Editor’s note: This is the second half of this two-part column. The first appeared in Thursday’s edtition.

Now let me tell you something about the American European Express train. And what I say is true not only of this train or this experience. It can happen in the Russian Tea Room, or in the Steinway Piano Showroom, or at the Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel, or standing beneath the mythical expanse of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. There are some places that, because of the eloquence of their architecture. the elegance of their décor, the inspiration imparted by their atmosphere or the combination of any or all of the above, lift us out of ourselves and make us into more.

One evening when I was new to Manhattan and bursting with an eighteen-year-old’s ecstasy in being alive, I, with similarly minded enthusiasts, was ambling along the promenade by the East River in the Carl Schultz Park.