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A while ago, we reported on the planned expansion of St. Nersess Armenian Seminary, the only Armenian seminary outside Armenia over in New Rochelle. Unfortunately, the seminary’s uppity neighbors got their proverbial knickers in a twist over the expansion and have pressured the City Council to deny planning permission (something that sounds very familiar to any Thorntonian; I guess the City of New Rochelle just doesn’t want outstanding educational institutions). Because of this the Board of St. Nersess met and decided it had to move elsewhere, so anyone who has a cool $15,000,000.00 to spare: it’s yours!

The house, on Stratton Road near Iona Prep, was built in the 1920’s by none other than William Randolph Hearst. He never lived there though, but just had it on hand for friends of his who were visiting New York and needed a place to stay. The building, to my recollection, is in fairly good condition, but the 8.65 acres it sits on seems rather small when you’re actually there.

Back in school we had some random day off that no other school had (Founder’s Day, I believe) and so Lucas de Soto and I, ever the adventurers, decided to pop over to the Armenian seminary to see what it was all about. (A Presbyeterian and a Catholic walk into an Armenian Seminary… sounds like the set-up for a bad joke). We turned up unannounced and everyone there was terrifically friendly. The secretary offered us cake, showed us around a bit and then introduced us to “the greatest expert on Armenian history ever” who was leaving for Philadelphia in under half an hour but would no doubt take a few minutes to answer any of our questions (unfortunately I’ve forgotten his name). He too was very friendly indeed and answered all our questions and told us about Armenia, the Church, the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem, and about the Divine Liturgy and how it differs from the Mass. We also got to chat with a few of the seminarians who were mulling about the kitchen. The historian even offered to teach us the Armenian language for free, and I was tempted to take them up on it. Lucas and I found it quite fascinating; well worth a day off from school.

New York University is a very odd fish. It was founded (as the University of the City of New York) in the 1830’s as an academic refuge for the city’s Dutch Reformed and Presbyterians opposed to the very Episcopalian flavor of Columbia College, though it was never officially aligned to either denomination. Around the turn of the century when Columbia moved uptown to a brand spanking new beaux-arts campus NYU decided to follow suit by moving even further uptown and building their own classically-inspired campus. They kept their buildings in Greenwich Village, however, and by the 1970’s found the Bronx campus (University Heights) to be a burden on the old chequebook and sold it to the City.

In the meantime, NYU was known (and pretty much had been since it was founded) as a “commuter school”, which is to say that most (though not all) of its students were from around the metropolitan area who travelled from home to school and back again. This has completely changed in the 1980’s, as graduates who had done well for themselves (and other philanthropists) began donating large sums to NYU and it remade itself in the image of the normal residential university (again, like Columbia). Of course, having forsaken their proper campus they were stuck with a number of buildings around Greenwich Village and so pretty much began to buy up any building of any size that came onto the market in the neighborhood. [A commenter on Curbed.com says that NYU is probably the largest landowner in the City after Trinity Church. The largest landowner is actually the (Catholic) Archdiocese of New York, followed by Columbia University (which happens to own Rockefeller Center, among other things). After that, I’m not sure but NYU probably has more land, while I would think Trinity Chuch probably has higher returns for the particular land they own.] NYU is now an almost entirely residential university in that even if its students are not living in dorms they are almost certainly not living with their parents nearby. Indeed, the proportion of native New Yorkers has fallen while those from other states and countries has risen markedly.

I’ve had a fair amount of experience with NYU. According to facebook.com I have seven friends there, though one spent his freshman year there and wisely thought “This place is for suckers” and transferred to Georgetown, while another friend (now graduated) never bothered to join the Facebook. Anyhow, in my final year of high school I had a good friend who was a year older than me (a Holy Child girl, troublemakers all) who went to NYU. Most weeks I would head down one afternoon after school (always Mondays actually; I’m a creature of habit and it suited her schedule) and have dinner and, to use the parlance of our times, “hang out” and “chill” until heading back up to yonder Westchester around 9 o’clock. As you can imagine, one met a fair number of NYUers during such perambulations and I have to say, though the young lady in question did have a pretty roommate from Connecticut (a ‘Darienfrau’ as Igby Slocum would say, though she was actually from Guildford), I not even once met a single person with whom I might want to voluntarily spend any of my time. They were, to a man, boring, self-obsessed nitwits, completey devoid of anything interesting. Though (I’m told) a number of Columbians were irate at me for having described their academy as “a fallen institution”, fallen though it is Columbia is still better than NYU. I have not nearly spent the same amount of time at Columbia as I have down at NYU and yet I’ve met interesting people from there. Also, my mother works at Columbia and though she likes to tell many hilarious stories of the freaks she has met amongst the studentry, she also tells of a number of very kind, nice, and interesting students she has had the occasion to meet. I very much doubt this would be the case if she was working at NYU. The most interesting people at NYU are actually the security guards who, although they all take their jobs terribly seriously (and rightly so), are usually much better for some decent chat than the students. Of course, Fordham students are superb and beat NYUers and Columbians any day of the week.

