NYC Visit

The view of Alexander Hamilton's home outside our bedroom window in Emilie and Xavier's place in Harlem.

Rosie and I spent the weekend in New York City with our three children -- Emilie, Stephen and Marc -- who live there. It was a fun filled three days with lots of good food, walking, great conversation and interesting sights with these great children. Emilie and her husband, Xavier, were very gracious hosts and we loved their new home in the Hamilton Heights section of Harlem.

Above is the view outside our bedroom window -- Alexander Hamilton's home is directly across the street and will be a great place to visit when the current renovation is completed. Their home was built in 1899 and has high ceilings, beautiful finish work and 3,500 distinctive square feet. It is in a very nice section of Harlem right next to City College of New York. As a boy I never would have imagined spending a weekend in Harlem. During the sixties Harlem was not a great place. It obviously has changed dramatically since then.

Friday morning Rosie and I went to the temple in Manhattan -- a beautiful, small temple that provides a serene and peaceful setting in the middle of a sea of buildings and humanity.

Friday afternoon Emilie gave us a tour of her office in Manhattan where she is the Executive Assistant to Steve Schwarzman, the co-founder and CEO of Blackstone Capital and according to Forbes Magazine the 52nd richest person in America with a net worth of $5.9 billion. It is on the 44th floor and has an amazing view of Manhattan.

Emilie and Rosie check out a picture in her boss' office.

Then Stephen gave a us a full tour of his office at Martha Stewart Living on 26th street. It was very interesting to see where and how they put together the Martha Stewart Living magazine where he is an Art Director.

Rosie and Steve at the entry to Steve's office building at Martha Stewart Living.

Friday night Steve and Emilie treated us to an exceptional meal at the Standard Grill and Marc, Xavier and John Derian joined us. We walked the Highline Trail -- a new park which was built on the elevated train tracks in lower Manhattan and then checked out Steve's new apartment which he has decorated beautifully in his signature style.

Saturday morning we checked out a flea market in Manhattan. It was a giant garage sale with lots of things that would not sell in the local Goodwill or Deseret Industries. But there were some very interesting people (which is true every place in Manhattan) and one can always find a few fascinating things in a place like that. Rosie found some beads she could give to her Young Women at Girl's Camp this summer.

We spent much of the afternoon at Stephen's friend John Derian's stores in lower Manhattan. He has a wonderful self made business (http://www.johnderian.com/index_home.html) selling furniture, art, his proprietary decoupage and other high end merchandise. John was very generous with us as he bought us all dinner at a great restaurant, Red Rooster.

Xavier gave Rosie a ride to their place on the back of his scooter after dinner on Saturday night.

We bored Xavier and John that evening with some old family videos and talked about what it was like to grow up in the Johnson household.

Sunday morning Rosie and I walked about a mile to the beautiful LDS church for services. This is one addition to the plethora of churches found in Harlem. Apparently there are more churches/mile here than almost any other place in the United States. (However, they are far outnumbered by the hair salons that are found in about every other storefront.) As you can see below it is a distinctive church with an LDS feel in this very urban setting.



Brad in front of the Harlem LDS church.

We had lunch in Central Park -- one of, if not the best urban park in the world -- and then made an all too short stop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In all my trips to NYC I had never been to the Met and I was most impressed. Next time we come to NYC Rosie and I want to spend a full day or two trying to appreciate the beautiful art in one of the best museums in the world.

We walked up to the Conservatory Gardens in the Park before heading back to Emilie and Xavier's place for dinner where Marc made his delectable pizzas and some salad for us.Rosie, Marc, Steve and Emilie in Central Park.
Brad, Rosie Steve, Marc and Emilie in front of the Metropolitan Museum of ArtRosie, Marc and Steve check out one of the Roman and Greek halls in the MetSteve, Marc, Emilie and Rosie enjoy the Conservatory Gardens.

It was a wonderful trip to the big city. There are an incomprehensible number of things to see and do there. But the reason for our visit was to be with these three marvelous children who we don't get to see very often. We loved our time together -- the discussions, meals and fun -- and look forward to our next time together sometime this summer.