Tenement Museum June 8, 2004 ~ 11:06 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedI spent this afternoon in a tenement on the Lower East Side. In 85 degree weather, 90% humidity, I learned a new respect for the immigrants who lived in those rooms. Railroad flats, with windows only in the front room. Those who came later got windows between the rooms to bring the light into all the rooms, but people living there before 1900 didn’t have that luxury. They lived in what for all intents and purposes, a cave. Hotter than hell, blacker than a pit, they raised families and worked to get ahead. Sometimes those three room apartments held 10 people. The back apartments didn’t have fire escapes. And even after indoor plumbing was introduced, it was only one toilet for every two apartments. But they made those places home. I was amazed.
The Lower East Side Tenement Museum has a website, if you’re interested. And if you come to NYC, I’d say go. This was one of the most fun afternoons I’ve had in a long time, despite the heat and humidity. And to commemorate it, and celebrate that I sometimes work on the Bowery with a theatre company, I bought this shirt:
Softball game June 8, 2004 ~ 1:48 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedWell, I sat through a doubleheader today. It wasn’t so bad, actually, aside from the crazy homeless man who sat about five feet away from me on the bench and gave a running commentary on…well, I’m still not quite sure what he was talking about. And the bugs sucked, too. But other than that, it was good.
Can anybody tell me why, if you put a field full of grown men out on a ballfield together, they immediately regress and their collective age drops to 14, tops? Just curious. Women don’t have this problem. Then again, we don’t feel the need to slap each other on the ass for a good play, either. And you can be very sure that I am not coming up with bizarre little nicknames for everyone who comes up to the plate if I’m playing softball. That being said, I let Rick hang with the boys after the game, and went and read a book in the sunshine while they sat around watching the next 8 million games. Or so it seemed. But I did get a couple of good shots of my boy while he was third base coach (he’s the team catcher, so every pic I got of him doing that is through fencing and thus interesting only to me. 
The second one I took because I thought some of you non-New Yorkers might get a kick out of it. Even in the heart of our “backyard”, Central Park, you cannot forget you are in Manhattan!
And on a side note, I’m up late watching X-Files, an episode I had only heard of until now, “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’”. The reason I mention this is that “Jose Chung” is being played by Charles Nelson Reilly, who was one of Rick’s acting teachers. Add to that the fact that A. Rod shot a commercial at the next field over from Rick’s this afternoon, and that Richard Schiff (he plays Toby Ziegler on West Wing had some time in his schedule and played softball with Rick’s team today (he’s actually on the team, since it’s an actor’s league, but he hardly ever has time to play), and join me in a round of “It’s a Small World, After All,” won’t you?
