New Yorkers who are advising guests where to stay Downtown can point to one advantage of the Financial District’s Marriott: It’s pretty cheap. Which isn’t a pot of beans, considering the gouging that defines the higher-end hotels, whether Uptown or in Tribeca or Soho. Nevertheless, after spending a couple of nights at the Marriott two weekends ago, I can report that the lodgings are best for those who don’t mind roughing it. With much of very-lower Manhattan resembling an almost surreal gulag of construction, it was a very gloomy setting, even while taking a stroll at dawn—a relatively quiet time that’s usually uplifting.
I don’t mean to carp too much. After all, it was my decision to camp at the West St. Marriott rather than the Peninsula or Four Seasons, but you’d think the management might notice the room windows caked so heavily with grime that, even on a sunny day, it seemed like East Berlin (circa 1975) in December. And is it too much to ask that your quarters are cleaned before dusk? At rush hour in the hotel—after 8 a.m. until about seven in the evening—the elevators were a joke, so jam-packed with tour groups that, if in an affable mood, you could get the life story of anyone waiting for a ride upstairs.
On the night of April 20, while my wife was visiting a longtime friend in Brooklyn, the boys and I were looking forward to watching the Yanks-Sox game in our 22nd floor temporary home, despite the certainty of barely edible room service (which, in fairness, is hardly unique; that onetime, 24-hour “luxury” has gone the way of airline civility). However, because the game was on ESPN and blacked out in the city, and the Marriott has a limited television selection, which doesn’t include YES, those plans were largely scuttled.
That suited my older son fine, as he was inexplicably fixated on CNN’s continuing exploitive coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings—the only saving grace was that middle-class wage slave Lou Dobbs didn’t have time to rant about illegal immigrants—and then happily gabbed with his older cousin, Quinn, about colleges, the disappointment of Grindhouse and the club scene in London. But for Booker and me, it was a real irritation. We did find out, after much inquiry, that YES was shown in the nearly empty lobby bar/café, and so we headed down there to watch the game.
Still, it’s not the ideal location for a 12-year-old, especially since we were nursing Cokes to keep our seats. So after A-Rod’s second homer off Curt Schilling, we called it a night. After Booker was asleep, I did go back downstairs for an outside smoke and happened to catch the Sox knocking off the Great Rivera in the eighth inning, an event so crackling (even in April) and unexpected that, for the first time that day, I slipped out of crank mode, anticipating the next day’s daily papers.
I wonder how long the Union Square Virgin entertainment center will stay in business. When the boys and I entered the once-bustling store at about noon on April 21, we were stunned to see that nearly half the first floor was given over to bins of CDs for discount prices, a sub-par vinyl section downstairs and an atmosphere that was verging on funereal, not dissimilar to the last days of Tower Records. Not all was lost, however, since a block down Broadway, Forbidden Planet was as reliable as ever for the latest manga titles, and the boys still go nuts over the street dogs at the cart outside of Virgin. Beats me, since I’ve never liked a boiled frank, much less one with just ketchup, but then they can’t understand how I can possibly eat sauerkraut.
The real highlight of this walking excursion, at least for Nicky, was a trip to Hospital Productions, the tiny temple of noise music that’s in the basement of Jammyland on E. 3rd Street. We were in a bit of a time crunch, so his browsing was rushed, but nonetheless we managed to talk with the very accommodating proprietors about Wolf Eyes, Lightning Bolt, Uncle Jim and a slew of other bands I’ve never heard of. It reminded me of the ramshackle East Village record stores in the late ’60s and early ’70s, where a serious collector could buy bootlegs as long as the clerk didn’t sniff out the smell of “fuzz” about you, although when I pointed this out to the guys at Hospital Productions, the mere mention of The Great White Wonder instantly branded me as an old-timer whose main redeeming feature was a teenager who could speak their language.
Now, on the subject of Bob Dylan, I had the opportunity to read Rolling Stone’s first of three 40th anniversary issues while at the Marriott (when you’re up with the crows there’s not much else to do). It was actually a darn good read, filled with graybeard interviewees, most—like Bob Weir, Jimmy Carter, Ringo and Patti Smith—bemoaning current events, but Dylan’s stood out. Jann Wenner was clearly frustrated, trying to goad Dylan into a vicious tirade against Bush and the supposedly diminished Constitution and receiving zero cooperation.
The following exchanges are hilarious, with Dylan refusing to be pinned down by the magazine’s founder:
Wenner: “You’re a student of history. If you were to take the current moment and put it in a historical context, where do you think we are?”
Dylan: “That would be hard to do, unless you put yourself 10 years into the future. It’s not the nature of a song to imply what’s going on under any current philosophy…”
Wenner: “Do you think it’s gloomy on the horizon?”
Dylan: “In what sense do you mean?”
Wenner: “Bob, come on.”
Dylan: “No, you come on. In what sense do you mean that?”
Wenner: “We seem to be hell-bent on destruction [in the United States]. Do you worry about global warming?”
Dylan: “Where’s the global warming? It’s freezing here … I think what you’re driving at, though, is we expect politicians to solve all our problems. I don’t expect politicians to solve anybody’s problems.”
It’s the first time in probably two decades I can recommend buying Rolling Stone, for this particular issue has content worth reading—even if you’re not stuck in a Marriott hotel.
