Round and round and round we go...

So finally tomorrow I will get to go home, just in time for vestry. Meanwhile, I will have been out to California, back to New York City, zipped off to Indianapolis and finally by way of Philly will get back to Vermont.

This little missive is being posted from the hotel lobby... a place where, should I be re-elected as deputy, I may be occupying in 2012 during General Convention!

My brain has been challenged by the past three days of intense meetings on disparate matters — the final Anglican Covenant and what TEC's response might be to it and today, working with a stellar and impressive team of five preparing for a CREDO-Church Pension Group-sponsored program, Strength for the Journey, being offered for the clergy and lay leaders of the Eglise Episcopale d'Haiti. We will meet in Santo Domingo for the simple reason that there is no place in Haiti that can handle the group and because we want them to go to a place where they won't fear the buildings will come down on them and there is running water, electricity and less chaos.

Meanwhile, assorted photos of the past several days...


Remember Trans World Airlines, aka, Toughest Way Across? Their terminal at JFK, NYC was award-winning but hopelessly antiquated as the security measures kicked in -- the pods were never designed to be blocked off; hence, there were no places to sit or eat because they were in the open main part (that you see). The original building was lovely in its own right — we took my sister there in the 1960s for her to fly off to Spain. But by the late 1980s, 1988 to be exact when I flew to Spain, the place was cramped and dingy. When Jet Blue put up their new terminal, rather than tear the TWA building down, they simply surrounded it. One sees the old building as one walks from the main Jet Blue terminal to the Air Train (finally!!!! Yes, there is public transportation from downtown Manhattan to JFK).

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The old stomping grounds in NYC, the General Theological Seminary, have also changed greatly. The old front building, which was falling apart, was torn down in 2008, and a new condo building built in its place. If you have $2.5M you can buy a two-BR condo that looks over the Close. I think the penthouse apartment is $4M. Seminarians can no longer enter from Ninth Avenue; they must walk halfway down 21st Street to get in a side gate. This is a huge change to the 'hood (and the seminary took a lot of flack from the Chelsea Preservation folks).


The back end of the Close, on Tenth Avenue, is a lot spiffier than in my days. It used to be that the faculty parking garage was off Tenth — a dismal affair. The dorm, Eigenbrodt on the left and faculty apartments on the right, looked over a somewhat decayed neighbourhood. Chelsea has gentrified and Eigenbrodt is now a fancy hotel, called the Tutu Center. (It also serves as a meeting place.)


The old rail tracks on an elevated line have been converted into the Highline and it is a very pleasant walk. From it, one sees the seminary and the Empire State Building. This past Sunday was a gorgeous night and walking up there was a polyglot experience.


From above ground tracks, one descends down into the subway, a noisy but eminently practical means of transportation. This photo is from my old station, 23rd on Eighth.


Times Square is a lot better than it used to be though it is just as crowded. To get to Grand Central Station from Eighth, one has to wander up and down long corridors until one arrives at the Shuttle that runs between 42nd Street and Grand Central.


And then one arrives at Grand Central (GCT), spared by the 1960s wrecking ball that took down Penn Station. When GCT was restored a decade or so ago, they uncovered the constellations on the ceiling of the main room. I love this station for its size (it also is the main headquarters in Planet of the Apes). It is hard to believe that my father went in and out of this place twice a day for nearly thirty years.


The white onyx clock is the largest onyx clock in the world (that is, the faces are the largest), if I remember correctly. It is worth a pretty penny.


Little did we realise that four out of the six people on the D020 Task Force are Mac users. It was a mini Mac-convention on the third floor of 815.

Here endeth your mini-tour of NYC.