Dining Tableography

You've already met my family's historic, well-used dining table:  Our antique farm table from upstate New York.

Now let me introduce you to my own dining table.  Not many people know I have one.  But I do.  I acquired it in New York also, but not from a rustic farm.  Instead, I bought it in an entirely different part of the Empire State:  Manhattan.

And although I've owned it since 1991, I can only remember ever dining on it precisely... once.

I'd been living with my aunt in her longtime Brooklyn apartment, while working in Lower Manhattan.  And I wanted my own place, but finding something both decent and affordable in such an expensive city isn't easy for most of us.  Eventually, I learned of a friend's apartment coming up for availability between Manhattan's Gramercy Park and Kip's Bay neighborhoods, on the East Side.  I'd have a roommate, but that's what made my rent manageable.

Although I'd heard horror stories about roommates - especially in a challenging place like New York City - I'm grateful to have had a surprisingly good experience with mine.  An amiable fellow around my age, he was Italian-American, a native of Staten Island, and a computer networking consultant.  We never had any money issues, or issues over noise, or personal space - or refrigerator space!

One of the ways we avoided food storage drama came from the fact that, well, I never cooked anything in that apartment.  Not only have I never enjoyed cooking, but apparently, I'd never realized how inhibiting bad kitchen aesthetics can be.

While ours was quite spacious for a Manhattan kitchen, it offered a diminutive, partly-rusted gas stove whose safety struck me as dubious at best.  Its refrigerator was also small, but surprisingly clean, so I did feel comfortable using it.  A deep, cast iron Art Deco sink broadcast its age by its porcelain's scrub-proof dinginess.  Worn, tattered, gray industrial carpeting ran from wall to wall, but never fit my definition of what "wall-to-wall" carpeting should look like!  Besides, I couldn't figure out how to clean it, and the fact that it was our kitchen flooring made me wonder how many generations of other people's food, grease, and germs were caught in its fibers. 

Our building opened in 1900, meaning its construction fell under the parameters of New York State's Tenement House Act of 1879.  Folks familiar with the city's byzantine building codes would call our apartment building an "Old Law" tenement, and that matters because it was New York's Tenement Act of 1901 that mandated indoor plumbing for residential structures.

You see, that one year between "Old Law" and "New Law" tenements represents a significant timeline for our apartment.  From the exposed water and sewer pipes throughout our 5-story walk-up, I'd deduced that its origins predated modern indoor plumbing, although it was only recently I learned it was only by one year!

After moving in I quickly met our neighbors across the hall from our third-floor apartment - a friendly brother and sister from Central America.  They told me they could see what they thought must have been our building's outhouse in the backyard, since that was the direction their unit faced (ours faced the street).  

Just to clarify:  It wasn't necessarily our kitchen's age that bothered me, but its aesthetics.  Maybe I was too picky, but I'd already had my aunt's vastly nicer Brooklyn kitchen as a template.  Hers wasn't quite as old as ours, she maintained it well, and we both kept it scrupulously clean.  I'd had no issues cooking in it, although I never pretended to be good at it, and my aunt knew she wasn't either, so neither of us had high expectations for our meals!

My roommate, on the other hand, often cooked in our Manhattan kitchen, and simply ignored what I considered its many defects.  Like my aunt and me, he didn't fancy himself as a foodie, which kinda surprised me, since most New York Italians I knew were excellent cooks.  One of them, a grandmotherly co-worker of mine who also lived in Staten Island, would regularly bring in a huge portion of pasta and peas cooked in olive oil for me (she never brought food for any other co-worker unless we were having an office party).  She'd playfully insist that my "Brooklyn auntie" should have been cooking more for me!

Come to think of it, I shouldn't have eaten her kind pasta at my desk at lunch, but taken it home for dinner to be reheated in a microwave.  And oh, yeah... maybe by now you've wondered why I haven't mentioned having one of those contraptions in my Manhattan kitchen.  To be honest, and prove how much I'm not a cook, I can't remember why neither my roommate nor I ever thought of getting a microwave.

I do recall my roommate getting a toaster.  But weekdays, on my way to the office, I always got either a "sesame with a schmear" (toasted bagel with cream cheese) or an enormous blueberry muffin, split at its top and stuffed with real butter, from various delis near the Wall Street subway downtown.  Weekend breakfasts were Entenmann's donuts or Belgian waffles at a brunch place up Third Avenue from my apartment.

And yes, my breakfast menu will become relevant soon.

What groceries I did purchase I got at a brand-new two-level supermarket a couple of blocks north on Third Avenue, near my Belgian brunch place.  It was situated inside an equally-new high-rise condominium tower, and I thought it was cool that we shoppers had to take an escalator (or elevator) down from street level, which featured mostly a glorified deli, to the main grocery aisles downstairs.

Our apartment consisted of five rooms plus a bathroom.  Upon entering, you'd immediately be in our kitchen, with the bathroom to your left.  Then came a middle room (which we dubbed the dining room), and then a front room.  Each of those living areas featured an attractive wall of exposed brick, and doorways to two small bedrooms.

And while they drastically compromised everyone's privacy, narrow air shafts between buildings on our block provided extra interior window space.  So our whole apartment was unexpectedly bright, with high ceilings and tall windows - even in that kitchen - providing excellent ambient light and cross-ventilation.

