A musical walk with Gershwin, Rachmaninov and Papageno

Good morning. It’s Friday. Well, go for a walk, which you probably shouldn’t be doing today, but reading about it might take your mind off the smoke from the wildfires in Canada. Also, find out when the air quality in New York will improve.

Thomas Oliemans is a newcomer who navigates New York like a native. He has read niches in New York history that reflect his passion for George and Ira Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and other musicians.

Oliemans is a Dutch baritone who has spent the last two months in Manhattan. He arrived for the Metropolitan Operas’ new production of Mozarts Die Zauberflte, which will have its final performance on Saturday. When he wasn’t at the Met rehearsing or performing, he was doing what New Yorkers do: He was walking. He said the walk was a way to relax after Zauberflte’s work sports. Lots of running and jumping and bending.

I tagged along as he led the way across and down the Upper West Side.

First stop: 501 West 110th Street

The Oliemans began their trek there because that’s where the Gershwins lived while George was working on Rhapsody in Blue. It’s a 10-story building on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue that was apparently once called the Dreadnought, which might not be the most inspiring name for an apartment building. Now only the address is on the tent.

Ira suggested changing the title from An American Rhapsody apparently, Oliemans said. I probably heard Rhapsody in Blue when I was 10 or 11 and we had a great record. Even the image on the album cover created New York: I think it was the Chrysler Building, he said.

The first time I was here, I took a photo, Oliemans said, and someone who apparently lived here said there’s still a piano in the same apartment, probably not the Gershwins’ piano. But it’s New York. They see you are interested in something, they engage with you and share what they know and what they are curious about.

The Ellingtons stomp to the ground

Oliemans led onto Riverside Drive, just south of Duke Ellington Boulevard, and stopped in front of two row houses.

On the day the city was renamed West 106th Street for Ellington, Sonny Greer, Ellington’s longtime drummer, played hits with a combo at #333, where Ellington had worked.

On the day Oliemans and I walked by, the sound in the air was that of the birds in the trees on Riverside Drive. It was kind of fitting: in Zauberflte he plays Papageno, the bird catcher.

He said he heard birdsong from his Upper West Side apartment from the time he arrived in April until the weather warmed up. Now he hears a mechanical hum. Air conditioning everywhere, he said. That sums up spring in New York for me. You only hear birds when it’s too cold.

Rachmaninoff and again the Gershwins

Oliemans had wondered why there was no sign for Ellington at No. 333 or next door, No. 334, where Ellington lived for a few years. At 505 West End Avenue, there was not one plaque, but two, for composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff. He lived there from the mid-1920s until his death in 1940. During those years, he wrote, among other things, Rhapsody on Paganini’s theme.

Oliemans spotted the building’s tent ahead of me and in front of the group of dog walkers. All dogs love Rachmaninoff, he said with a laugh.

We had gone there after a stop in front of 316 West 103rd Street, another Gershwin house.

When they lived there, there was a ballroom. The Gershwins used it not for parties but for table tennis, according to Gershwin biographer Howard Pollack. The building also had an elevator. Morris used the elevator, Oliemans said, adding that one guest reportedly mistook George and Iras’ father for a man who was proud of a house with an elevator because someone had been hired to do the work.

It was obviously quite a chaotic house. Looking for a quieter place, Gershwin went to the Broadway Hotel to compose, Oliemans said.

The Gershwins lived there for four years. In 1929, George and Ira moved into adjoining penthouses at 33 Riverside Drive, West 75th Street. It turned out that Rachmaninov had lived at the same address, in a townhouse that had been demolished to make way for the building the Gershwins moved into.

This would have been the Iranian side, Oliemans said, looking up at the penthouses as we headed down the block. The one facing east.

George had one west, towards New Jersey and finally Los Angeles, where he died in 1937. It must have been a show place. According to one story, Ethel Merman, who was invited to the audition that led to her being cast in the Gershwin musical Girl Crazy, couldn’t decide whether she was more excited to audition or see the apartment.

Weather

On a mostly sunny day, showers and thunderstorms can be expected, which will continue into the evening. Temperatures near 70 degrees will drop to over 50 degrees in the evening.

ALTERNATIVE PARKING

Aborted due to smoky air.

The latest news from New York

Airnow.gov’s gauge stopped just short of unhealthy yesterday, registering 166 at 5:00 p.m., down from 172 an hour earlier, and a forecast of 120 today.

It was a welcome change from the more than 400 levels and dystopian look of New York on Wednesday, as smoke from wildfires in Canada clouded the skyline. The sky was a bright silver gray for most of Thursday. It could almost have been a foggy day, except that what hugged the ground didn’t burn as the day progressed.

Wednesday’s smoke carried particularly dangerous pollutants that worried people with asthma or other respiratory conditions. Yesterday, Mayor Eric Adams stated on Twitter that the air quality health advisory had been extended until 23:59 this evening. Continue to limit outdoor activity and mask up, he said. And Governor Kathy Hochul sent rangers trained to fight forest fires to Quebec the first such team sent there in nearly 20 years.

Hochul said the only place in New York not affected by the smoke was the Adirondacks, a mountain range in the upstate.

The message is: This is not over, he said.

Everything from schools to racetracks rewrote plans and schedules. The city’s public schools are holding classes remotely today. This mainly applies to high school students; the school was already scheduled to be closed for most elementary and middle school children.

Horse racing was canceled at Belmont Park, and practice was suspended at Belmont and Saratoga Springs upstate. Hochul announced heightened measures to protect horses at the state track in anticipation of Saturday’s Belmont Stakes.

But in much of New York, the mood was lighter, although many people continued to wear masks on the street. Some, like the man cleaning the steps of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood, are giving up theirs.

He said he simply got tired of it: Moving on to better air.

Selvin Duffus, who works near his father’s bicycle shop, echoed the idea. I’ll be fine in a few days, he said.

METROPOLITAN Diary

Observations on the D line

Dear Diary:

17:23 Five boys were sitting apart
Regardless of position
Lying in their seats
Afraid to look away
About their video games
17:30
Two angry women sat together
Both had braided hair
They seemed to be cursing
In a dialect foreign to me
When the melons ran away
Their grocery bag
17:36
The woman across the hall
Stared and called me a tourist
When I asked how he knew
He mentioned me smiling
17:38 Then he told me he was sad
But how sad he couldn’t decide
Her chest was constantly in the way
Makes telling impossible
If his heart was broken or broken

Danny Klecko

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Submit your submissions here and Read more about Metropolitan Diary here.

Great that we can gather here. See you on Monday. JB

PS Here it is today Mini crossword puzzle and Spelling contest. You can find all our puzzles here.

Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].

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