Narnia in New York.
Dinner, behind the black door, at Nōksu.
I grew up on the F train. Seriously. I started taking it before I could walk, from the time my mom single-handedly hauled my very heavy 1970s carriage down the stairs from our tiny one bedroom apartment near Lincoln Center, down Broadway and over to the 6th Avenue line.
As a toddler, on F train trips to the big library near Bryant Park, I fell asleep on her shoulder. In elementary school, we took the F to the zoo in Central Park, a long ride so I slumbered and drooled on her lap. Honestly, I still find the F train to be a great place to have a nice nap.
Later when we moved to Forest Hills, my brother and I rode the F to middle and high school at Highland and then Kew Forest. When I went to Brooklyn Law, I’d hop on the F at Carroll Street to get to my fancy summer associate job at Chadbourne & Parke in Rock Center, and then later when I lived in Nomad, I took it up to my offices at Shearman & Sterling.
When I got married and we moved to Dean Street, it was the Bergen Street stop, dragging my own kids up and down the stairs squished inside some convoluted kimono baby wrap which I never really got the hang of. And now that I live in Carroll Gardens, I get on at Carroll Street again, where the F takes me to dinner at various fabulous destinations off the 6th Avenue line: meals at Le Rock, Ivan Ramen, Raf’s, Shuka, Semma, Cafe Altra Paradiso, Via Carota, and so many more.
I’ve ridden the F with Christian missionaries asking me to go to church with them on Sundays and black-hat members of Chabad offering a shake of a Lulav and Etrog on Sukkot. I’ve taken the F with my head in my library book tears streaming down my face. I’ve ridden it to the theater, most recently for Purlie Victorious, and to my first night at the opera for the exceptional and essential Dead Man Walking. And this year, Eiji started taking the F to Bryant Park for high school.
So the F kind of tells the story of my life; it’s one long thread of rusty track through every chapter I’ve had in this city. It’s kind of crazy when I think about it; if Patty Smith hadn’t written M Train, I’d consider naming my memoir (which would sell no copies) F Train.
But here’s the thing: Of all the time I’ve spent on the F, I’d never eaten dinner in the F train station, that is until the other night. That’s when I got one of 13 coveted seats at the counter at Nōksu, a magnificent ode to high-end Korean fine dining located in a former barber shop deep in the bowels of the Herald Square F Station. I love the F train even more now.
