New York is a difficult city to grasp. I think I understand the few blocks around our hotel, where to eat, how to get to the subway, where I can go to enjoy the parks. But taking the subway you lose your senses. Underground is a lot like in the air, your direction is gone; you know you’re moving, you have a sense of what direction your intended travel is in, but when you emerge it is a whole new world. I know the buildings are different, I know I am several miles from where I started, but the destination all seems vaguely similar to where I began. I have to learn to walk again, there is a flow to the pedestrian traffic, avoiding the real danger of the actual traffic. Getting yelled at by cabbies and traffic cops is a sure way to point out to everyone “Hey! I’m a tourist!”

The first tour today was through the Lower East Side and the ever changing community that ebbs and flows around the different neighborhoods of Manhattan. What was once a low end tenement neighborhood is quickly becoming the upscale high rent “it” place to live. Much like the migration of China Town, the community of only a few blocks is in constant flux. The Tenement Museum: not the best way to have to live. Some of the “rooms” that people lived in are smaller than my closet at home. It makes me grateful for both the space and luxury I am able to afford today. To see the deplorable conditions through which these people to the new world suffered puts much into perspective. But their hard work and determination kept them progressing and creating a successful community.

From the Tenement Museum we were blasting off to the Eldridge Street Synagogue, one of the first eastern European Synagogues in the United States. Built as an essential cornerstone of the community the Synagogue was a place for new world Jews to find solidarity among a strange new world. Even today as China Town expands and envelops the Synagogue, they embrace the changing community and work toward creating a relationship among everyone.

Back underground for a few minutes back at the hotel, change into something nice (it’s been a while since I’ve worn a tie) and back down to Times Square for Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie at the Roundabout Theatre. Not exactly what I had expected from a Broadway Play, but none-the-less a highly honed display of theatre that shows the quality and design of Broadway professionals. Another late night, back to the hotel for some dinner; Sunshine Deli where you can get pretty much anything you’d like any time of the day. I had pancakes and Kirsten had a gyro; the perfect late night NYC combo.