To the 500-year-old university for an orchestra concert by the region's professional ensemble. For some reason, the first row is sold at balcony proces, and the house and ensemble are small enough that the sound mix in the center front is quite good. Ere now. For the second piece, they wheeled out the concert grand, and I was staring right at the sounding board. The Grieg piano concerto. The nerves should recover by autumn. Otherwise very enjoyable.
Took a closer look at the architecture of the university on the way in. The massive building that had so impressed me before is laid out orthogonal to the main pedestrian avenue of the campus, but immediately across the street from it is an unpreposessing building at a slightly different angle, apparently the old gymansium, built in the 18th c. by the Jesuits, then run by the Pietists. Classical lines, everything square, unlike the quasi-gothic rounding in the main building across the street (which otherwise clearly draws from it). Apparently the meeting-place in 1848 as well. After looking at it for some time, the larger building across the way seemed modern and diminished. Classicism.
In the city, before 7:00 AM Mass, I would sometimes sit on the steps of the cathedral, waiting for it to open. Usually, I would think back to the time when the old church and Jesuit college was there, think about the philosophy that they might have been mulling in the shade of the trees at what became 50th and 5th. That gave me the grounding to enter the Rockefeller Center vibes of the cathedral. You do have to do that in NYC, especially now. Recollection. Else, you're just living in a theme park.