J'Adore: Breakfast Club, New York Dads with Big Responsibilities

Sipping my French Roast in Carversville, scanning the New York Times, it isn’t every morning that you find a friend of yours as the feature of a Fashion & Style segment. An article about men dropping off the kids at school belongs on Inside Her Mind. Then I read that the post-drop off Breakfast Club is in Tribeca, my Manhattan neighborhood next-door to Battery Park.

I said, “Let me J’Adore it.” Finally I look at the photo, saying “I know that guy!” Roark Dunn is a friend of mine.

Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
This is the scene, early in the am, on Washington St., several moments from my apartment. So many New York stories are about the glamour, the fast-paced business life, the money. When the focus is school and family life, the images are of black limos dropping off kids at Dalton and other upper-East side schools.

There’s another side to life in Manhattan, and it’s the downtown side. One of the aspects of life in Battery Park and also Tribeca that I love most is the family life: kids roller blading, and trudging along the sidewalks under too-heavy book bags.  As the NY Times article points out:

The group’s self-proclaimed founder, Roark Dunn, a consultant in the fashion industry, said he was inspired by the moms he saw pairing up after morning drop-off. “I was envious,” he said, “so I said to Josh, ‘Why don’t you and I go out?’ Then Josh started bringing David and David started bringing Chris.”

Some guys were slow to grasp the concept. “Josh used to ask me if I wanted to get coffee, and I was like, ‘Not really,’ ” said Karl Taro Greenfeld, the journalist-novelist. “I didn’t know he was inviting me to a ‘Thing.’ ”

At first, Mr. Katz said, the wives tended toward jealousy and suspicion. “There was a lot of ‘I wish I had time to have coffee with my friends for two hours,’ ” he said. “They were like: ‘What do you guys talk about? Do you talk about us? Do you talk about sex?’ ”

Make no mistake, these are world-class dads with high-expectations in life children. Their P.S.234 school has its own website:  

Their Breakfast Club venue, City Hall,  is NOT your average coffee shop.  

Yet, a brief look at websites and blogs tells me that the concerns of these parents are exactly the same as yours: overcrowding, the need for their kids to get a great education in today’s world.  

For more info on Tribeca (Triangle Below Canal) and Lower Manhattan, including Battery Park and Wall Street living:

Downtown Express

Tribeca

Tribeca Trib

I dashed over to YouTube to get you a Tribeca video and find myself drowning in Tribeca dental office videos and, of course, news of the Tribeca Film Festival. Another day.

I did find a Monday morning Kenny G song called Tribeca, which then took me to another of my favs: Summertime. You may get 15 versions of Summertime, before Fall. Enjoy.

Kenny G: Tribeca

Click on the photo to follow a terrific plane flight into a Manhattan skyscraper night. This vision is also embedded in my own senses … that will be the $1 story about my first trip to New York City.  This week, the memory is my $1000, Burning Rubber car ride to Zurich.

Kenny G: Summertime 

Must run.

Love,
Anne