I'm having a great weekend! Went to the gym and had a massage yesterday, which is always welcome, and then met up with my friend Rob to wander through Central Park and the Upper West Side.
Central Park was chilly and the day was gray, but it had a kind of stark beauty: the bare trees, the steely sky. We sat on a park bench by a playground and I was absurdly reminded of the Simon & Garfunkel song "Old Friends," in which two old guys sit quietly together on a park bench. One of the lines is, "How terribly strange to be 70." At 41, I don't think I deserve a starring role in that song just yet! (And Rob's younger than I am!)
We eventually made our way to the 3 Star Coffee Shop at 86th and Columbus, an old-fashioned diner I've wanted to try. The pie was very average, but the ambience was great - a handful of vinyl-padded booths and lots of formica, and a big hand-painted mural of the acropolis on one wall.
Then I came home and watched "Barefoot in the Park," with Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, in which the delightful Mildred Natwick steals the show. Neil Simon, as usual, wrote dialogue that was a bit too clever to be real - but still, it's a fun movie. And it was great to see the footage of Washington Square Park and lower Fifth Avenue in the mid-1960s.
(Photo: 3 Star Coffee Shop, Upper West Side, Jan. 2008)
I love the picture--the people and everything--
ReplyDeleteThese old coffee shops are a great place to just hang out.
Pie has been mediocre for some years now...and Nesslerode is impossible to find--it used to be on every diner menu! It is sad about pie.
Sounds like a very New York kind of day to me!
ReplyDeleteHappy weekend!
Mildred Natwick and Charles Boyer are wonderful in that movie!
ReplyDeletenow I want to go to the 3 Star Coffee Shop!
What kind of pie did you order?
I got Blueberry a la mode, and Rob got cherry, which he said tasted like swimming-pool water!
ReplyDeletemight be safer to stick with just the 'a la mode' next time.
ReplyDeleteI am choosing to comment on Jane Fonda in Barefoot. Wasn't she delicious in that role? A few years ago I saw the revival on Broadway which was supposed to star Jessica Alba (or some Jessica) but she was out and I saw an understudy go on for the first time. After the show the cast made an announcement that this was her first Broadway performance and strange as it seems we all felt moved. That is one of the things I love about theater. It brings people together.
ReplyDeleteI saw the revival too! Amanda Peet played the Jane Fonda character, and hunky Patrick Wilson played the Redford character. It's great that you saw the understudy during her first Broadway performance!
ReplyDelete