Dear Diary,
My husband, who owns a small violin shop on the Upper West Side, returned on a recent night from a musical instrument convention in Los Angeles. Drooping with violins, cases and a dozen bows, he shuffled through the Kennedy Airport terminal, waited in the long taxi line and finally settled into a cab.
When the driver turned to ask where my husband was going, he turned out to be an old friend he hadn’t seen in years: the owner of a Turkish nightclub, Fazil’s, long since demolished, where my husband had performed into the wee hours every weekend in a Middle Eastern ensemble with belly dancers while he was a violin student at Juilliard 30 years ago.
How strange: 13,000 taxis, and on a cold winter night his was the one with a warm, familiar face. And in the reminiscence on that long ride back to the Upper West Side, one more miniature history of New York, its constant razing and renewal. The long line of Turkish, Armenian and Greek nightclubs on the West Side (Fazil’s wa one of the last) gave way to offices and condos. Its owners moved on, and at least one bought a taxi medallion when they were a steal.
Conservatory students, orchestra-poor, move on, too, and at least one eventually set up a shop where violins are rented, bought and played with friends. Altered dreams; New York lives. When the taxi finally arrived, Fazil refused the fare.
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