9.1.10: Last days of summer vacation

Last days of summer vacation

2:45 pm. Photo: JH.

September 1, 2010. Last days of summer vacation with Manhattan heating up like a radiator. The weatherman is telling us the Hurricane Earl out in the Atlantic will break the heatwave this weekend when it races by on its way to the coast of Canada. Meanwhile it was in the mid-80s at this midnight just passed.

New York is feeling it. Last night when I went out to the corner at 7:30 to get a cab to take me to Swifty’s the road was empty of any cars looking both north and south. I waited about ten minutes for a cab to come along.

Swifty’s, however, was the weekday oasis that it is in summer months, and very busy. I went veggie: beefsteak tomatoes from New Jersey, a beet salad with feta cheese, two ears of corn on the cob and a glass of Pinot Grigio. At a corner table nearby was actress Phyllis Newman and Alexandra Schlesinger. As they were departing Ms. Newman told me she got a big response from our NYSD item about what she calls her “blog-ography” now online (www.phyllisnewman.com) which we wrote about at the end of July. The first time I looked at her site there was a photo of her Central Park West terrace which she shares with Seinfeld on one side and Glenn Close on the other. I’ll re-run it just for the pleasure of this fabulous New York view although I’m sure it’s empty of sun worshippers in this weather. Seinfeld’s probably out in East Hampton and as of this past Sunday Ms. Close was at the Emmys in LA.

Phyllis Newman's Central Park West terrace.

It’s no-news time this week in New York, so we decided to run something from this time ten years ago which JH found in our archive. I had been on trip to the Mediterranean, a guest of friends on a wonderful yacht called The Big Eagle. In this dispatch we’d just come from Capri and Naples and had arrived in Rome. It was my first time in the Eternal City, and it was spectacular of course. The weather was warm although nothing compared to what we’re feeling in the Big Apple right now. We put up at the Hassler on the top of the Spanish Steps and on our first full day there we were taken on a tour of remarkable city of ancient and modern civilization.

July 24, 2001: The Last Night of the Trip/The Glorious Moment at the Top of the Spanish Steps

The last night of our cruise we were anchored in Capri, where the following day two of the passengers disembarked for an extended stay at the Scalinatella. The rest of us were transported over to Naples (about a hour and a half) where we were met by a van to take us up to Rome.


The crew of the Big Eagle + 1.

On our last night in Capri, the captain, Ed Featherstone and his first mate Christiana joined us for dinner on the upper deck. It was a beautiful warm night. In the bay were two other large yachts — the Renegade, and Kisses — both bedecked with strings of white lights as if there were parties going on.

A few hundred yards away was the shoreline dotted with white lights running up the hillside. And in the distance, on the top of the steep cliffs, more lights from villas and hotels in the town. It was a magical, romantic sight.

The Big Eagle, the yacht we were cruising on, comes over from Miami every springtime. At dinner we were questioning Captain Ed (as everyone addressed him) and Christiana about the crossings of the Atlantic in springtime. "Did they ever run into difficult weather?" "Not really." Because nowadays, the technology is so sophisticated that they can track the weather and avoid the storms.

The Big Eagle outside Bonnifacio.

However, Captain Ed did recount the time when, as the ship was reaching Gibraltar, a violent storm came up with waves that were twenty and thirty feet high, and they were seeing "green" crashing over the bow, with white foam washing up against the windshield of the captain's deck.

I asked the captain if he were scared at that moment. "No," was his answer. For as long as they rode with the storm, they were safe. "Had the engines conked out, it would have been a different story," he added. For then, they would have been "at the mercy of the sea."


	Anchored in the port of Napoli.

Just two weeks before this shipboard dinner, I'd seen a documentary on the Discovery Channel (or maybe it was PBS) about the storm in the Atlantic in 1993 that caused floods and blizzards and death and destruction over a 2,000 mile area (the length of the Atlantic seaboard).

