Lady Liberty

June 22, 2018

Kathy and Jason

Kathy and Caya

Lady Liberty

It is pretty cool to see family and friends while vacationing and New York offered some good opportunities to catch up with some people that we had not seen for a while. Of course my nephew Chris spent the morning and early afternoon with us at the Guggenheim Museum and from there we caught a Uber downtown to meet up with another friend who recently relocated to New York City when he scored a gig working at the Assemblage.

Chris

Ian formerly lived in Key West, and worked each year for us at the Key West Literary Seminar, though in reality he is more a citizen of the world, leading a life of exploration and adventure that had him traveling around the world in various pursuits. He seems to have found the perfect working environment working for the Assemblage. 

Ian

We stopped by the Assemblage NoMad building on East 25^th Street to see Ian and get a tour of the amazing collaborative workspace. They provide a coworking, coliving and community space in New York City for those who believe in doing well by doing good. It is a truly innovative concept that is happening in a truly remarkable building designed as a cowork space that is complete with areas for meditation, lounges, helthy food service and bars serving non-alcoholic healthy drink alternatives.

Michael, Kathy and Ian 

Members participate in curated nightly events, including interactive workshops, dinner series, panels, musical performances, film screenings and more led by thought leaders and community members. Book event spaces and enjoy a selection of Ayurvedic food and beverage offerings. We were duly impressed and happy for Ian who seems completely content and happy in his new job.

 

After sharing lunch at the Shake Shack with Chris, we parted ways with him and headed over to Greenwich Village to Julius, the oldest continuously operating gay bar in New York City to surprise another friend who just happened to be in NYC at the same time as us, Ian’s brother Jason. Jason currently lives in New Orleans but just happened to arrive in New York that day and we were tipped off by Ian that he was hanging out in the Village.

Julius 

 

It was really cool to grab a drink with Jason, but sadly we did not have much time to hang out with him, as we had previously made plans to meet with yet more friends for dinner. Kathy’s longtime friend Jen and her husband Brendan live in Staten Island but came over on the ferry to meet us for drinks and dinner at Ulysses bar located near the downtown tip of Manhattan.

Kathy and Caya 

It was a truly fun evening hanging out with those guys and catching up, we had not seen them since Kathy’s birthday party in Marshfield a couple of years ago and we had a fun night at the combination Irish/Greek bar and restaurant. It was a nice night and still relatively early so we decided to take a round trip on the Staten Island Ferry with Jen and Brendan as they rode home.

Kathy and Jen 

Jen and Brendan 

It is the best deal in NYC, the free Staten Island Ferry which is about a 30 minute ride to Staten Island and offers an incredible view of both Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. Seeing the statue all alight for the night, gleaming across the water it is hard not to consider the current situation in our country and the destruction of our legacy and heritage of welcoming immigrants from around the world. Not to get too political, but Lady Liberty is probably hanging her head in shame at recent attitudes that many have developed towards immigrants. 

Kathy, Jen and Brendan 

After the hour long round trip on the Ferry it was back to our Times Square hotel, where we discovered that much of the area in Times Square and in front of our hotel was blocked off for the filming of the latest John Wick film, “John Wick III”. While the weather was nice out, there were a number of fire engines surrounding the area where apparently Keanu Reeves title character would be running through a very rainy Times Square.

 

All of the extras had dark umbrellas and the mood seemed very foreboding, which is in keeping with the highly stylized and dark first two films. We watched for a while though not much was really happening while we were there. We could look down on the action from our hotel room and at around 5 AM, when I was up for a bathroom break, I looked down and they were still going strong. When we went out a few hours later, there was no sign that they had even been there, which is incredible considering the massive amount of trucks and material that was on hand for the filming.

 

https://www.theassemblage.com/