Gotham Diary:
Our Parties
18 May 2015

The MTA has a little storefront on Second Avenue, between 84th and 85th Street, which is usually closed but which hosts occasional outreach meetings, mainly, I suppose, to answer questions (and to field complaints) about the construction of the new subway line. Walking past it the other day, I saw that a map of the new line had appeared on the fencing running along the street side of the sidewalk. This was very gratifying, because it absolutely confirms what I have been telling people for well over a year now — without ever having seen so bold and unambiguous a graphic. Every now and then, I would wonder upon exactly what evidence I was basing my predictions. No longer!

The map also confirms that I shall be able to get to Carnegie Hall in three stops, and without crossing a street. Although the map doesn’t show it, the next stop on the Q is 49th Street. If you have boarded the front of the train, you step up to 47th Street, the top of Times Square, from which most Broadway theatres are a short walk away.

People often shake their heads incredulously when they realize that only three subway stations will be built in this phase — not much of a Second Avenue Line. What they overlook is that these three stations feed the most densely populated part of the United States, which has been jamming itself into maddeningly crowded IRT trains (running under Lexington Aveue — but definitely not stopping at 63rd Street, as the map above might suggest to the uninitiated; the 63rd Street Station lies far beneath the 4, 5, and 6 tracks) for nearly a century. Not only that, but the Q line will carry Upper East Siders into the West Side of midtown, effecting that rarest of subway amenities, a crosstown run.

I should live so long.

***

Our first party in nearly two-and-a-half years went very nicely on Saturday. Part of me wishes that I were giving another party in two or three weeks, so that I could demonstrate what I learned from this one. And so that I could reinforce what I did right. But only a very small part of me wants to be entertaining anytime soon. I’m thinking about giving another party in October. We’ll see.

What made this party unlike every party that I had ever given was that it was merely an extension in quantity of life as we ordinarily live it. There was more of the stuff that we usually eat and drink — served on paper plates. I had thought, initially, of hiring a bartender, but the man who did a nice job for me a few years ago has moved on to real estate, and I didn’t feel like making the effort to find another. The only effort that I truly felt like making was to prevent the party from derailing my domestic rhythm, which, while it is no longer delicate, is still in development. When I accepted the fact that I would be giving the party without outside help, I decided that there would be nothing about it that could be called a “production.”

Two or three times over the years, I have rather desperately given “dump” parties: jugs of wine, bowls of potato chips, a few store-bought nibbles. But we don’t live like that, either. So the dining table was laden with cheeses and grapes and olives, and a beef tenderloin that I served sliced, with French toasts for open-faced sandwiches. There was a big bowl of shrimp that I had deveined (but not shelled) and boiled. For the first time in decades, I made a cheesecake. There were bowls of “mix” — what is the culinary name for these mélanges of crispy bits dusted with spices? — on the coffee table. The sideboard in the foyer was set up as a bar — far from the food. When the party was over, there was still plenty to drink, but almost nothing to eat. Only a quarter of the cheesecake remained — along with about two of the five pounds of shrimp, which stayed in the refrigerator. There ought to have been some sort of pâté, or perhaps two, as I can never make up my mind whether to do chicken livers, which I love, or Julia Child’s Pâté Maison, a meaty affair not unlike a very dense meat loaf. So: why not both? I spent very little time in the kitchen, even with all that deveining of shrimp. I had plenty of room in the fridge, because I have made a lot of progress toward my goal of keeping it less than half full at all times. If I’d known how roomy the fridge would be, I might have attempted deviled eggs. Deviled eggs, however, are borderline “production,” and they can’t be made too far in advance. I’ll save the deviled eggs for the more elegant cocktail buffet that I’m thinking about, for twelve to sixteen select friends.

There were the usual thirty people, the same people who always come. The people who never come didn’t come this time, either, even if only about half of them sent the requested regrets. When the party was over, I had had actual conversations with perhaps three people, and at first I was, as usual, disconsolate about this. But then I remembered an exchange that I had with one of Kathleen’s cousins, a woman who had played (and won at) tennis that morning, and then driven down from Portland, Maine, as she was on her way out the door. “But I didn’t get to talk to you,” I whined. “Oh, I knew that wasn’t going to happens,” she said, “but it was great to see you.” And that really was the point. The point of these parties is for a bunch of people who never cross paths outside our apartment but who have been bumping into each other at our crowded parties for decades — and this would include the lovely Ms NOLA, who has been a guest in our home for over ten years now — to get together for a chat and a laugh.

There is, in short, nothing important about our big parties. That is what we do, Kathleen and I. We don’t celebrate anything (perhaps a birthday, meaning a five-minute interruption in the chaos), we don’t show people off, we don’t present entertainment, we don’t even serve remarkable comestibles. Our parties are totally pointless, in fact, and this is what makes them agreeable, it seems, for the people who keep coming back. Well, okay, they’re not pointless. And it’s true that we were showing off the apartment for the first time. But our parties provide our friends, most of whom like to talk as much as we do, with a fresh but not unfamiliar audience.

When the time comes to plan the next party, whether or not it’s in October, I plan to invite at least fifteen new people, in hopes that five or six will come. And I hope that some of the old friends who had to be elsewhere this weekend will be able to come next time. I may even court a few of the people who never come. And that will be the angle of the party that I shall “work.” Everything else about our parties will remain just the same.

Only with better garbage cans. All those paper plates!