92nd Street Y not just for New Yorkers

If you've been to New York enough times that you start asking yourself, "I wonder what it's like to live here," then I have a suggestion for you.

Next time you're in the city, go to a program at the 92nd Street Y. This will not be like shopping on Fifth Avenue or eating at the Carnegie Deli. It won't even be like taking the ferry to Ellis Island.

Going to 92nd Street Y lectures is what New Yorkers do. Not everyone in New York, of course: You won't find a terribly glamorous or overbearingly hip crowd. But one characteristic we share is an insatiable curiosity. We tend to be a noisy bunch, prone to ask questions. Some of us wear sensible shoes. We have strong opinions.

Over the past couple years, I've heard "Deadwood" creator David Milch on the Jewish experience in the Wild West; a Q&A with aging rock star Lou Reed, who memorably railed against the poor sound quality of MP3 downloads; and "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" author Rabbi Harold Kushner, who counseled the New York audience, joined via satellite by other Jewish community centers across the country, on how to overcome disappointment. On the eve of the 2004 presidential election, I took my mom to hear Bush-bashing New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who got a very warm reception in this bluest of blue cities.

The catalog descriptions of lectures I didn't go to still entice me: Antonia Fraser on Louis XIV, Joseph Epstein on Alexis de Tocqueville, "Listening to Prozac" author Peter D. Kramer on Freud, Arianna Huffington and Nora Ephron with advice for women, Anthony Bourdain on how he learned to cook.

The 2007 listings are equally enticing: writers Adam Gopnik and Patricia Marx on loving and hating New York; Leonard Nimoy and wife Susan on collecting art; Neil deGrasse Tyson on black holes.

The Y is a YMHA, which stands for Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association. It was founded in 1874 by German Jews to offer classes in education and self-improvement. Over the years, it has moved several times, always growing and expanding in response to the changing community.

Now the aging building in a residential neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side sprawls over a block on Lexington Avenue to accommodate its warren of concert halls, dormitory rooms, health club and swimming pool, and highly regarded nursery school, which briefly figured in the Wall Street scandals of a few years ago when a Citigroup stock analyst was accused of manipulating a stock rating to help get his kids into the exclusive school.

Mid-morning, you can see the chauffeurs lined up outside the Y, dropping off the children of the city's movers and shakers, an entertaining side show to the vast number of services and programs the Y offers to the community at large.

One indisputable fact of New York life is that it's teeming with high-powered, talented people who are attracted to the city's energy. A lot of these people end up speaking at the 92nd Street Y.

That's why, the next time you're in town, I suggest you go to the Y Web site and see who's on tap for the week. Tickets are often available at the door. It's a quick subway ride uptown on the No. 6 train. There are lots of decent restaurants in the neighborhood.

Grab a bite to eat, then go hear someone unbelievably interesting and smart. With most lectures costing $25, it's much cheaper than a Broadway show and just a few dollars more than the Nova Scotia salmon and cream cheese on a toasted bagel at the Carnegie Deli.

As you leave the building after an invigorating evening and prepare to hail a cab to go back to your hotel, you can say to yourself, "This is New York!"

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On the Net:

92nd Street Y: http://www.92y.org/