Everyone likes to slag off the Upper East Side -- and really, who can blame them? -- but you have to admit it has a very high concentration of diners, perhaps the highest in the entire city, and lots of them are very good. This fact alone almost makes up for the rest of the neighborhood's faults: the overcrowded 6 train; the innumerable "REAL 2BR!!" apartments that are clearly converted studios; the charmless and soiled white-brick apartment towers from which emerge disoriented elderly women walking their skittish, piss-spraying mop-dogs; the frat-friendly sidewalk cafes spilling over with smug, backward-hatted goons; lost tourists who can neither find nor pronounce the Guggenheim; and of course the string of chicken joints and chain bakeries around the 86th St. station with names like "Hot and Crusty," "Flaming Embers" and "Chirping Chicken" that are crimes against both cuisine and the rules of English usage.
There used to be a time (and I think we all know exactly when this time ended) that you could be in polite company and say something to the effect of, "That entire neighborhood should be knocked down and/or blown up!!" and your companions would nod in emphatic agreement.
But I digress. Despite its crimes, the UES has undeniably great diners, the best of which might be the Mansion Diner on York and 86th, and what makes the Mansion so great is not only their big and juicy cheeseburgers but also the enormous jelly donuts they keep on the front counter under a glass dome. Perhaps the curvature of the glass distorts my perception of things, but I do not think it is exaggerating much to say that those jelly donuts are the size of throw pillows.
Before they renovated a few years ago, the walls inside the Mansion were covered with endearingly tacky mirrors, so when you first entered the joint you would think, "Wow, look at that donut! And that one... and that one...!" ad infinitum. Every time I walked into the Mansion, I'd imagine myself going to work on one of those donuts -- it would probably take up a whole platter, and I'd need a fork and a knife, plus maybe one of those lobster bibs to catch those stupendous strawberry jelly dribs -- and I would vow to save room for desert. But then, of course, I would go ahead and gorge myself to the bursting point on the cheeseburger deluxe, leaving no room for the donut. And after leaving the tip, I'd walk out through the Hall of Donuts berating myself. Next time! Next time!
Next time finally came on the morning after The Day That Changed Everything. I was living on 9th Street at the time, and everything was fine ("fine" being a relative term in these circumstances) until the wind shifted and the apartment filled up with unbearable fumes. I ended up in the Upper East Side through some combination of fear, shock, the longing for comfort, and simple expedience (the person I was staying with until the fumes cleared lived up there). Naturally, that same psychology led me to the Mansion.
It was a weird day. The whole world was going to hell, but hey -- you got a free Wednesday off work and the mayor was pleading for everyone to save America by going out and buying a bunch of crap. My sense of everything was way off. Those white-brick monstrosities suddenly seemed inoffensive. And perhaps there were even worse fates in the world than being allowed to live another day in a city that allows an eatery like Hot and Crusty not only to name itself after what sound like the symptoms of a venereal disease but to actually thrive and grow into a chain. We were still alive, all of us! What terrible good luck!
I was propelled through that brunch by patriotic gluttony. After downing several cups of strong coffee I plowed through a complete "Lumberjack Special" -- three enormous pancakes, three scrambled eggs, white toast with butter and jam, heaps of home fries, and a side plate piled with bacon, sausage, and ham. I heard myself, with my mouth crammed full of gnashed meat, saying awful things like, "You're either with us or against us!!" and "Now they'll see what happens when you mess with America!!" In my mind I was already picking out a pair of new sneakers.
That was the person I was when I finally had the Mansion diner donut. It was a divine donut. When I slashed open the donut flesh with my greasy sausage knife, the jelly flowed freely. I can still remember how cold that jelly tasted. I remember the sweetness of the powdered sugar on the tip of my tongue.
I did not deserve that donut. I would like to go back to the Mansion and try it again -- this time with a clear mind, without greed or fear or resentment or empty scorn -- but things are not so simple now. The Mansion has been renovated. The mirrored walls are gone. The booths are no longer so commodious. They used to have those amazing old-fashioned after-dinner mints that you had to fish out of the bowl with a plastic spoon -- you know, those chalky white mints with the colored blobs inside of them -- but those are now just a memory. And although others have sworn to me that the donuts are still there under the glass dome, when I visited last year the dome was empty.
The burgers are still great, though.
June 9, 2008
Remembrance of Donuts Past: Mansion Diner Jelly Donut, 9/12/01
