Tuesday, 24 November 2015
Charleston, SC

Late again.  We are in Charleston, SC, and the blog is still in New York on Sunday!  So before reporting on our day of travel, I will return to

Sunday in New York
We have a chance to sleep in this morning, before we taxi over to Park Avenue and 53rd Street for brunch at Brasserie, a long-time staple of the East Side.  We are hosted by Will's family:  his sister Mary from Syracuse, and his nephew Scott and wife Michelle, who live in Brooklyn and West Hampton, LI.  My own arrival is delayed slightly by my discovery that I had left our matinee theatre tickets back in the hotel.  So while Will waits at the restaurant I hot-foot (by taxi) back to the hotel, up two tiers of elevators, interrupt the maid cleaning our room, find the tickets and taxi back to 53rd Street--magically appearing only five minutes late.

After a lovely brunch with post-meridian bloody Mary's, we walk through Rockefeller Center, where the tree is up but still covered with scaffolding.  A sold-out matinee performance of Fun Home, based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, provides an emotionally cathartic afternoon.  Most fortunately, the entire original cast is still performing, with the exception of the youngest character, who outgrew the part.  I have beven a keen admirer of Judy Kuhn, who plays the mother, since I first heard her on the Broadway cast album of Chess and saw her as the adult Cosette in Les Miserables. Will and I were also lucky enough to see her in a John LaChiusa musical about Vincent Van Gogh at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA, when we were living in Richmond.

After the performance we head downtown to Union Square for really excellent pizza and salad at my cousin Helen's co-op on 15th Street.  I have described her place in many previous blog entries.  We are joined for dinner by her friend Josephine, and Jo's nephew, Michael, who live across the hall.

Monday in New York
Today the weather is still bright and sunny, but it has turned very cold as we subway downtown to the World Trade Center Memorial and the 9/11 Museum.  We have advance timed-entry tickets, but we still have to wait in the cold for 15 minutes.  The line moves slowly, but once past security (just like the airlines), we are left alone to work our way through the museum.  The building stretches five levels below ground and contains artifacts from the destroyed buildings, as well as parts of the superstructure that survived the blasts of the airplanes, such as the slurry wall that held out the waters of the Hudson River and helped save thousands of lives.

The central part of the museum is a minute-by-minute chronological walk through that horrendous day.  Even after the passage of time and my second visit here, it is still a moving and often difficult experience.  I find the audio recordings from passengers on the jet to their loved ones almost impossible to listen to.  It is disconcerting (intentionally so), to return to the bright sunlight as we exit the darkness--both real and metaphorical--of the museum.  Outside are the two memorial pools with the names of victims inscribed around the sides, the completed Liberty Tower which gleams in the bright light, and the still-unfinished Calatravi-designed transportation center which soars majestically like a giant bird.

We return to the hotel in the afternoon to relax and get ready for our early morning flight to Charleston.