UWS's Barbao w/ P, D, C & A

The past delivered a big hug to the present Sunday night as I reunited with dear friend Cynthia Neuwalder, alongside mutual pals Perry and David, for dinner at beautifully appointed Upper West Side Vietnamese restaurant Barbao.

I also held my own little reunion with the nabe I first lived in when I moved to NYC in October 1995. In fact, Perry and I shared the second-floor apartment for six glorious weeks at 214 West 82nd Street, which I took over from her when she and David married at the end of the year (where she gave my daily outfits a nod or a no... with mostly no's! I pretty much completely transformed my wardrobe within those first couple months transitioning from D.C. to NYC). (Photo above today; below is then. Note new windows.)

My rent then: $610 for a two-room 400-sf studio. That was market value... then. Sadly, today, a newcomer to the city couldn't afford the space. Realtor Perry tells me that it now rents for more than $2,000 a month.

Ayhan joined us at the end of dinner as we moved to tavern The Dead Poet on Amsterdam, just a block from said apartment. P and I were chuckling over the fact that when we both lived in the hood, there was no such thing as a Verizon Wireless store, since cell phones had yet to become ubiquitous. Who knows, perhaps in five or 10 years, signature 20-something bar Jake's Dilemma on Amsterdam will become a destination for mobile brain implants.

Here's the gang: meese, P, David, Ayhan & Thia.Cynthia, meese & Perry.And Cynthia & meese (god, I look dreadfully homo here).