When I went to Times Square to get my key, I had no idea the production that it would it be. There was a little park set up in the square, and those present were paired off if they didn't come with someone. I was paired with a sweet woman named Julie, and we chatted as we waited for our turn. Finally, we went into the little park together, and met volunteers running the project. They pulled out huge ledgers for each of us, and we went through a whole ceremony for bestowing a key to each other. I gave her a key for her contributions to theater in New York (she's worked in theaters all her life). She gave me a key for courtesy and caring, saying I was the nicest person she had met that day. (Aw, shucks.)
What do the keys open? With the key, we also got little passports that have descriptions and maps of how to find the locks, but not what's inside them. There are twenty-four locks spread throughout all five boroughs.
This past weekend, two good friends of ours were in town. And as part of a real NYC adventure, we decided to start finding some locks and see what happened. We hit all four of the locks in Queens, along with another friend who had recently moved there. We started in Astoria at the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, which is exactly what it sounds like. Grilled brats, large mugs of beer, and all in a nice big open space where they have music and dancing in the evenings.
Hey, Pops
The first lock was in a place I'd been meaning to visit since moving here, the Louis Armstrong House Museuem. It's way up in Corona, a little ways from LaGuardia airport. The tour we took was great, and the house has been amazingly preserved from when Louis and Lucille lived there. As a trumpet player myself, it was amazing to see so intimately into the life of an idol, though Lucille clearly had all the say when it came to most of the house! Still, Louis had a den on the second floor in the front of the house that was his, and you could almost feel him there. His big desk, his tape recorders (he recorded everything, even everyday conversations), the pictures on the wall, it was all him. There's a little balcony off the front where he'd play to the neighborhood kids. The museum had taken some of his recordings from certain rooms and put in speakers to play them in those rooms. In his den, for example, they played a recording of him sitting at his desk playing his horn along with some music. You could feel his energy and charm, and I just wished I could have seen him in life.Louis was undoubtedly a character, too. He loved bawdy jokes, and collected them like stamps. The museum played one recording from the living room, where he had his niece recite "Mary Had a Little Lamb." She did, then he replied with his own version: "Mary had a little bear, and he was mighty fine. And everywhere that Mary went, you saw her bear behind!" to the laughter of his niece and himself. He laughed a lot. He also was a big proponent of laxatives, and absolutely swore by Swiss Kriss herbal laxatives, going so far as to give them to the Royal Family when he went to London.
The basement of the house has mostly been turned into the exhibition space for the museum, showing off pictures, a trumpet, clothing, and other effects. But one room has been left exactly the way it was when Louis himself used it for extended periods of time with his Swiss Kriss. This room is not on the tour, and not open to the public, but the Key to the City opens the door. It's his downstairs bathroom. And sitting on the sink is a photo of him in that bathroom, facing away form the camera, with a clear view of his--ahem--bear behind.
Daniel Dromm's Flag
The second stop was the office of New York City Council Member Daniel Dromm, in Jackson Heights. His office was closed, being the weekend, but the key unlocked a display case next to the front door. The case displays an American flag, but behind it previous key holders have left messages and small tokens. It was a neat, quick stop, but we were admittedly distracted by the myriad of ethnic shops and restaurants on Roosevelt Avenue. Queens is one of the most diverse boroughs in the city, and neighborhoods there change drastically from generation to generation. It's fascinating.Nixta-what?
Not realizing the geography of our trek, we then ventured back to Corona for stop number three, Tortilleria Nixtamal. This place was awesome. We got a table to sample the food, placed our orders, and then asked where the lock was. We were escorted to the back and told that our key would unlock the two doors there, and we could pick which one. (The one on the right was the bathroom.) We opened the door on the left, and followed the stairwell on the other side down into the basement. We squeezed through sacks of fresh corn piled up to the ceiling and into the small kitchen, where everything is made from scratch. Our waitress showed us the machines for washing the corn, and cooking it into nixtamal. They then crush this into a dough, and press out flat circles. These are then tossed onto a skillet for a few minutes, and become delicious corn tortillas.We were already impressed and thought this was a pretty amazing process to see first-hand. Then our waitress left us with the cooks, who gave us a bowl of nixtamal and said we were going to make our own tortillas. We had fun rolling out our tortillas tossing them on the skillet. I tore my tortilla on the skillet trying to turn it, but everyone's came out great. We all nibbled on our freshly-made tortillas back up the stairs to our table, where we had some great food (the tostados were fantastic).
Back in Time
Having already eaten our way through half of Queens, we headed down to Forest Hills (home of Peter Parker!) for the final stop of our adventure. Eddie's Sweet Shop has been serving up homemade ice cream at their soda fountain counter for over one hundred years. Just walking in the door feels like traveling through time, and you're slightly embarrassed by your own funny clothing. But the sundaes more than make up for it. Here our lock opened a small safe box the staff held behind the counter. Inside were notes and memories of other key holders who had come before. Some were inspirational snippets, some were professions of love, and some were simple drawings. We each wrote our own notes, ate our ice cream, and reflected on our exhausting but wholly enjoyable day in Queens.*Update: Now with a map!
View Key to City - Queens in a larger map
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