NYC October 07

Tuesday, 10.10.07

Our last day in the city. It was hard to believe it was already time to go home.

After coffee we walked through Inwood and to the Cloisters, the medieval arm of the Met, where Michael worked as the librarian. It was a lovely walk, as the scenery changed quickly from the Little-Dominican-area of Inwood to a wooded park and on to thick wooded hills and a quiet, leafy walk uphill to the Cloisters. The building was gorgeous, castle-style, built early in the century.

Inside, Michael showed us the library, which is a wonderful, quiet, oak-paneled room filled with volumes of books aligned neatly under high ceilings. Talk about a great place to spend your days.

We walked the grounds then, looking first at the art and pieces of architecture, then moving on to the Unicorn Tapestries, probably the most famous works in the place. They were impressive, more for their age than anything, and I have to admit they made me feel sad. They depict a typical human reaction to the strange or fantastic: Hunt it down and kill it.

After that we made our way out to the gardens, which were beautifully laid out and kept.

From there we made our way back up the hill toward H&Ms apartment. In lieu of a great neighborhood deli, we found ourselves back at Grandpa's, where C got manicotti and I got a slice of pepperoni and a sausage roll. Mmmmm-MM! Great food.

We bought some flowers for the apartment and went back up to pack. Then it was off to the airport and so long to NYC. As it ended up, we would be spending the night in Denver as we sat on the tarmac at Laguardia for about 3.5 hours before being allowed to take off. But that's another (unpleasant) story.

As for NYC, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and can't wait to go back, but I have to admit it made me feel no small amount of regret. I can still see the application packet from NYU that I filled out for grad school before being offered an assistantship and teaching job at Eastern Illinois U, which would pay for my school and get me good experience, but would also keep me confined to the cornfields and culture of central Illinois. I know: Regrets do me no good. But I felt them, and still feel them, about missing my chance to spend some of my formative years in this amazing place.

But I'll be back.

NYC October 07

Monday, 10.9.07

After some days of fairly nonstop activity and interaction, a body--and a mind--need a break. So on Monday I made it a point to haul myself out of bed early, get a cup of coffee made, and grab a seat at the table with a good book to chill out and enjoy the silence. So I did, enjoying the stillness and aloneness with a view out the window onto 207th St.

When everyone else got up about an hour later, we tore into the chocolate bobka and had more coffee and fruit. We were headed to the Museum of Modern Art for a quick tour of their greater paintings. With a $20 admission, the only reason we could make a quick tour of it was because both Heidi and Michael work for the Met, which meant we got in free. Woohoo! Therefore we could skip to the 5th and 6th floors, breeze around the Pollacks and the Picassos, the Miros and Monets, the Klimts and the deKoonings, spending two hours before bolting for lunch without feeling bad.

It was a great rush tour, too, filling me with that unbelieving awe I feel at the Chicago Art Institute, being in the presence of such masterworks as you see so often that you become desensitized to their actual physical existence.

So, from there we were making our way toward the West Village, and we came upon the Columbus Day Parade on the way to the subway. I watched while Cathy ran into a store to shop for boots.

When we got to the West Village, we walked around for a while looking for our next meal when we came across the Crumpler store. We went in, Cathy bought a bag, and then we headed across the block to an Italian joint for a snack. We got mussels in a fennel cream sauce with a salad of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, and arugula, with a glass of white wine each.

Next up, Bleeker Street Records. Unfortunately, the only really remarkable thing about the store was the gargantuanly fat cat they had patrolling the aisles. I think I blew my wad at Other Music a couple days previous, so I actually left without buying anything. More shopping led us to a coffee shop where we got a raspberry mousse and a couple coffees. We walked some more, shopped some more, and walked some more.


Eventually we made our way to a Thai place for dinner, and here we'd have the first bad meal of our trip. Bland Chineseish food passing itself off as Thai was the order of the day at and it's not worth saying more than that.

