Your grandfather is electrified. I've arrived in Manhattan and am immediately invigorated. This is without any shadow of a doubt the most fantastic city on earth.
I adore this place so much that, if I could, I would wrap my arms around it and hug it so tightly. I could not possibly overstate my complete adoration for my beloved New York.
It's a warm evening and the streets are buzzing with people. I'm staying at the Doubletree Hotel on Lexington Avenuen which was formerly the Metropole Hotel. It was on the sidewalk (or pavement depending on which language you speak) outside of this establishment the Marilyn Monroe, the iconic actress who committed suicide in the sixties, posed for that famous photo with the wind blowing from the subway vent to raise her dress, while she kind of helplessly tries to stop it showing too much of her thighs.
As I left the hotel in pursuit of a nearby restaurant on East 51st street, I walked through a throng of amazingly dressed young people. I couldn't help noticing some very sexy girls in the crowd. There were TV cameras and lights everywhere.
"Fashion Week, it's fashion week" yelled a beautiful black young man wearing a tight black suit and trilby hat. He could see by my look that I wondered what was going on, and he wanted me to know. I turned to him and asked why the cameras weren't zooming onto me. I am wearing a rather traditonal pair of dark grey trousers (or pants, depending on which side of the Atlantic you were born) and a white shirt with blue stripes. I had taken off my tie and jacket before leaving the hotel.
In spite of being the antithesis of fashionable, this wonderful young man said that your grandfather looked "stellar". I expressed my admiration for his hat as I walked off, now with a real bounce in my step.
I'm now sitting at an outside table at Dos Campinos, a Chilean restaurant just three blocks from your father's first home at 212 East 47th street,I'm sipping a glass of Argentinian malbec with a delicious dish of seabass in front of me. The place is crowded, mostly with people half my age. But what the heck, the young man with the trilby said I look stellar. Alas, I don't seem to be attracting the attention of any young women here. I'm especially dissapointed that I appear invisible to the blonde at the next table with tight white jeans.
I'll have to contend with this beautiful seabass. I can't complain. After all, I'm in my beloved New York.
Grandpa Jonathan
New York, New York
