555 Park Avenue

Rudolph's penultimate New York residence. Originally purchased in 1973, Rudolph shared this 1914 building with Barbara Walters (who we often passed in the elevator) and several of his close friends. Many a pleasant evening took place in #3W, where Rudolph's wife, Raffaela, assembled the near and dear for their famous soirees. Christmas holidays were especially festive, as Raffaela's Italian relatives would descend for a round of shopping and holiday merry-making.

As a teenager, Park and 62nd became the center of my New York. Oddly enough, my forebearers had thought so too, as both my mother and father had lived in various residences only a stone's throw from there (my mother on 64th and Lexington, my grandmother Anne at 625 Park, and my father, who had lived most of his life in the immediate vicinity). According to the law of Geographic Density (a law, to be sure, of my own making), most of us subconsciously gravitate towards the coordinates frequented by our ancestors. And why not? It is a familiar path, which, over the years, has probably insinuated itself quietly into your genetic code. Oh, the West Side may have it's charm, SoHo a certain allure, but there is something oddly placing about the thick atmosphere of tradition that drapes the East Side - the upper crust of one's history. For Rudolph, there was nowhere else.

In fact, the majority of hours of his days were spent close to home - an errand here, a luncheon there. With the exception of the thrice yearly trek to Chinatown for dim sum with friends, and the Ritual Sunday Afternoon at the Met, Rudolph's health and mood improved in direct correlation to his proximity to the famed intersection. This rule extended to the vertical as well. It was probably for this reason that Rudolph had never ridden the subway. I took him on his first ride in the early 80's, and when we descended the narrow staircase on Lexington and 60th, he was truly in shock to see that such a portal had existed for so long, and so close to home!

As for me, I have to admit that upon exiting a taxi from a transcontinental transfer, it was ever so soothing to be greeted by the very same doormen who had been in attendance since the Nixon era. As they opened the thick glass doors in their wooly winter coats and muttered in the King's "Queens-ish", "Good to see you, Miss Liane. Betcha had nicer weather out on the coast?" you knew you were home. All was well. One's problems could be left on the street, and for a while, or at least the two weeks of Christmas vacation, you could pretend that you were a card-carrying member of this private and privileged world.

Rudolph shared this love of the unchanged. To be sure, Raffaela had seen to the quite capable decoration of the interior of the coop. All the aesthetic elements were exquisite, but as far as functionality, the old 1914 buildings leave a few things to be desired. Raffaela, being European, and used to living alongside lots of very lovely, very old things, probably didn't notice. But I, child of the modern world, a visit to 555 was time travel at its best. Inside their home, there were to be found such ancient objets such as tiny octagonal white bathroom tiles and fixtures from the silent era, an intercom with a cloth cord and a handset resembling the opening scene of "Hollywood Hotel", ancient radiators (tastefully concealed behind faux cabinetry), a stove that required you to light a match, stick your head inside to wave it over the pilot light ( a really good reason to get take out), and pipes that would, after being deserted over the summer, vertically shower you with copper red "Silkwood" water, which looked rather surreal when combined with pre-War porcelain fixtures. Leaks were common, if not expected, and the sight of workmen constantly laboring over a collapsing cornice was simply the price you paid for living in a set of rooms that occupied half of the entire floor. Where else could you own a grand piano and play it as loud as you liked, 24 hours a day, with nary a complaint?

Rudolph, once rooted in his ancestral neighborhood, set about frequenting the merchants who were a stone's throw from 555, as if by doing so, he were shrinking the city into a manageable, cozy corner. Rudolph was often spotted at a very early hour, breakfasting at the coffee shop on the corner of Lexington, perusing the paper and enjoying the Times crossword puzzle (which he always completed in record time with the aide of a blue medium point Lamy pen). Breakfast was followed by a quick stop at the Korean deli across the street, where he would purchase a morning delicacy for the lounging Latins - Raffaela and Liane, who insisted on sleeping until at least 9 am (to quote the latter, "...often much later if a notable nightclub had been visited the evening before!"), and try to convince them to rise and rush to the Met to catch the latest exhibit before it passed into posterity.