We'd intended to see some jazz this night, but a lackluster lineups at the joints in the East Village, a sold-out door at the Vanguard, and tired tired feet won out, and we hit the subway to make our way home.

NYC October 07

Sunday, 10.8.07

Finding our way home from Randall's Island late on Saturday night took a toll. So we were slow to rise come Sunday morning. We were slated to meet Cathy's friend Christina, who she's known since high school, and her husband Thomas, at Barney Greengrass' deli on the upper west side.

They were waiting on the sidewalk when we arrived, and it was only a minute before we got our table. Chris is a violinist who plays in a pretty amazing array of Broadway productions and other gigs of note (she was trying out for the Radio City Music Hall Christmas show a couple days after we saw her) and Thomas is owner of the Gitterman Gallery on East 75th. I'd never met either of them before, and to be honest I didn't know what to expect.

Immediately, though, any apprehension or anxiety was laid to rest. Wonderful people they are, of course, and we had a really nice time and an amazing breakfast. I had the everything bagel with sturgeon, which was out of this world, and I got to taste Cathy's salmon and eggs which were also fantastic. We even got to grab a chocolate bobka for Heidi, as it's her favorite.

After breakfast we walked around the neighborhood with C and T, into Central Park for a stroll around the grounds. What a stunning place. You hear about Central Park and what an amazing feat of greenspace preservation it is, but until you leave the noise and motion of the streets and disappear into the inner reaches of the park you just can't really understand what it means to have this park in the middle of this city. The 6-mile bike path, all the winding trails, The Rambles, Strawberry Fields, the contour and trees and rocks and endless little enclaves where you can truly find peace and quiet make up one of the most impressive parks I've seen.

We may not have seen the Statue of Liberty on this trip, but we did see the Dakota Building, an icon in its own right. And though I'm no big Beatles or Lennon fan, it was a pretty powerful thing to see that place and the tribute to the man right across the street in the park.

From the Park we went to pay a visit to Thomas' gallery, which was a lovely space on East 75th St. Besides having two bright and airy rooms for exhibits, as well as open hallways and small adjacent spaces for hanging photos, the building had a beautiful garden-courtyard out back, an asset that in this city I would imagine is pretty valuable.

After we took our leave of C and T, we walked on and did some shopping before stopping for coffee and a crepe at the Follow Me Cafe. Then, more shopping, before heading back toward the park for a rendezvous with Heidi and Michael and Harlan and Kristin at Strawberry Fields. We had a bit of a doughnut picnic, as H and M had paid a visit to the Donut Plant and were thoughtful enough to share their bounty with us.

After the picnic we headed toward the Columbia University area to find some dinner. We followed H&Ms recommendation and went to a small Ethiopian place near campus called Massawa, and the food was outstanding. This was my first restaurant experience with Ethiopian food, and it didn't disappoint. We shared a platter full of different items, all vegetarian, from lentils to sweet potatoes to all manner of other stuff, scooped up with pieces of spongy bread torn from one of the many rolls of it that came with dinner. No utensils. Great meal.

Cathy and I walked back through campus toward the subway, where we caught a train back up to Inwood for the night. On the way back to the apartment from the stop, we noticed a big gathering of guys outside the window of an open shop. Suddenly they erupted into yelling and movement, and what I thought was the start of a fight turned out to be a bunch of guys watching the Yankees try to pull one out against the Indians. No such luck, as we'd later find out, but it was entertaining to see groups of people gathered outside every window with a tv going the whole way home.

When we got back to the apartment, H&M were still up, so they put out a spread of cheese and pickles and salami and chocolate and bread and opened made some cocktails and we talked for a whole longer before retiring for the night. Quite the full and accomplished day.

NYC October 07

Saturday, 10.6.07

This was the day we'd planned around. The reason we'd booked the trip. Out on Randall's Island, a rock and roll show to beat all rock and roll shows would occupy us from afternoon til late in the night. The Arcade Fire headlined, with LCD Soundsystem, Blonde Redhead, Les Savy Fav, and Wild Light supporting.

