Nostalgic for Nostalgia?

Is there such a thing as nostalgia for nostalgia itself? I might’ve invented it. The Times City Section, (which closed in 2009) seemed to exist for the sole purpose of making me nostalgic about some old bar that was closing that I’ve never been to.

This week New York magazine has a special issue devoted to New York City childhoods. Heaven! Other people’s nostalgia! It’s put together like an oral history, a collection of brief essays by famous people who grew up in New York City, with accompanying photographs. They’re politicians, musicians, artists, fashion designers, actors, directors, and of course writers. I wish there were 100 more pages; it’s utterly mesmerizing.

Some contributors look back on sepia-toned days of stickball in the street and nickel egg creams; others remember daily muggings for lunch money; others of first trips to the Met or Yankee Stadium. There’s either overt or underlying nostalgia in every piece, though. One of my favorite discoveries – my eyebrows lifted, my mouth fell open a little -- was that Fab 5 Freddy and E.L. Doctorow, artists seemingly from different worlds -- cite some of the same street games from their Bronx childhoods, two decades apart.

My parents were New Yorkers, born and raised, children of immigrants, but my own New York City childhood only lasted about 7 years. My memories are mostly fragments, anecdotes, sketches. My sensations about that time are less nostalgia, though, and more pride of birthplace, I think, pride of provenance.

My first home ever was the Chelsea Hotel, ok? There are few origins to be found cooler than that. This was well before "those lowlifes Sid and Nancy" practically burned the place down, my mother is quick to remind me. And we lived on a high floor, it’s apparently important to note. And they (who’s “they”?) built me my own little treehouse (“treehouse”?) in the apartment, which served as my bedroom. We lived for a bit on Sutton Place, with a cook named Mrs. Higgins, I’ve been told. Most spectacularly, perhaps, we lived in a duplex in an architecturally notable Beaux Arts building in the west 60s, half a block from Central Park, and next door to the late Café des Artistes. The Café’s former owner, George Lang – “that Hungarian goniff” – bought it from my parents for a stunningly small sum. And for the last stretch of my New York City childhood, we once again lived in a hotel, this time the Mayflower Hotel.  Call me Eloise. I don’t know if we were there for for 2 weeks or 2 months. It was our temporary home, after leaving the place on 67^th street, and before moving out of the city. My 4-year-old brother cut his temple there on a corner of a glass-topped coffee table, and a doctor made a house call to stitch him up while I hid in the bedroom to avoid his screams. That hotel had a stern-looking, large, brown-skinned man named Mr. Hakim who was the manager. My father used his name as a threat to bring my brother into line: “I’m going to call Mr. Hakim.” It usually worked.

One time my parents took me to the Four Seasons for dinner, I’ve heard. As I was only about 2, the staff assumed it must be a special occasion, and they brought out a birthday cake with a flourish. Our family went on several occasions to the old Brasserie, where I always ordered the escargot, and swatted my dad’s hand away, as he reached to dunk bread in the left-over garlic butter. Such under-funded privilege! Call me Eloise.

As the grandchild of immigrants on both sides, there were more modest pursuits as well. My Irish immigrant grandmother, Maisie, rode the bus down from West 97^th street and took my brother and me to Central Park for hours. We had “orange drink,” and sometimes shared my grandmother’s sweet, milky coffee. We hung around the sheep meadow alongside dancing hippies and banjo-jiggling hare-krishnas.

My parents took us to Borough Park for Seder with my Jewish immigrant grandparents. Edna Nanny made outstanding matzoh ball soup, stuffed cabbage, and honey cake. With her heavy Yiddish-Romanian accent, she seemed far more foreign to me than Maisie Nanny, and though very sweet and loving, she frightened me a little.

I once had a colleague who, as he and his family were planning a move back to his hometown in California, lamented with regret: “I always thought my kids would grow up in Brooklyn.” My husband, who grew up outside Boston, admits to envying our children’s New York City childhoods. They’re cooler than him by birthright, and he’s cool with that.

Shortly before I turned 7, in June 1972, this particular idyll came to an end; we moved to East Hampton, LI, and to an entirely different childhood, a different idyll, by the way. That’s another sentimental journey. Right now we’re bragging on our New York City childhoods a little bit.