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A musical walk with Gershwin, Rachmaninoff and Papageno

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Good morning. It is Friday. We’re going for a walk – something you probably shouldn’t be doing today, but reading about it can take your mind off the smoke from the Canadian wildfires. We’ll also find out when New York’s air quality will improve.

Thomas Oliemans is a newcomer who navigates New York like a native. He has delved into niches of New York history – niches that reflect his passion for George and Ira Gershwin, for Leonard Bernstein, and for other musicians.

Oliemans is a Dutch baritone who has spent the past two months in Manhattan. He came for the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Mozart’s ‘Die Zauberflöte’, which will be performed for the last time on Saturday. When he wasn’t at the Met for a rehearsal or a performance, he did what New Yorkers do: he walked. He said walking was a way to unwind after athletics at work in ‘Zauberflöte’. Lots of running and jumping and bending.

I followed him as he led me up and down the Upper West Side.

Oliemans started the trip there because the Gershwins lived there when George was working on ‘Rhapsody in Blue’. It’s a 10-story building on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue that was apparently once called the Dreadnought, perhaps not the most inspiring name for an apartment complex. Now only the address is on the tent.

Ira “apparently suggested changing the title from ‘An American Rhapsody,'” Oliemans said. “I probably heard ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ in a movie when I was 10 or 11, and we had a beautiful record.” Even the picture on the album’s cover evoked New York: “I think it was the Chrysler Building,” he said.

“When I first came here I took a picture,” said Oliemans, “and apparently someone who lived here came by and said there’s still a piano in the same apartment, probably not the Gershwins’ piano. But that’s New York. They see that you are interested in something, talk to you and share what they know and what they are curious about.”

Oliemans led the way onto Riverside Drive, just south of Duke Ellington Boulevard, and stopped in front of two mansions.

On the day the town was renamed West 106th Street for Ellington, Sonny Greer—Ellington’s longtime drummer—played hits with a combo at No. 333, where Ellington had worked.

On the day Oliemans and I passed by, the sound in the air was from birds in the trees on Riverside Drive. That was somehow appropriate: in “Zauberflöte” he plays Papageno, the bird catcher.

He said he’s been hearing birdsong from his Upper West Side apartment since his arrival in April — until the weather turned warm. Now he hears a mechanical hum. “Air conditioning everywhere,” he said. “It sums up spring in New York for me. You only hear birds when it is too cold.”

Oliemans had wondered why there wasn’t a plaque about Ellington at number 333 or next to it, at number 334, where Ellington lived for several years. At 505 West End Avenue, there was not one plaque, but two, about the composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff. He lived there from the mid-1920s until his death in 1940. In those years he wrote ‘Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini’, among other things.

Oliemans saw the building’s tent before I did – and the group of dog walkers in front of it. “All dogs love Rachmaninoff,” he said with a laugh.

We had gone there after stopping in front of 316 West 103rd Street, another Gershwin house.

When they lived there, it had a ballroom. According to the Gershwin biographer Howard Pollack, the Gershwins used it not for soirees but for table tennis. The house also had an elevator. “Morris operated the elevator,” said Oliemans, adding that a guest reportedly mistook George and Ira’s father — a man who prides himself on having a home with an elevator — for someone hired to do the job .

It was apparently a rather chaotic house. Looking for a quieter place, “Gershwin went to a Broadway hotel to compose,” said Oliemans.

The Gershwins lived there for four years. In 1929, George and Ira moved into adjoining penthouses at 33 Riverside Drive, on West 75th Street. It turned out that Rachmaninoff had lived at the same address, in a mansion that had been demolished to make way for the building the Gershwins moved into.

“This would have been the Ira side,” Oliemans said, looking up at the penthouses as we continued down the block. The one that faces east.

George had it pointed west toward New Jersey and eventually Los Angeles, where he died in 1937. It must have been a show place. One story goes that Ethel Merman, called in for an audition that led to her being cast in the Gershwin musical “Girl Crazy,” couldn’t decide if she was more excited to get the audition or to see the apartment.

Weather

On a mostly sunny day, expect a chance of showers and thunderstorms that will last through the evening. Temps around the low 70’s will drop to the high 50’s in the evening.

ALTERNATIVE SIDE PARKING

Suspended due to smoky air.

The gauge on airnow.gov stopped at just “unhealthy” yesterday — it registered 166 at 5 p.m., up from 172 an hour earlier — and the forecast was for 120 today.

It was a welcome change from the 400-plus levels and dystopian look of New York City on Wednesday, as smoke pouring in from Canadian wildfires blurred the skyline. On Thursday, the sky was clear silver gray for much of the day. It could almost have been a foggy day, except that what enveloped the ground didn’t burn down as the day progressed.

The smoke on Wednesday carried particularly dangerous pollutants, a concern for people with asthma or other respiratory conditions. Mayor Eric Adams noted on Twitter yesterday that the the air quality health advisory was extended until 11:59 PM tonight. “Please continue to limit your outdoor activities and mask yourself,” he said. And Governor Kathy Hochul sent forest rangers trained in fighting wildfires to Quebec – the first such team to be sent there in almost 20 years.

Hochul said the Adirondacks, the mountainous region in the state’s north, is the only place in New York City not affected by the smoke.

“The message is, this isn’t over yet,” she said.

Everything from schools to racetracks rewrote plans and schedules. The city’s public schools will conduct remote classes today. This mainly affects high school students; school was already scheduled to close for most children in primary and secondary schools.

Horse racing was canceled at Belmont Park and training at Belmont State and Saratoga Springs was called off. Hochul announced enhanced measures to protect horses on the state’s tracks in anticipation of Saturday’s Belmont Stakes.

But in much of New York City, the mood was lighter, even as many people continued to wear masks on the streets. Some, like a man who cleans the steps of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood, throw them off.

He said he just got tired of it: “We’re moving towards better air.”

Selvin Duffus, who works near his father’s bike shop, echoed that idea. “We’ll be fine in a few days,” he said.

METROPOLITAN Diary

Dear Diary:

17:23 Five guys were sitting separately
Without regard for attitude
Slumped in their seats
Afraid to look away
From their video games
5:30 PM
Two angry women sat together
Both had braided hair
They seemed to swear
In a dialect foreign to me
When melons escaped
Their shopping bags
5:36 pm
A woman across the aisle
Stared and called me tourist
When I asked how she knew
She said I smiled
5:38 p.m. Then she told me she was sad
But how sad she could not determine
Her chest kept getting in the way
Making it impossible to tell
If her heart was bruised or broken

— Danny Klecko

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here And read more Metropolitan Diary here.

Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. — JB

PS Here’s today’s one Mini crossword And Game match. You can find all our puzzles here.

Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.

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