The final segment was about a container ship that had departed New Brunswick, Canada at the tail end of the storm and ran into trouble with the raging sea.

The ship's calls for assistance were met by a search plane marking the ships exact location (and video-ing it). The ship had begun to take on water from the forty- and fifty-foot waves battering it. The rescue helicopters were unable to fly in because of the violent weather.

Finally, as witnessed by the video, the huge ship began to sink. Then it began to turn over and capsize.

And then (all recorded on black-and-white videotape), very suddenly, the stern submerged with the bow pointing skyward and ... swooosh ... it disappeared from the screen.

Hearing Captain Ed's remark at dinner about the danger of losing the motor, I was reminded of that horrifying scene with the container ship in the north Atlantic in 1993.

The Hotel Hassler.

The fountain by Bernini the elder, at the foot of the Spanish Steps.

We all turned in by eleven that night. There was a very gentle rocking of the boat by the restless sea, almost lulling, as we went to sleep. Then about two I was awakened by sharper rocking movements and what sounded like banging on and scraping of the hull. I got up and looked through the porthole -- nothing to see as the water was beginning to slap up against. Occasionally I caught a glimpse in the distant darkness of the lights of the other two ships, both rocking like ducks in choppy waters.

Then there were more scrapes. And heavier banging. The imagination was taking over. Were we being invaded? Was some unseen enemy pounding on the hull in order to sink us in this increasingly rough sea?

Looking up from the bottom of the Spanish Steps.

From atop the Spanish Steps, looking down towards the fountain by Bernini the elder. 7:00 AM.

Then I heard the ship's engines starting up. And then the clicking/massive rattling /scraping sound of the anchor being lifted. Then I could feel the ship starting to move. Why were we moving? Two of the passengers were disembarking in the mid-morning hours at that very spot. Where were we going?

I decided to go up on deck so that I could get a better look at the state of the water. I was surprised that no one else had been awakened by the natural commotion. In the main saloon, where the lights were on, lamps, sculptures, and glass tops had been removed from their shelves and tables and placed on the carpet. One of the hands on board, a young Australian woman named Tanya, appeared, and told me that three others were up with Captain Ed.

Up in the captain's nest were the captain, his first mate, and three other passengers, all in their white terrycloth (ship's) bathrobes, sitting on the banquette behind the captain, quietly anxious, looking out into the darkness before us. The storm had got so bad, the captain said, that they were risking being dragged and dashed upon the rocks at the foot of the cliffs. So we were looking for another spot. A few hundred yards out, we encountered other yachts coming from the opposite direction, looking for the same thing. The cabin was quiet except for the voices that came over the airwaves from other ships. All wondering where to go. Off in the dark distance were the long necklace-like lights of Naples.

The captain decided that the only way to handle the storm was to go with it. To Naples. An hour's trip to its harbor. And who knew how long to find a place in the harbor. I went to bed. The crisis was over.

In fact there was no crisis. Only the rich fears provided by Captain Ed's story at dinner about the storm off Gibraltar one springtime past.


	The piazza outside of St. Peters.

	Looking out on Rome from atop the Spanish Steps.

The next day we woke up to a bright sunny morning and the calm water in the harbor of Naples. Beautiful Naples. Just beautiful to behold. Orderly, stately, Italian, Mediterranean, sprawling and settled into the soft hillsides. At noon the cars came to pick up us and our baggage and transport us to Rome.

All roads lead to Rome. The last two days were spent there. I'd never been. Now I am still digesting the little I saw of the city. The Vatican. The Pantheon. The Villa Borghese. Roman/ Christian/ Renaissance/ Modern, all the epochs juxtaposed and converging over. All about money and power; nothing else. Artistry of course but the artists are clearly and most importantly, the messengers to the future of the past. When the Empire fell and the Church rose, it was more a game of substitution than the advancement of a philosophy.

