June 28, 2007--The Taste of Money
They used to say that travel is broadening. And they weren’t referring just to the size of one’s waistline. Primarily they meant that by encountering different cultures one’s geographic and intellectual horizons would broaden.
All true. But one thing less commented upon is how returning home can also be broadening.
If the traveler can resist being sucked too quickly back into the world of everyday habits and responsibilities, he or she might for a brief moment be able to look at the familiar with an also altered perspective. This time, a version of that happened to me.
My first new impressions involved noticing the continuing churn downtown of new businesses filling empty stores and vacant commercial spaces. For some time there has been comment about the malling of Lower Broadway. In Soho there are mega-sized Pottery Barns, Crate and Barrels and Banana Republics. But seemingly resisting this transformation has been a number of idiosyncratic small business and eating places. My favorite held out until about a year ago—Buffa’s on the corner of Lafayette and Prince. Located there since 1947 it was a quirky, family-run luncheonette that was open for just breakfast and lunch. It served good, cheap food.
While perched at the counter with my usual egg-salad on white toast, I tried to figure out the family arrangements of the staff. Always ensconced at a table off to the right were two 90 year-old women who appeared to be the widows of the owners. Presiding at the cash register was a sixty year-old man who I imagined to be one of their sons. He was famous for grumbling if you failed to pay with exact change. Somehow it felt that if he had to make change it was for him the same as having to give you some of his own money.
But Buffa’s is gone, soon to be replaced, it is rumored, by a café partly owned by an NBA basketball player. One can only imagine what it will be like and the all-night crowds it will attract.
In addition to the demise of Buffa’s, returning from travel this time I noticed a proliferation of new banks and drug stores—both somehow reflecting the changing demographics of the area. The Duane Reades for the aging left-behind residents (their fixed incomes are not enough to enable them to gravitate south) and the banks for all the 20- and 30-somethings who have been gobbling up the new apartments and lofts that are filling every available parking lot. Actually, in many cases their parents are doing the gobbling-up, buying places for their children to live while they finish college, get started on Wall Street, or try to make it in the theater.
Reflecting this homogenization as well are the changes in demographics at my up-to-now favorite place to have morning coffee—Balthazar. Each week there are fewer and fewer artists there (how many any longer can afford the living costs) and other neighborhood locals. Their tables are being taken over by the very same people who are moving into all the new $3 to $8 million lofts on Mercer and Bond Streets. And more and more are accompanied by young children. Though I am very fond of children, this is more evidence of the suburbanization of downtown.
With my evanescing fresh perspective, yesterday morning, while smiling at one of the cute two-year olds in Balth, I noticed that she was holding and fondling something that appeared to be a small piece of fabric. This was in itself not so unusual since so many children clutch security blankets when they are out and about.
But a closer look revealed it was not that at all. Rather it was a dollar bill that she was holding and using to gently stroke her face.
Stunned and thus roused from my usual reticence, I stammered to the mother, “Is that money she’s holding?”
Nonplussed she relied, “I always give her a dollar to hold. She’s very careful with it. She never tears it.”
I did though notice that she was sucking on one corner. But it still looked good enough to shop with.
All true. But one thing less commented upon is how returning home can also be broadening.
If the traveler can resist being sucked too quickly back into the world of everyday habits and responsibilities, he or she might for a brief moment be able to look at the familiar with an also altered perspective. This time, a version of that happened to me.
My first new impressions involved noticing the continuing churn downtown of new businesses filling empty stores and vacant commercial spaces. For some time there has been comment about the malling of Lower Broadway. In Soho there are mega-sized Pottery Barns, Crate and Barrels and Banana Republics. But seemingly resisting this transformation has been a number of idiosyncratic small business and eating places. My favorite held out until about a year ago—Buffa’s on the corner of Lafayette and Prince. Located there since 1947 it was a quirky, family-run luncheonette that was open for just breakfast and lunch. It served good, cheap food.
While perched at the counter with my usual egg-salad on white toast, I tried to figure out the family arrangements of the staff. Always ensconced at a table off to the right were two 90 year-old women who appeared to be the widows of the owners. Presiding at the cash register was a sixty year-old man who I imagined to be one of their sons. He was famous for grumbling if you failed to pay with exact change. Somehow it felt that if he had to make change it was for him the same as having to give you some of his own money.
But Buffa’s is gone, soon to be replaced, it is rumored, by a café partly owned by an NBA basketball player. One can only imagine what it will be like and the all-night crowds it will attract.
In addition to the demise of Buffa’s, returning from travel this time I noticed a proliferation of new banks and drug stores—both somehow reflecting the changing demographics of the area. The Duane Reades for the aging left-behind residents (their fixed incomes are not enough to enable them to gravitate south) and the banks for all the 20- and 30-somethings who have been gobbling up the new apartments and lofts that are filling every available parking lot. Actually, in many cases their parents are doing the gobbling-up, buying places for their children to live while they finish college, get started on Wall Street, or try to make it in the theater.
Reflecting this homogenization as well are the changes in demographics at my up-to-now favorite place to have morning coffee—Balthazar. Each week there are fewer and fewer artists there (how many any longer can afford the living costs) and other neighborhood locals. Their tables are being taken over by the very same people who are moving into all the new $3 to $8 million lofts on Mercer and Bond Streets. And more and more are accompanied by young children. Though I am very fond of children, this is more evidence of the suburbanization of downtown.
With my evanescing fresh perspective, yesterday morning, while smiling at one of the cute two-year olds in Balth, I noticed that she was holding and fondling something that appeared to be a small piece of fabric. This was in itself not so unusual since so many children clutch security blankets when they are out and about.
But a closer look revealed it was not that at all. Rather it was a dollar bill that she was holding and using to gently stroke her face.
Stunned and thus roused from my usual reticence, I stammered to the mother, “Is that money she’s holding?”
Nonplussed she relied, “I always give her a dollar to hold. She’s very careful with it. She never tears it.”
I did though notice that she was sucking on one corner. But it still looked good enough to shop with.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
10:21 AM
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