............................ On the Riverside........................

I'm an ignorant dumb hick.

I always knew who was buried in Grant's tomb, I just didn't know that Grant's tomb was just up the road a stretch. Rising up alongside the Hudson River around 120th St. is a huge monument that serves as Grant's final resting place. This building, encircled by a Gaudi-esque mosaic bench, is truly impressive, and dates back to the end of the 1800s. In the center of the building, down an open shaft of sorts, lies Grant alongside his wife, an eternal memory for New Yorkers to the fact that the North whooped the South's cotton-clad ass.

As usual in these sorts of places, there's a whole lot of semi-interesting historical information, strange-looking Ranger type guys, and cheesy souvenirs for sale. Oh--and as the sign outside says, "No drinks, food, restrooms" --Apparently urination, defecation and hydration are somehow offensive on hallowed ground. Weird.



I left the monument pretty quickly, still in awe of my ignorance about old-Uly's final resting place. I headed over the Riverside Church, interested to see if it really was possible to climb its tower and look out over the city. Unfortunately, it was not possible, as the tower is currently undergoing renovation, but after a lengthy process of signing in, I was finally able to enter the church.

I headed up toward the Nave, apparently the only area of the church into which I could enter, and underwent another signing in process. The guy that signed me in here was a nice guy, if a bit strange. He was an African guy, and after assisting me to put my guest badge "on my garments" so that I was an "official visitor," he proceeded to give me a lengthy, long-winded, and enthusiastic speech about the church.

To summarize our five minute interaction: "Put on this badge. You can visit those three rooms."

Incredibly infomative.

I checked out the church, which was quite nice--full of beautiful stained glass and great carved walls. I quickly moved onto the other two rooms (a tiny little chapel with a painting by some "famous" artist that I had never heard of and whose name I forget, and a room that is apparently--if I understood correctly--an Ethiopian chapel used for certain services, weddings, and the like), said goodbye to the strange and talkative man, and headed for the exit. While I enjoyed the visit, I'm not one to dilly-dally in my church visits, and so I felt I had done the place as much justice as I could expect from myself.

As I neared the exit, I decided to nip into the gift shop (what does a book of NY Times Crossword Puzzles have to do with God?) and have a brief look around. The shop sucked, so I continued to egress. As I did so, I heard the voice of the man I had originally seen upon entering the church (the first line of defense, if you will).

"Leaving so soon?" I heard him say.
"Well...yeah, I just wanted to have a look around."
"A look around in three minutes? That's not enough time for a look around."

As he spoke this last sentence, I started to sense a slightly combatative tone.

"Well, I'll be back for another visit," I said, "and I was here about ten minutes, not three..."-- trying to pacify him.
"When?" he asked
"Soon, I'll be back, for real," I told him, starting to get a bit freaked out by this guy's strange insistence on my really getting to know the Riverside Church.
"When?" he asked again.

The tension was palpable. I mumbled back another "soon" and got the hell out of the place.

I'm still wondering, hours later, how a peaceful church visit had so easily turned into the opening scene of some campy horror movie. It's truly a whole different world up there on the Upper West Side.