But who, then, are the other NYUers whom I count amongst my friends? They still manage to be interesting folks. Strangely enough none of the eight Violets I know are friends with one another. In addition to the Holy Child girl and the wise Georgetown transfer, there is 3) a fellow Thorntonian (guy), 4) a Bronxvillian guy, 5) a hilarious girl from Larchmont whom I’m good friends with, 6) and 7) two girls, both Californian, I know from the summer I spent at Oxford, and 8) a girl who is a member of my Upper East Side circle of friends. The reader will note the preponderance of females. NYU is very much a feminine university these days; I mean, heck, their athletic nickname is the Violets after all, not the Fighting Irish. Of the guys I know, one’s only their because he’s exceptionally talented in the realm of film, another knew well enough to transfer away from NYU, and the third is a fellow Thorntonian (Thorntonians are known for either surviving in adverse situations or cracking up and going loony, so that accounts for his survival to date). Every NYU girl complains about the lack of available men since NYU predictably attracts a large number of men of… err… “alternative lifestyle options”. Naturally this creates a situation, like the Anglican priesthood, where being a male at NYU one might automatically be tarred with suspicions of being “of an alternative lifestyle” and thus a very large proportion of self-respecting young men are deterred from even applying.

But back to Curbed. So NYU is building yet another dorm and many are complaining about their precious neighborhood being turned into the quarter for spoiled students. Ah well. I’m not terribly troubled. Greenwich Village to me is part of Manhattan’s vast underbelly, a term I use only half abusingly. It’s just that most places below Gramercy Park seem either too crowded or too weird for me to live. It’s not that the underbelly is ugly, there are some beautiful buildings and some quite charming parts. But as the Brits say about France, “lovely place, shame about the people”. And you know, if you go for the SoHo/Chelsea/Village scene, then fair enough. Enjoy it all you like. I’m just an Upper East Side kinda guy myself.

Much was made over the recent start of the hunt season here in the United Kingdom in spite of Comrade Blair’s ban, but New Yorkers mount their horses a little earlier. Above, a few members of the Windy Hollow Hunt in front of Old Glory.

The Rombout Hunt, in the Hudson Valley.

This little fellow from Long Island’s Smithtown Hunt wants out so he can hunt down that dagnabbed fox!

The Smithtown Hunt in the field.

Of course not all things stay the same. This year Orange County’s Windy Hollow Hunt got a lady to perform the annual Blessing of the Hounds.

One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons has to do with the Blessing of the Hounds. I can’t find it online, so I’ll wait until I’m home and then scan in it for your enjoyment.

Below, the Genesee Valley Hunt.

I’ve never heard of nor seen this house before. Unfortunately NYPL titles it merely as “A Westchester County Country House”. Not very helpful. I wonder if it’s still around. I rather like it. It has a nice simple, warm, cozy feel to it.

Ardolph Loges Kline, one of my grandfather’s predecessors as Commander of the Old Guard of the City of New York, on the 89th Anniversary of the Old Guard, April 22, 1915. Kline was the acting Mayor of New York who started the annual tradition of lighting the Christmas Tree in City Hall Park (or ‘holiday tree’ as it is now officially called). This ceremony has since been eclipsed in popularity by the Rockefeller Center tree lighting, but still takes place every year.

Here we have C.H. Heustis on his 85th birthday in 1922. Heustis served in General Burnside’s brigade during the Civil War, later becoming a broker on Wall Street. He never missed a single meeting or parade of the Old Guard once he joined.

From the Bettmann archive.

Last night I stumbled down into the city for the last time before I fly back to Britain tomorrow evening. I had the immense pleasure of taking a coffee with Adam Brenner and Dr. Nathaniel Kernell at Edgar’s Café on West 84th Street. Dr. Kernell, known varyingly as “the Good Doctor”, “Newbury”, “Mistah Lassitah”, and “the Genius of the Carpathians”, is the inimitable man who, in schooldays since past, had the task of teaching me Latin. (Our man Brenner is not a Thorntonian, but rather a Riverdale grad who had Dr. Kernell as a Greek and Latin tutor). His knowledge of subjects as varying as etymology, architecture, crime, and Jai alai is both profound and illuminating. Furthermore, he is gifted with a manner that is warm and inviting, if perhaps tempered by a tendency to ramble. The wandering tangents of Dr. Kernell, however, are not ad infinitum irritations but rather intriguing paths along which one picks up much more information, learning, and amusement than one would ever imagine. School would not have been the same without him, nor the quotations he bestowed upon our ears like priceless pearls. I foolishly only recorded a few in a little notebook I can’t find, but I believe Clara de Soto preserved more for posterity. I will have to get her to send me a few of the jewels.

Nonetheless dear readers, I’m back off to Caledonia tommorrow evening and thus of course it may be a few days before I settle in and get things organised enough to post again. I am, to boot, heading down to London pretty soon for the U.K. launch of the New Criterion as well. Fun shall be had by all!

My ownly major aesthetic gripe against the Sun is the layout of the front page of their Friday second section, currently titled ‘Arts+’. (The ‘plus’ presumably refers to the inclusion of the Sports pages towards the end). Below at left is Section II as it appeared in the September 2-4 edition. The sans-serif font is just a tad too Gannett for a publication as esteemed as the Sun. To the right and below it I have placed two proposals for a reform of the Section II front page, both of which, I believe, are much more in keeping with the general aesthetic and demeanor of the rest of the New York Sun.

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