The day started a bit slowly, as we took our time getting out of bed and going. Soon enough we were on the subway to Harlem, this time the 1, as the A shut down at midnight Friday for a weekend of maintenance. We'd planned to meet up with Harlan and Kristin (friends from Austin) and Cara and Jesper (friends from Boise now in Portland, Maine) at the M
&G Diner on 125th at Broadway. We'd heard this was a no-frills soul-food diner that Bill Clinton called one of his favorites, and we were excited.

The joint looked just like I thought it would: long and narrow, a formica counter running the distance, a jukebox on the near wall next to a table crammed into the window corner, chocolate cake on the counter, grease in the air. The staff, all middle-aged black women, were in scrubs. We grabbed seats at the counter and waited for the others to arrive. Harlan and Kristin got there first, and as both are vegetarians to differing degrees, this place didn't exactly excite them. She had milk, he had chocolate cake. Sheezus.

Cathy and I, on the other hand, went after it: Chicken and waffles, coffee for me and coke for her. Hell yeah. And man, the food was as good as the help was surly. Not 10 words passed between us and the waitresses, but that chicken, perfectly tender and juicy inside with a thin and crispy skin, and that waffle, all big and fat and fluffy and golden brown slightly hinting at cinnamon when you bit into it. Pure heaven.

Cara and Jesper showed up as we finished, and we all strolled down 125th St. toward the river and the Triborough Bridge. It was a long walk, weaving slowly along the sidewalk through the pedestrians and tourists and locals with their folding tables hawking incense and sandals and t-shirts and music and philosophy and anything else you might think of.

Harlan got his when a black man with long braids, dressed as some sort of space commander, flanked by three men dressed similarly, who had been conducting a nonstop stream of urgent and belligerent preaching about something, pointed into Harlan's face and announced that the white man was a bum and a vagabond.

Guess he told your ass, I said.

We walked on.

Many blocks later, we found the intersection we were after, and shortly we were on a bus headed over to the island. We were early, and that meant we had to wait around on the grass before standing and rushing to the front to wait packed together and standing, while other people who arrived later just strolled right in, but hey, we were early.

The show, though, would soon erase whatever we endured to get to it. Jump on over to the Range Life and read all about it.

NYC October 07

Friday, 1.5.07

Friday morning, after coffee and pumpkin bread at the apartment, we headed to the A Train for a ride to Columbus Circle. We got off early to walk through Times Square, a big noisy spectacle whose most memorable features included a singing Naked Cowboy and a tasty potato knish.

The other side of Times Square we reboarded the subway and took it down to the NYU area to Washington Square Park. We roamed the streets for a while, which would become a theme of this trip, before Cathy let me loose in The Strand bookstore. I forget how much I miss having access to good book stores until I'm in one. She left me for about an hour before I got a call asking if I was almost finished. A stack of books under my arm, I realized sadly that I'd never got farther than the fiction section. But, I bought my share and headed out. Great store.

We walked a bit more before stopping for a light lunch snack at Spice Cafe, an Indian place in the area. We had a few appetizers, as we decided our policy for the day would be to eat a little bit, often. The chutneys were outstanding, the roasted chicken very sweet and tasty, and the beer expectedly mediocre.

After this we walked some more, first stopping off at Other Music, a tiny tiny store packed with amazing music. I did some damage to the wallet there, too, before leaving the NYU area and heading to the East Village area.

Cathy took her turn shopping here, though not buying much, and we stopped at Guss' Pickles for some salty snacks to bring back to the apartment before giving in to our impulse to grab a table at Inoteca Wine Bar for another snack. We started with a glass of white each, small wedges of 3 types of cheese, a big bowl full of olives, and crusty bread. It was perfect.


Cathy spotted a shoe store across the street, and I decided I'd rather enjoy a glass of red and the rest of the olives than brave a frantic and pushy looking shoe sale. So I did.

