Dumbo

The other day I took a cab to cover Gordon Brown speaking at NYU. The cab driver outside my office on West 33rd Street asked me how I wanted to go and I really couldn't think it out, so I said "whichever way you think is best." That kind of answer is the kiss of death in Rio de Janeiro and maybe it would have been back in here in New York before I moved to Brazil in 1994 but I was pretty relaxed about it now. I spent the next couple of minutes trying to send an e-mail with my iPhone to someone's Tmo-mail so they could get it as a text message and when I looked up we were in the West Village and I was kind of surprised to see it, I hadn't been in the neighborhood since I got back in September. It hadn't changed that much in terms of character just the specific stores and bars mostly but it was still a surprise. But that was nothing compared to what happened to Dumbo. I headed down to Dumbo _ Down Under Manhattan Bridge (yO) _ last night for this auction to raise money for my daughter's school and the whole neighborhood was totally transformed since the last time I'd been there maybe 17 years ago. I met one of my serious girlfriends at a party in dumbo back in the late 80s and I'd been back a few times or gotten lost around there for various reasons. Back then it was pretty much just factories and lofts. But now it was all big glass windows boutiques and boom! It was very impressive.