Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Schermerhorn Windows

Rough day at work, beautiful night, so I took a walk across the Manhattan Bridge to unwind a bit. I wish I'd brought my camera, I walked down Schermerhorn St (which I used to pronounce Schermermurmerhorm back when I used to change trains at Hoyt-Schermerhorn, mostly to disguise the fact that I have a heckuva time pronouncing "Schermerhorn") and there were such interesting windows along the way. There was a window where a lady was practicing her grand jetés. There was a window where there was a fabulous kitchen with a fabulous dinner party underway. It made me want to stop & join in...hmm, look, I could sometime. There was a window with a fabulous art place that looked like a grade-school art room. Only maybe for grown-ups. It made me want to stop & finger-paint. And then there was a window that was full of cakes. Good thing I'd already stopped in Chinatown for a bag of Chinese mini cakes, and was also trying to save room for fabulous grass-fed monster-carrot yukon-gold pot roast, heating up on the stove right now!

So nice that the weather's suddenly warm enough to make a little random ramblin' appealing. Tonight's was just shy of 4 miles.

Note on 3/10 - Who were the Shermerhorns? Check the comments! Thanks, O-docker!

9 comments:

O Docker said...

Hmmm, could this be what was really drawing you to those windows?

Simon Schermerhorn, the founder of the New York City branch of the family, was not the only one of the brothers to take an interest in sea-faring life. His brothers Jacob and Cornelius were both masters of vessels plying on the Hudson between New York and Albany as early as 1684. ...

"From the earliest time they perceived the maritime importance of New York. They realized that the possession of the Hudson, the Sound, the Kills, and Newark Bay involved a mine of inexhaustible wealth to Manhattan Island. They were advocates of the Erie and Champlain Canal, the Morris and Essex, the Delaware and Raritan and of the harbor improvements which have been going on for more than a century. They took part in the development of coastwise and river navigation, and laid the foundations for many mercantile enterprises between New York and the coast cities of the Atlantic. ... The name Schermerhorn bears the same relation to the coastwise shipping of New York that the names of Astor, Low and Grinnell do to its huge ocean traffic."


bonnie said...

Fascinating! I never knew who they were.

Word verification - Twaincon. I'm just picturing the most wonderful convention, like ComicCon or DragonCon, only instead of people dressing up like Japanese cartoons, everybody picks their favorite Mark Twain character. I would totally want to attend that!

Buck said...

And Symon Schermerhorn rode from Schenectady to Albany after the massacre here in Feb 1690, to warn Albany (then Fort Orange) that the French were on the march.

moonstruck said...

Becky Thatcher Tom's true love!!!

Dennis G

Still a foot and a half aof snow in Stormville.

Carol Anne said...

I love the concept of Twaincon. Wonder what we can to to help it catch on?

O Docker said...

The jumping frogma of Calaveras County?

Carol Anne said...

My son attended Mark Twain Elementary School. The school mascot was the jumping frog.

bonnie said...

That is fantastic.

You know, I really think that if there were some bizarre edict handed down from somewhere that said that you had to pick one and only one author & your personal library from that point on could consist solely of books by that author - I think I might pick Twain.

Of course there would be something to say for picking an author who's still alive. But for pure writing that I loved when I was a kid, continue to love as an adult & can come back to again and again and again & always enjoy it? I think Mark Twain would be the winner.

Oh, one letter change & my word verification would've been flat-out spoooooky. Train.

Anonymous said...

"Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see." -- Mark Twain