“My husband and I went to breakfast at a diner on Broadway.”
Dining on Broadway
Dear Diary:
My husband and I went to a restaurant on Broadway for breakfast. Work was being done in our apartment, and the place was largely uninhabitable. We were grumpy and hungry.
It was quiet in the restaurant. We sat down in a booth, ordered coffee and started to relax.
A man sitting a few booths away was on the phone. It seemed like some kind of business call. He got louder and louder and I made a gesture suggesting he turn the volume down.
He responded by loudly telling the person he was talking to what he was looking at and then yelling at me to move if I wasn't happy.
I shouted back for him to move.
When he finished calling, I looked at him. He looked like a nice man. I started to have some regrets.
He walked past our table on the way out. I apologized, and he apologized too. He said he was born and raised in the Bronx and that he got loud and excited when he was on the phone.
We chuckled, shook hands and left it at that.
When my husband and I finished eating, we asked for the check.
The man with the loud voice had already paid, the waiter said.
–Nancy Greene
Like-minded people
Dear Diary:
I sat on the subway and stood at the doors as I waited to get off the train.
I saw a man sitting next to me reading a newspaper.
I held up my magazine.
“No screen needed,” I said.
“And no WiFi either,” he replied.
–Jay L. Sachs
Coq Au Vin
Dear Diary:
When I graduated from The New School in the mid-1970s, I worked as a 9-to-5 typist to support myself. Dinner was usually something quick and cheap between work and class.
One morning before work, I decided to try a recipe for coq au vin that came with a slow cooker my parents had given me, hoping to cook myself a decent dinner every now and then.
As I added the chicken and vegetables to the pan, I realized I had no fin. Oh oh.
There was a liquor store around the corner, but I didn't know how early it opened.
I ran downstairs and turned the corner onto Second Avenue.
“Back in five minutes,” said a note on the door.
I paced anxiously in front of the store as I waited for it to open. I was staring at the sidewalk when a cute little dog came up to me and started sniffing my leg.
As I ran my eyes along the belt, I was surprised to see the grinning face of actress Peggy Cass.
“They're never there when you need them!” she said.
– Mari Marks
Pan Am Building
Dear Diary:
A taxi picked me up near Bryant Park on one of my last days in the city. As we turned onto Park Avenue, I had a sense of déjà vu.
“Is there a building around here you can drive through?” I asked the taxi driver.
“Yes!” he said. “Right behind us.”
“Maybe called the Pan Am Building?”
“It's MetLife now,” he said.
I told him that when I was a girl, my father would ask taxi drivers to drive through the building when we were in the area. After my parents' divorce, I explained, I visited my father in Manhattan on weekends and he was always looking for ways to entertain me.
“Do you want to go through it?” the taxi driver asked.
“How long will it take?”
“Two minutes!”
He made a U-turn and drove into the building with the golden clock on the facade. The ride thrilled me no less than when I was 8 years old, 56 years earlier.
“You made my day,” I said as he dropped me off on the Upper West Side. “How long does it take to get to JFK on Sunday, anyway?”
“I work on Sunday!” he said. “You need a ride, here's my number.”
– Gigi Rosenberg
A little help
Dear Diary:
I was walking on crutches and wearing a moon boot on the Upper East Side when someone burst out of a supermarket and knocked me off balance.
I grabbed the crutches and leaned against a wall to catch my breath when a woman approached me.
“Let me help,” she said.
She put her hand behind my neck.
“Your tag was sticking out,” she explained before walking away.
– Brian Ganson