A Not-So-Cool Cafe

I couldn’t help but be horrified. And offended.
My eightysomething mom was in need of a cup of coffee. So we stopped at At65 Café, that glittery new place along Broadway in the newly revitalized Alice Tully Hall. Looks nice. I’d been thinking of going in there for quite awhile. So we did.
Big mistake. The hostess told us that we could sit anywhere along the wall (glass, of course) or outside or in the high bar seats, which I suspected might pose a challenge to my mom. The other, non-challenging seats inside were all taken. There were plenty of seats throughout the room, in what was apparently cordoned off as a dining area for meals. But it was late afternoon, and there was only one table taken—two at the most.
The sullen hostess never looked around to see that she was basically, by way of her instructions, tossing us out of the place. But she was. So we left.
Something else was left, too: a bad taste in my mouth. My mom was supporting Lincoln Center back before this hostess-bitch was born. Mom deserves better.
But it reminded me of something bigger and even worse. Many months back, before the latest round of needed construction at Lincoln Center, there was a mural up to hide some of the work. On the mural were pictures of many people enjoying a newly-revitalized Lincoln Center. It was a nice little hustle-and-bustle scene, a great New York night. Only on close examination did I realize I could not find any old people in the illustration. Here it was, a young yuppie’s dream: a Lincoln Center where nobody is aged.
If the people at Lincoln Center greet other seniors the way they met my mom’s needs last week, the dream could become a reality.
In the meantime, I'm left associating a center I love with some feelings I don't. I think if my mom had been younger and I had been thinnner, if we had been hipsters, we would have been treated more attentively. Or at least allowed to sit down.