Then - a stop at the barber at the Plaza Hotel, or a visit to Dr. Brandon around the corner. By eleven, it was time to duck into his library for a quick touch-up to a poem, or to revisit a passage by one of his favorite authors (Huxley, Maugham, Auden) before heading off with "R" for a soothing lunch of teriyaki salmon at the Japanese restaurant a couple of blocks away. Often, if there were Christmas houseguests along, on the way back from lunch, Rudolph would escort his visitors to see some "marvelous" new building shooting up in a narrow lot, etching its steely shape into a previously pristine sky. Always protective of his environs, Rudolph's amazement began with how the Modern World had managed to insert itself into his tidy town...and particularly without his having noticed.

He would stand before his marvel, and turn to me and say, "Sweetie, really, isn't it breathtaking?" A broad grin would sneak across his face, and he would put his arm around me and chuckle, raising his arms into the air, "Just look at that building..." and overarticulating, he would intone, "eighty-seven stories high....think of it!" It was good that he reminded us, because of course you hadn't thought of it. You had merely rushed past it, preoccupied with the thought of the messages from prospective suitors that might await you back at 555. Yet Rudolph, with the poet's unerring eye, and blessed with the unhurried schedule that allowed him to view life in all its fascinating variety, did stop to take in the miracles of the age, drinking in all the wonder and joy this singular moment could offer. Just watching him see things, always as though for the very first time, made you nod and shake your head in 20-something coolness. "It's just a building, Waldo," (an affectionate moniker I had given him in my youth)...half-embarrassed by the spectacle of a native New Yorker craning his neck to catch the turret's shiny zenith.

Yet in watching him, witnessing his joy at this "thousand millionth miracle" filling his eyes and his smile from the tips of his fingers to his toes drew me in closer and closer to the baffling, beguiling sight. People are watching us by now, and of course, he doesn't notice them. He is lost, and climbing into the stratosphere, unable to take his eyes off of the ominous crane hurtling a steel beam from one end of the structure to the other.

In spite of myself, I feel my neck start to crane, and in a second I am lost, wondering too, how such technological feats have ever come to pass. Waldo and I, locked in a tractor beam of discovery...standing solidly on the sidewalk, staring, unapologetically, up into the sky - unbelievably uncool. But what is unbelievably cool is how the mere act of wonderment begets another's appreciation. When it came to this skill, "Waldo" was a master. When I look back on those charming and defining moments, they appear somewhat like this....

Waldo's Miracle

Waldo and I,
beneath the sky,
stand in frozen awe and eye
the steely beams and scaffold seams
that streak to the heavens in shiny streams

(Liane)
How did this happen?
How did it grow?
Were we asleep
When it began to show?

(Waldo)
Did it thrust like a bullet
From an underground pit?

(Liane)
Molten, like metal
Full of rubble and grit?

And what did it ruin?
A fancy shop…there’s no telling…?

(Waldo)
A tenement, hostel
Or elegant dwelling?

No matter, no time for
Revering the past…

(Liane)
“This time it is steel…
This time it’ll last !”

And men in hard headgear
Bellow and swagger
They spit and they belch
And they yell out in anger,

“Get out of the way there,
Ya gonna get hit
Fer-the-luva-heaven,
You’re right under it!”

We jumped to the left
As they caught us a’starin’…
Native New Yorkers
Are used to not caring…

But try as we do
We’re unable to run
And we stop and we stare
And we stare… as tho’ stunned.
We can’t help but be baffled
By its towering tilt

(Waldo)
“A marvel!
A miracle!
Just how was it built?”

(Liane)
“Oh what I would give
For that view from above..”

And with that being said,
We both felt a shove….

And magic befell us.
Our wish swiftly granted,
We were swept to the top
Of this steel and granite!

