Over the hills, under the moon - and off the beaten path

  Every single Sunday afternoon for the last 30 years, come rain or come shine, an elderly lady in Harlem opens her home to complete strangers. Within a few hours all of us, sitting on rickety chairs, scattered around her apartment, have become good friends. The woman is Marjorie Elliott and her love project, in memory of her dead sons, is to celebrate life through jazz music.  It started in 1992. Her first son died on a Sunday and the Sunday concerts, which she arranged soon after, were a way for her to live through the pain, sorrow, and grief. - Sundays are the days, I look forward to. They are the reason, I am still alive, she told me when I, many years ago, visited her place for the first time.  Since then, yet another son has died and her third son disappeared a few years ago and has never been found. Still, the celebration of life continues at Marjorie's, and you need no tickets to participate.  There are no door charges nor any drink minimum. You just show up ...

One thing about New York which always amaze us is how it is constantly changing. Look away for what seems like an instant, and - bam - the view has completely changed! Having been away for just a few years, an entirely new part of the city has grown up in the backyard of the apartment in Chelsea, where we have stayed during our last visits. The area is called Hudson Yards and it's the largest private real-estate development in US history spanning seven blocks from 30th to 34th street between 10th and 12th avenue It is still far from finished, but from our windows, we can now see the rising spires in this brand new  area When we last visited New York in 2016 the area looked like this The first tower - 10 Hudson yards - was months away from opening and the rest of the building sites were just marked by the regiments of cranes Now it looks like this - 10 Hudson Yards is now almost hidden behind other highrises forming a tiara of towering glass at the northern end of the High Line park...

Walking into the dark and quite gloomy McSorley's in New York's East Village is almost like returning home.  The old ale house lies just next to the beat-up (and VERY cheap!) hotel, where we - as young kids - used to stay a lot, when we began coming to NYC. Now we're back and even though NYC is constantly changing (and our sleeping quarters  today are mightily improved!), McSorley's remains the same The walls are still filled with old posters, photos, and mementos, most of them put up more than 170 years ago, and the floor is still covered with scattered sawdust to take care of the spills from the large quantities of cheap beer being handed along. And more important. In a world of baffling choices, inside McSorley's the choice is easy - light or dark? Here you don't have to confront the multiple lists of artisan beers you find in many modern brewpubs. McSorley's only serves their own two brews - a light ale and a dark ale We sit at our usual table which soon...

Have you ever dreamt of leading a band of a thousand bagpipers, followed by several battalions of marching soldiers and some hundred baton twirling cheerleaders, while massive crowds were cheering you on? Probably not, but today I actually lived this crazy dream at the huge New York City Saint Patrick's Day Parade.  It happened when I found myself walking down the middle of  Fifth Avenue next to Eric Adams, the recently elected mayor of the city  (Sidebar to Danish readers: While a Danish mayor will hardly be recognized outside city council - a NYC mayor is a mega powerwatt celebrity, who is  constantly appearing everywhere like a political Energizer Bunny - always surrounded by huge crowds of helpers, security people and hangers-on) Anyway. Truth be told - it wasn't just Eric and me marching in front of the parade!   I had followed some fellow journalists through the heavily guarded police barricades and now my colleagues were busy at wor...