John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Tips for Visiting NYC

Travel tips for visiting NYC.

If you are meeting three male friends who are highly educated and they ask you to meet at MOMA at 5:30pm, you may have troubles if you assume too much.

I assumed that since it was 5:30 they wanted to eat dinner, albeit a bit early.

I further assumed, rather excitedly, that my friends had suggested an Italian restaurant. Pronounced MO-MA. Like Italian, I assumed, for MAMA.

I imagined big homemade meatballs from an Italian family recipe.

Then there is the problem of asking cab drivers to take you, please, to “Moma’s restaurant.” The first taxi driver pulled away without letting me in. I assumed he thought it was only a few blocks away and wanted a bigger fare.

Finally, when my exasperated taxi driver gave up on finding a Moma’s restaurant, he dropped me off at The 21 Club. I asked the kind doorman if there was a “Moma’s restaurant” nearby and apologized for not going to 21 Club. He politely told me one block over. Finally!!

And there I saw my three friends…although running a little late and by this time quite hungry. We were outside MOMA’s–which seemed to be more than just a restaurant (in fact it was big and long and seemed to include works of art as well). “Nice!” I thought to myself.

I asked someone working beside the entrance where the restaurant was. He laughed and said, “Restaurant?! This is the Museum of Modern Art! There’s no restaurant!!” And laughed again.

I alerted my friends they had mistakenly chosen an art museum that lacked a restaurant.

The friend who suggested MOMA’s said, “Oh, I’m not hungry.”

And it was about this time that I put two and two—really more like one and one–together.

We weren’t going to an Italian restaurant with homemade meatballs like I told my wife. We were going to the Museum of Modern Art. Which didn’t even have a concession stand.