Mint

Mint

She bent over the pot outside the restaurant. Delicious. Simply delicious, fresh and new. The woman smiled. How it reminds me of the better days—my better days. Her mind travelled back 16 years. The days when I had breakfast at the Stanhope Hotel   I can see it now—a sprig of mint on my butter plate, my Villeroy & Bock flowered butter plate. I was in Heaven then. I had just arrived in Manhattan and everything was lovely. Succeed. I thought I would succeed by my own efforts, doing what I truly loved. The Stanhope Hotel was my home, my safe haven. I had friends there. I couldn’t wait to see them when I got up in the morning. It wasn’t the classy, 5^th Avenue Gold Coast atmosphere or the Metropolitan Museum of Art across the street. It was the people—the friendly, visible people. She shrugged. That’s all gone now. I miss that and I miss the lifestyle it represented. I didn’t know what I had. It will never return. She crossed the street when the light turned green.

 

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My Fabled Hotel

The Fabled Hotel

I think of it often—more often than I used to in t he past. It is one of those experiences that has made a deep impression on me. Now, with the contrast between then and now, it seems like a dream. I often wonder if it ever happened. It did.

The Stanhope Hotel on 5^th Avenue was my refuge during my early time in Manhattan. I bumped into it by accident when one day I was walking to get myself acquainted with the neighborhood. I went inside the restaurant to get a cup of coffee and a crescent. I went back the next day and most mornings after that. At the Stanhope Hotel, I felt that I belonged. I hadn’t felt that way for a long time. I was there and I was not invisible. I was not just another newcomer to the Big Apple. The richness of my surroundings did not dazzle or surprise me. I became aware that Jackie Kennedy had lived not far at 1040 5^th Avenuue. I visited theMetropolitanMuseum across the street from the Stanhope often. The apt buildings around the hotel were beautiful—tall, straight and totally majestic. It was as if I had never seen anything that good before.

Belonging mattered more than anything. It was my place, my neighborhood.