Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll look at the unveiling of a street sign for an Estonian diplomat who served in New York for more than six decades. We’ll also look at the possibility of a meeting between President Trump and Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
The short but heavily traveled block of East 34th Street east of Second Avenue leads to a left turn and, after about 500 feet, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. A cathedral built to resemble one in Armenia has stood on the corner since the 1960s.
But today a street sign will be unveiled for the block’s new additional name — a “co-name,” as the city calls it. The street will now honor a diplomat from a different nation, Estonia.
The diplomat, Ernst Jaakson, was the Methuselah of envoys, serving in the foreign service for 79 years, 66 of them in New York. When he died in 1998 at age 93, the State Department said he had been the longest-serving diplomat in the world.
For much of that time, he was an emissary without a country. The Soviet Union annexed Estonia in 1940, but Jaakson continued to represent the Republic of Estonia in exile, first as consul in New York, later as consul general and chargé d’affaires. The Estonian Embassy in Washington credits him with helping to preserve the continuity of the Estonian Republic during the 51 years that it was controlled by Moscow.
After Estonia regained independence in 1991, when Jaakson was 86, he was named the ambassador to the United States and permanent representative to the United Nations. He later relinquished those titles but served as the consul general in New York until his death.
“He became a New Yorker and was a New Yorker until he passed away,” said Tarmo Punnik, Estonia’s consul in Washington. “I don’t think it will ever be that somebody has worked in the diplomatic service in New York” for as long as Jaakson did, he said, adding, “Nowadays it’s simply impossible.”
It was possible for Jaakson because, at age 14, he joined the staff of the Estonian Embassy in his hometown, Riga, now the capital of Latvia. His parents were Estonian. He graduated from high school and studied economics in college before he was posted to the United States.
After the Soviet annexation, the U.S. did not recognize the Soviet regime in Estonia (or in Latvia and Lithuania), and Washington let diplomats like Jaakson continue to issue passports. “He didn’t go back to Estonia — he didn’t say, ‘We are occupied, my work is done,’” said Sarah Luure, a counselor at the Estonian Embassy in Washington. “He saw it as, I will stay here because I still have to show that we are a country that has our values.”
But longevity is not Jaakson’s only claim to fame. Luure mentioned that the statement he issued when the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon in 1969 — “The people of Estonia join those who hope and work for freedom and a better world” — had figured in a question on a television game show.
“It’s important to hope,” Luure said, “but it’s also important to work for the hope to materialize.”
A corner with ‘way too many signs’
The co-naming “originated when the embassy came to us,” said Councilman Keith Powers, a Democrat who represents the area and who introduced a bill to designate Ernst Jaakson Way. The original idea was to co-name a different block, the one on the other side of Second Avenue. That would have taken in New York Estonian House, which occupies a Beaux-Arts building on the north side of the street.
But the city’s Department of Transportation told Powers that the northwest corner of Second Avenue and East 34th Street “had way too many signs on it already,” he said. (The department said in a statement that the “initial choice was not feasible from an operational standpoint.”)
“The embassy agreed to put it across the street” — on the northeast corner, in front of St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral, Powers said — and the City Council approved designating that block instead.
The co-naming was news to the cathedral’s communications director, Christopher Zakian, who said that “we have lived cordially with our friends at the Esto House,” shortening the name of Estonian House.
Zakian said that proposals had been floated to co-name 35th Street for St. Vartan. There is already a 2.76-acre park there that is called St. Vartan Park.
“Hopefully somebody will prevail on the City Council to have Second Avenue named for Armenians,” Zakian said. “Until then, we’re happy to honor Ernst Jaakson.”
Weather
Today, the high will be near 47. Tonight, there will be a chance of rain, with a low of 39.
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Mamdani seeks a meeting with Trump
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani wants to meet with President Trump to discuss affordability, the issue that defined his campaign.
Mamdani said that his team had contacted the White House to set up a meeting. His comments came a day after Trump — who belittled Mamdani during the campaign — said that he wanted to “see everything work out well for New York.”
My colleagues Jeffery C. Mays and Dana Rubinstein write that a meeting would signal a change in tone for both Mamdani and Trump. Mamdani said throughout the campaign that Trump was a threat to democracy. Trump called Mamdani a “100 percent communist lunatic” — Mamdani is in fact a democratic socialist — and threatened to hold up federal funds for the city if Mamdani won. Trump also endorsed Mamdani’s main opponent, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent.
Mamdani’s campaign said that he and the president had not yet spoken.
Mamdani has said that if the president is willing to find common ground on affordability, he is willing to work with Trump. But Mamdani has also said he doubts that they can come to terms.
“The president ran a campaign where he spoke about a promise to deliver cheaper groceries, a promise to reduce the cost of living,” Mamdani said on Monday at a news conference at a food pantry in the Bronx where he served meals to visitors. “We are seeing his actions and that of his administration in Washington leading to the exact opposite effect for New Yorkers.”
METROPOLITAN diary
Scent of a Carrot
Scent of a Carrot
Dear Diary:
When I was single, I lived in a studio apartment on Third Avenue between 14th Street and 23rd Street. My life centered on my job as a buyer at Bloomingdale’s and evenings spent with friends at bars and restaurants.
In 1978, I met the man who would become my husband at Club Med. He lived in Chappaqua and worked in Tarrytown. After deciding to move in together, we bought a co-op on 70th Street off West End Avenue.
I started to cook and, naturally, did my shopping on the Upper West Side. One of my big discoveries was Fairway on Broadway near 74th Street. The produce selection was overwhelming. I never knew there was such choice in fruits and vegetables.
As I walked around the store one day, I noticed a woman picking up several different types of carrots and smelling each bunch carefully.
This seemed rather odd, and I asked politely why she was smelling the carrots.
“Honey,” she replied, “if they don’t smell like carrots, they sure ain’t going to taste like carrots!”
— Eileen Tichauer
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Lauren Hard and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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James Barron writes the New York Today newsletter, a morning roundup of what’s happening in the city.
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