New York journal: 440 W. 34th Street

How many times have I prowled the precincts around 34th Street, home of course to the train station I used all throughout childhood? Similarly, how many times have I told the story my mother tells of buying her meat at Macy's when she and my father lived in their newlywed apartment?

And yet only today did I try to find their apartment, after securing the address from my 83-year-old mother (when I said, 'You probably don't remember your old address in New York,' she replied in Prime Pat mode, 'Of course I do!' And she did).

I think I found the building -- a red-brick affair that doesn't appear to be a building that went up anytime soon so surely it was standing in 1966, the year they married.

Around the building some rather tall skyscrapers have sprouted up, making it possibly, in my mother's words "a high-rent district." (A phrase that unfortunately may disappear after her generation of New Yorkers leave us).

She'd mentioned their church (St. Michael's), which is on the same block, so I stopped in to say a prayer -- not only for her, mind you, but for myself. Lucky as I am to have a mother like her, I asked for strength that I can help her during the last stage of her life.

I took pictures of the building, I took pictures of the streetscape, I noted an overpass she'd mentioned. If you step out of the building and into the street, you have a straight-shot view of the Empire State Building. Wow!

Then crossing back over 9th Avenue, I stopped for a ciambellina (it is the name of the blog, after all) at an Italian bakery, then sat by the origami sculptures south of Times Square to enjoy it. And to savor the world whirling around me, and within me.

A walk through New York is an exercise in saturation. If I could attach a notepad and pen to my hands and write while simultaneously craning my neck to take it all in -- well, that would be perfect (maybe also add a camera on my head, kind of like the one perched on top of the Google Earth car).

And a walk through my parents' New York overwhelms me with such curiosity and tenderness. To love what they loved is so rich as to be intoxicating.

So, of course, I enjoyed every minute of my journey to New York by train. I took the new Hartford Line to New Haven where I caught a Metro North train to NYC. ("If you can make it there..." I thought as I jotted down notes).

No one can ever convince me that train travel is anything less than spectacular! As I mentioned in my last post on visiting New York, you eavesdrop on people's lives as the train winds its way past backyards. The laundry you put out on the line to dry? I saw it!

Indeed, from the train, I saw my newly (re-) adopted state in a new way, as I gazed out of the windows. For example, at one point the tracks bisected a small lake in the middle of Connecticut.

I believe if we truly want to know our surroundings, we need to see things from a vantage point other than our cars. Each station gave me a glimpse into a new town, especially on Metro North. In Meriden, the town green looked welcoming. In Westport, I spied coffee shops I'd like to visit. In South Norwalk, I wouldn't mind stopping to look at furniture at Safavieh, which even has an outdoor patio.

I won't dress up the time spent: I arrived the train station in Hartford at 7:45a and didn't make it to New York until 11:45a. But oh what I did between those two times!

I am in New York this week for part two of a short fellowship at the New York Public Library focused on translation, and to prepare, I read my newest copy of Airone. I had packed the monthly mag as a treat for the train ride and it didn't disappoint. Even with the features that don't reflect Italian life, per se, I learn something about what interests the average Italian. Or I simply learn about a topic that's new to me, like the profile of French photographer Robert Doisneau, whom many Americans know as the artist behind the seminal black and white photo of a couple kissing on a Parisian street. Doisneau, according to Airone, considered photography "un bisogno privato" (literally "a private need") and "un insopprimabile desiderio di registrare" (translation: an indomitable desire to record what he saw).

The train horn for me was a symphony, a lullaby, a voice beckoning me home.

And just as we were crossing over into New York, I saw the Circle Line making its rounds!

As you may know, it's a helluva town -- the Bronx is up, but the Battery's down.

-30-