New York Trip, Part 3: Roll Tide

Observations about my day May 30 in Manhattan (so nice, they named it twice):

I discovered that the Little Church Around the Corner is undergoing extensive renovation after a condo went up next door. This is known as the Actor's church, because a church around the corner refused to hold services for a dead actor; the parson there recommended the little church around the corner, and the rest is history. It's an Anglo-Catholic parish, and coincidentally it's where my dad's parents were married. So I peered into the sanctuary, then took a photo of the church's steeple, which contrasts with the nearby Empire State Building.

I reached the church after walking across town through the wholesale flower district and by FIT. There used to be a theater down there named the Production Company; Norman Rene ran it. I read scripts for the theater because a friend of mine from Wesleyan, Andrea Corney, was working as the literary manager. There I met Craig Lucas, who went on to write some of my favorite plays of the 1990s -- "Reckless" and "Prelude to a Kiss" -- as well as the book for "Light in the Piazza." Rene directed Lucas' first productions, and he also directed the film "Longtime Companion," which starred Mary Louise Parker, a frequent Lucas actress. Anyway, like most of Manhattan, the area is a jumble of memories, old things and new things.

On this hike, I was wearing my Alabama hat. Walking up Park Avenue north of Grand Central (where I stopped to reload on electrolytes), I heard an old, gravelly voice shout, "Roll Tide!" He told me he was an alum and knew what the hat means; I told him my wife and I work there now and that I was just visiting.

Later, during my visit to New Dramatists, a playwright and a composer told us about a musical they're writing based on Shirley Jackson's bleak, Gothic story "We Have Always Lived in the Castle." If done right, it should be really cool.

Next: Crane, the village, "Adding Machine" and spaghetti.