Those air shafts represented yet another structural legacy of the city's "Old Law" tenements.  That 1879 law mandated air shafts between buildings so that interior rooms had windows that opened to the outside.  Common interpretation of 1879 codes led builders to construct tenements that, when viewed from above, looked like the shape of dumbells because of those air shafts.  So another name for our tenement was "dumbell tenement", but not because of the people who built them or lived in them.

My Manhattan bedroom's "carpeting" is now a small area rug in Texas

I risk the mention of those air shafts because our windows opening to them were in walls built at an angle.  After moving in, I went down to the city's venerable ABC Carpet near Union Square and bought two floor rugs for myself that practically fit as de-facto wall-to-wall carpeting, except for those walls at angles for ventilation shafts.

Why spend money on rugs?  Well, mainly, because except for our kitchen and bathroom, our apartment's floors were ancient wood parquet that had not been maintained.  At all.  Many of its individual pieces were no longer anchored into their four-finger pattern, but resting loosely atop our downstairs neighbor's ceiling rafters.  Walking across our floors in bare feet usually meant moisture on our skin would pull some pieces out of the flooring.

Plus, we wanted to muffle our sounds for the benefit of our neighbors.

I know - such an outmoded thing anymore:  Being considerate of others, right?

For the dining room, which was next to my bedroom, my rug measures about 11 x 7.  And for my bedroom, the rug measures about 7 x 5.  I still have them, here in Texas, and I never fail to draw amazement from visitors when I describe how they fit almost like carpeting in that Manhattan apartment.

With my "wall-to-wall" dining room carpeting!

And here, now, behold:  My Manhattan apartment's dining table.  I purchased it at a Scandinavian furniture store on East 57th Street.  Its manufacturer's mark is Brdr. Furbo in Spottrup, Denmark.  I particularly liked its Mid-Century Modern minimalism, and its drop-leaf flexibility.  I set it up against our dining room's exposed brick wall, and the two complimented each other well.  Down the block from our apartment was a store that sold solid oak furniture made in what had been Yugoslavia, so I purchased two plain, lightly-stained chairs which flanked the table.

Comparing my family's antique farm table and my Danish table, I now see similarities I doubt I considered back when I was browsing that furniture shop on 57th Street.  For one thing, both tables were acquired in the Empire State.  Secondly, both feature expandability, yet have a pleasing aesthetic in their minimal configuration.  With both leaves dropped to the side of their pedestal, my Manhattan table stood elegantly yet unobtrusively for years in our Texas home's hallway.

But as I pointed out earlier, one glaring distinction differentiates these two tables that have played important roles in my life:  While I've eaten countless meals at our family's farm table, I can recall eating only one meal at my Manhattan dining table.  One.  And I remember what it was:  Kellogg's corn flakes with canned peaches.  For my dinner, not even breakfast.  

I never eat cereal for breakfast.

Both angled leaves can drop
to create an ever-slimmer profile

Hey - I've already explained:  I'm no gastronome.  And corn flakes with canned peaches was a common dinner of mine in Manhattan because it was incredibly easy after a long day at the office.  It did contain a certain nutritional value.  And if you don't think that's enough food for a healthy meal, consider that it was almost always followed by Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  Even in the wintertime!  

Meanwhile, my roommate frequently ate at this table, both restaurant food, and food he'd cooked in our kitchen.  He recognized how odd it was that I never ate at my own table, and would occasionally check with me to see whether I was leaving it pristine as some sort of museum piece, or if he really could use it without annoying me!  And I'd tell him to please use it and justify my purchase of it.

So where did I usually eat my apartment meals?  In a corner of my small bedroom, on a captain's bed I'd inherited from the previous tenant (who'd moved to Europe), propped up by pillows, watching my TV.

As I'd dine atop that bed, I'd look through my open bedroom door out onto my beautiful, glowing Danish table up against our stylish exposed brick wall, and try to talk myself into using it.  So one time, I did.  I probably remember it because it happened only once.

I never did it again because frankly, I don't enjoy eating by myself.  Even having that other empty chair at my official dining table seemed to reinforce a loneliness that pervaded my Gotham experience.  I eventually learned it's a common irony for many folks living in the middle of a metropolitan area with approximately 15 million other people.  But that's small comfort, right?  At least it helps explain one reason I ended up in therapy!  

If my roommate's schedule had been the same as mine, and he ate his meals at approximately the same time I did, perhaps we'd have coordinated a menu plan or even brought our separate food to the same table to eat together.  But as a consultant, his hours usually were all over the place.

However, I don't want to give the impression that I ate all my Manhattan dinners in my bedroom, or that they were all corn flakes and canned peaches!  Or that they were all laced with self-pity.

A couple of other single friends from my church and I decided that since we were otherwise alone in The Greatest City On Earth, we couldn't let our relationship status stand in the way of exploring some of our planet's best cuisine.  One of my friends was originally from India, and worked as an accountant for a major cosmetics corporation.  The other was originally from the Caribbean, and taught at an elite Upper East Side prep school.  Between our diverse backgrounds, we managed to find a variety of genuine, culturally-significant, non-touristy restaurants around Manhattan many Friday evenings that filled our appetites without draining our wallets. 

So... does rolling all that together help explain why my Danish dining table remains in excellent condition today?  Had I known I'd only personally dine on it once, I wouldn't have purchased it to begin with.  But looking back now, I realize it came to serve as a learning experience for me, even if it served me only one actual meal. 

And maybe my roommate was on to something:  When he wondered if I was intentionally preserving it as some sort of museum artifact, maybe that's what I've unintentionally ended up doing after all!

_____