We were put up at the Hassler, which is considered one of the best hotels in Rome. At the top of the Spanish steps. It may have been busy but it didn't seem to be bustling. I had a on the second floor (the first in the hotel parlance) with a view of the vine-and-canopy covered back courtyard (and the Garden restaurant). It was serene with an occasional quiet voice of a staff member or a guest.

That night the same restaurant was "noisy" if I opened my window (which I did) -- the voices of dozens of guests at dinner and drinks. I could hear a pianist in the lobby playing and singing (although the voice was not clear), the sounds echoing off the marble floors. They were sweet, intimate sounds, soothing, assuring, joined with the sounds of relaxed voices, foreign languages, laughter from individuals and sometimes group, and the echoing strains of the grand piano in the background.

My room was larger than those I visited on the higher and more expensive floors with their views of the Spanish Steps and the city. Everything was pure, simple luxury. The mattress was hard, which I like, and the sheets were a fine cotton, which is always a pleasure. It simply was not as "decorated" as those on the floors above which had patterned wallcoverings and matching curtains, for example. My bathroom was more spacious (and completely adequate including bidet) and old fashioned (charming) while their bathrooms had a more modern finish, were less spacious.

I loved Rome. How could one not, at least under my circumstances. We dined at sunset at the restaurant at the top of the hotel as the city turned a rosy orange before our eyes and the lights began a-twinkling through. Much later, close to midnight, I took a stroll with a friend who had been there many times and loves the city.


The entrance to the Basilica.

The Swiss guards keeping watch outside the side entrance of the Basilica.

Villa Borghese in the Borghese Gardens.

We stopped for a drink in a sidewalk café down some curving alley, intersecting with two other winding alleys and more impromptu looking cafes where it seemed as if tables and chairs had been set up on a corner, all full. And the street was full of passing scooters and cars. Lots of young people going here and there in the balmy air and the narrow darkish pathways. After our drink we walked over to the Pantheon. built by Marcus Agrippa, nephew of Octavian, built as a temple to the gods.

Nothing, no picture, can describe the actual experience of standing before this more than gargantuan yet elegant structure, elephantine power, more than two millennia later. One cannot even begin to comprehend the enormity and its impact on the psyche. I thought of all the slaves in Rome and their fearsome masters yet unvanquished and unaware.

The following afternoon, a guide drove us through the city while providing a running commentary on what we were looking at. We went to the Borghese Gardens and the villa Borghese. Cardinal Borghese had created the villa, not for living, but for his collections. It was he who took the barely post-pubescent sculptor Bernini under his wing with the patronage to do the brilliant statuary/sculptures that he produced.

The cardinal, despite his title was more like acquisitive magnates of the 20th century, like Hearst or Frick, than like a holy man. Let alone Jesus. Borghese was fanatical. If there was something he wanted and he couldn't buy it, he had it stolen. Thou Shalt Not What? More like Morgan and/or any other rich man than like a man of the people.

The cardinal had the classic compulsive desire to possess more and to lord it over others. After the Empire fell, they took the gold doors of the Pantheon, melted them down and used them in the "tent," the canopy that sits inside the basilica of Saint Peters. To the victor belongs, etc.

However. The people of Rome are so much more relaxed. Or so it seems. As if the Decline and Fall had mellowed the psyche of its inhabitants. The colors of their city are also soothing — the pastels. The reminders of the grim past — be they ancient church and/or state, are graceful in their antiquity. They harken dark thoughts and memories, or not, depending on what you wish to see. Just as it is in one's life.

Everywhere I went, even standing outside the shops, watching, looking, was quenching my ever-thirsting curiosity. But the juxtaposition of the Ruins and the triumphal Vatican were the best and most stimulating to the imagination. The evidence of it all. The eternal human quest for power and/or wealth. Rome is proof of that, a thousand-fold. Nevertheless, it all remains fascinating to behold, to experience, to conjure up, and to bask in. The glory of man is in his ruins, ultimately, according to Rome.

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