Waldo was whooshed up
head first with such force

(Waldo)
“If not for my brolly
We’d have gone quite off course!”

I tried not to think
I tried not to look down
But try as I might
I kept spying the ground…
Getting smaller and smaller
And fading, I say…
Til all its importance
Had quite gone away.

Then a flash,
Then a crash,
Then a zap
And a ..zipper…?

“Heavens,” said Waldo,
“I can see the Big Dipper!”

(Liane)
“Away from the surface
So cold and contrary…”

(Waldo)
“To the heights!
To the blue!
To our Silvery Aerie!”

We flew past the bustle,
We soared past the brisk
Defying the gods,

(Liane and Waldo)
“To hell with the risk!”

And weightless we rose
To the top of our peak
Unfettered and fearless
Unable to speak….

For once, not Humans
But Spirits, alighting
Softly, now weightlessly
Gently good-nighting,

Touching startops
And rooftops
And neon striped slivvers
And jet streams and lightening
And tempests and rivers

(Waldo)
“Think of it, Sweetie,
The eighty-ninth story!

(Liane)
“The joy!

(Waldo)
“Yes!”

(Liane)
“The thrill!”

(Waldo)
“The glamour!”

(Liane)
“The glory!”

(Waldo)
“No wonder they come,
And climb eighty-nine stories!”

Manhattan below us,
We twirl and we tumble
On top of the City
We rumba and rumble

(Liane)
“All’s possible up here
Above all the matter…”

(Waldo)
“Either we’re dreaming,
Or we’re both mad as hatters!”

“Look Waldo, no hands!
No shoes! No feet!
Not a thing to hold onto!
Not even the sleet!

(That came down in buckets,
That came down in sheets…)

And tore open the Tiepolo ceilings above
Revealing a velvety hand in a glove
That handed a box
To His earthly guests
So they might amuse themselves
While in His nest

Inside there was nothing

(Liane)
“It must be a ruse…”

Except for a canvas
the color of puce…

(Liane)
“..And the pen of a pigeon…”

(Waldo)
“…to act as our Muse…”

We waste not a moment
Committing to paper
This Fairy adventure
This Heavenly caper,

We stand upon the edge and stretch
imagination's heat and etch
upon the glassy glow of green

(Liane)
“…a feather pen…”

(Waldo)
“… a soup tureen…”

(Liane)
“Our dream is so real!
Oh, Waldo,” I cry,
“We made it!
We’re up here,
We’re way, way up high!”

Then just as rapidly
we begin our descent
as winter’s harsh sunrise
comes round the bend

And we thud
on the cruel cracked concrete below
crunching the solid ice and snow
crushing vendors, and pushcarts,
asunder they go,
tossing pedestrians
all to and fro…

Then we spring to our feet
and we tilt up our faces
hoping to catch either glimpses or traces
a bit of a beam, a section of spire
the modern spirit all set a-fire

And we crane til we see it
our tall craggy cap
surrounded by lightening
and Old Thunderclap

Sharpshooting shards
piercing the mist, like
a bayonet, a lance,
an angry fist

(Waldo)
“Eighty-nine stories
So brash and proud
lording over
the wuthering clouds…”

(Liane)
“Was it real, dear Waldo?
Where you and I flew?

Or was it a dream,
Now that’s it’s over, it hardly seems…”

As I stared at his eyes,
Grey, blue and green,
It seemed they were smiling
Sly and serene.

(Waldo)
“I know where we went to,

I know what we’ve seen
So what if no one believes
Where we’ve been?”

We giggled together
Enjoying our game
Were we here?
Were we there?

(Waldo)
“It’s all the same!”

For in Fantasy’s
fanciful flights
to be sure
lie magical spells
to enchant and to cure,

(Waldo)
“For as it is in Heaven
so it is Below…”

In Waldo’s eyes
There are miracles, oh!

Yes, in Waldo’s eyes,
there is Heaven, you know.

LS 2009