From there we headed to Tompkins Square Park to meet up with Heidi at the dog run there. Quite the busy little patch of dirt that dog park is, divided into big dog land and little dog land, both sections jumping with furry activity.

The three of us walked from the park through Little Italy toward Chinatown, where we planned to meet Michael for dinner. It was a nice walk on a warm night, the streets busy but not terribly crowded or hurried, post-work traffic turning to going-out traffic, restaurants and sidewalks filling with people.

We stopped in Little Italy at a sidewalk cafe for a beer for me and a glass of wine for them, then headed just up the street to The Great New York Noodle, a suspectly-named joint that according to our hosts had amazing and cheap food.



The Noodle did not disappoint. Michael got there and we went in, ushered quickly to a table and asked if we were ready to order almost within seconds. Turnover is life at this place, so we got to it. We got mei fun, some Singapore street noodle dish, along with a fish porridge, a stir-fried snow-pea leaves, barbecued duck with rice, and stir-fried salt-fish with vegetables. And beer.

Man, what a meal. The porridge was the big surprise hit, a creamy and not-too-dense stew of fish and soft veggies, somewhere between gravy and tapioca in consistency, and absolutely loaded with fresh fish flavor. The snow pea leaves were bright and delicious, holding some crunch, and the salt fish was also outstanding. The duck was better than any Chinese barbecue I'd had, moist meat bursting with lightly smoky and sweet flavors.


After dinner we walked a bit, through Chinatown and Little Italy (which I was surprised to see meet at a cross street and butt directly up against one another), and stopped at a coffee shop for some dessert before boarding the A Train for home.

The train ride home was a long one, probably about an hour and a quarter, which explains why the days here would become marathon sessions: leave early in the morning, stay out all day, through dinner and just beyond, before heading northward to Upstate Manhattan, as they called it, for the night.

New York City, October 2007

Thursday, 10.4.07

First off, I've never been to New York. I feel like this admission excuses any ill-formed impressions or factual errors or god forbid misidentification of a neighborhood.

Anyhoo.

New York! What an amazing city. I went in with high expectations, and the Big Apple met and surpassed them--and this without even laying eyes on the Statue of Liberty. The excuse for the trip was an amazing rock show on Randall's Island on Saturday 10.6 (Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, Les Savy Fav, Blonde Redhead, yeah I know I know!), but Cathy and I had been wanting to visit for a while anyway. We planned a long weekend (almost a week) around the show, and we stayed with friends Heidi and Michael up in Inwood, the northernmost area of Manhattan.

We flew in to LaGuardia on Thursday afternoon. We hopped a bus at the airport and took the bus to 125th (in Harlem) where we switched to a subway. The A Train took us all the way to 207th, where we got off.

It was moving toward evening, and we were hungry, so good thing right out of the subway entrance and across the street from our friends' apartment was Grandpa's Pizza, where we scored a slice of fresh mozz and basil before we even got rid of our bags.

Great pizza. It wouldn't be the last time we ate there.

Michael let us up; their apartment was downright spacious from everything I've heard about housing in New York, with a full bedroom off in the back, a decent galley kitchen, and a large room divided into office space and dining space, connected by French doors at the rear to another room, which housed another desk, a futon, the tv, and more books. We spent the rest of the evening chatting over cocktails. I'd never met Michael before, but he's a gracious host and an interesting and funny guy. He's the librarian for The Cloisters, which is the medieval arm of the Met. Built by a Rockefeller in the early part of the century, the building houses, among other art and artifacts, the Unicorn Tapestries.

We were all hungry, so we ordered a whole pie from Grandpa's, this time with mushrooms on half. Again, outstanding, and it still wouldn't be the last time we ate there.

Heidi, a friend from Austin who stood up for Cathy in our wedding, got home from class late that evening and we talked a while longer before heading to bed. We'd be up early the next day, eager to explore the city.

NYC Report Coming Soon

Hi there. I'm working on a blog entry for our recent week in New York. Check back.