I provided most of the childcare. The weather didn’t really cooperate much as it was sweltering and tremendously muggy. Most days I felt a combination of par boiled, fried, sauteed and grilled. After what we hoped would be a cooling rain, the weather only returned to its former steamy condition. But I was able to see and do some wonderful things with my son.

Museum of Natural History

An extraordinary museum visually and intellectually. The displays were a little too advanced to capture my son’s interest. But I thought the video displays in the Whale Room (displaying a full size great blue whale hanging from the ceiling!!) were tremendously compelling along with the other exhibits. The Rose Space Center, with its enormous planets suspended in air is also amazing.

Brooklyn Marriott

Who ever heard of a New York hotel whose staff actually makes its guests feel WELCOME?! Staff (from the maids to the Concierge) say: “How can I help you?”, “I’m glad I could help,” etc. If you’ve lived in NYC any length of time this type of service is nothing short of miraculous.

Not to mention that the prices can be quite lower than the finer Manhattan hotels (especially on weekends). The rooms are standard, nice Marriott-type (a bit on the small scale, but this is NYC after all). The hotel is a five minute walk to the Brooklyn Promenade with its fine view of the lower Manhattan skyline. A short walk to Cobble Hill or Montague Street takes you to excellent restaurants including Harvest, Saul and many others. If you like bakeries as much as I, you shouldn’t miss Sweet Melissa Patisserie on Court Street (Cobble Hill). The chocolate desserts are rich, dense and just plain wonderful. You are a 10 minute subway ride from Wall Street. I traveled from Queens MOMA to the hotel by subway in less than 30 minutes. That’s pretty fast!

Ansel Adams at 100

MOMA Queens is hosting a fascinating Ansel Adams exhibit. Unfortunately, it’s nothing like the monumental Adams photographs that MOMA displayed about ten years ago. But it’s a great exhibit nonetheless. Most interesting from my perspective were the prints developed from the same negative but decades apart. By comparing the elements of each print, you could see how Adams’ vision changed or developed based on the changes in emphasis between the two prints. The later prints are more pictorially dramatic. In a shot of a stand of birch trees, he brings out the white bark of the some of the trees, but leaves others in shadow creating a sharply contrasting effect. While in the earlier print of the same image, he is content to bring a single tree and its leaves into the forefront and leave the rest in shadow. One gets the impression that the later images are more highly “worked over” to develop certain effects while the earlier ones retain a certain simplicity.

Brooklyn Children’s Museum

I made the mistake of taking the hotel concierge’s advice and took my son to the Brooklyn Children’s Museum instead of the Manhattan Children’ Museum. After a short subway ride and excruciatingly long walk (carrying my son the entire 12 blocks), we discovered that the museum’s summer hours begin at 1 PM (which the concierge didn’t know about). A merciful security guard bent the rules and allowed us entry. Jonah loved the toddler playroom with a nice water feature filled with cups and boats and plastic boxes filled with dolls, trucks, etc.

There was a mock pizza parlor which allowed him to run the whole show from buying and selling the pies, eating them and baking them (with all the fixins) complete with wooden paddle. What a blast!

There was a dinosaur display with motorized animals roaring in your ear. One mamasaurus had her little babies with her. The babies scampered around their nest through some sort of motor mechanism. Jonah toured around this several times.

I didn’t realize that the museum is in Crown Heights, a minority neighborhood. During the entire time there, we were the only white faces we saw. I never felt threatened in any way. But it felt odd to witness such a stark racial separation or barrier while walking the streets.

Central Park

Jonah had his first visit to the 72nd Street Boat Basin, which made a strong impression. There were two trumpet players playing ballads and battling for attention around the basin. It was stiflingly hot so Jonah had his first fruit popsicle, which melted naturally (he doesn’t eat very fast). When the thundestorm struck we made a beeline for home.

Van Saun Park (Paramus, NJ)

My brother took us to Van Saun Park, a Bergen County park. It is one of the best parks for children I’ve ever seen with a creditable zoo (seeing a mountain lion made me realize how beautiful and frighteningly strong they are…they roam our Cascades mountains here in the NW), narrow gauge railway (my son is a great Thomas the Tank Engine fan), pony ride and carousel. A group of Indians were playing cricket on a playing field, which I’d never seen played live. All the facilities are beautifully maintained. This is a kid’s paradise.

As we prepared to leave the park, my sister in law told me that my grandparents were buried quite close by in a Paramus cemetery. I would’ve loved to visit their graves (they died in the mid-1970s) but will have to save this for another trip.

New York’s playgrounds get a big thumbs up. The ones we played in were even bigger and more extensive than the ones here at home in Seattle.

We didn’t get to the Staten Island ferry unfortunately. My son loves the water and boats or all kinds, especially ferries. Next time.

I have to add a postscript about airport travel. I owe a profound apology to Newark Airport since two years ago I had the trip from hell thanks to Newark and I panned it heavily in an airport discussion group. This trip both incoming and outgoing flight experiences were wonderful. Almost no lines, everything works, there’s plenty of food options. Seatac, on the other hand, is a zoo. I read in a travel magazine that Seatac’s communications director said that the security lines sometimes snake all the way out the parking structure!! This is inexcusable. Before 9/11, Seatac was a busy but well functioning airport. Now, it is a busy and barely functioning airport. I understand the critical need for good security, but if Neward can handle this why can’t Seatac? A recent New York Times article rated Seatac one of the worst airports for security delays. Guys, fix it.